The Historians' History of the World 01

His son, Ramses III, who had been his co-regent, was the last of the great sovereigns of Egypt. His ambition during the thirty-two years of his reign was to follow in the steps of his namesake, Ramses the Great, in re-establishing the integrity of the empire abroad, and the prosperity of the country at home. But in spite of his father’s successful warfare, the Syrian provinces were lost, and the frontiers encroached upon. On the east, the Bedouins attacked the fortified ports of the Delta, and the mining colonies of Sinai; on the west, the nations of Libya had invaded the Nile. Led by their chiefs Did (probably the son of Marajui, the contemporary of Meneptah), Mashaknu, Zamar, and Zautmar, the Tuhennu, the Tamahu, the Kahaka, and their neighbours, left the sandy plains of the desert and conquered the Mareotic nome or district of the Saïd, at the mouth of the Nile, as far as the great arm of the river, in short all the western part of the Delta from the town of Karbria on the west to the outskirts of Memphis on the south.

[ca. 1220-1195 B.C.]

After repulsing the Bedouins, Ramses III turned his arms against the Libyans in the year V and completely conquered them. “They were as terrified as goats attacked by a bull, that tramples with his foot, strikes with his horns, and makes the mountains tremble in his rush upon those that approach him.” The raids of the barbarians had exasperated the Egyptians, they gave no quarter; the Libyans fled in disorder, and some of their tribes, lingering in the Delta, were taken off and incorporated in the auxiliary army.

Mummy of Ramses III

Scarcely was this trouble over when Ramses attacked Syria. Whilst Egypt was being ruined with civil wars, her old enemy, the Kheta, made her lose the rest of her empire. The nations of Asia Minor, continually pushed forward by the arrival of new races, had left their homes and penetrated into the distant regions of Syria and Egypt, attracted by reports of the riches of those countries; the Danau, the Tyrians, the Shakalisha, the Teucrians, who had succeeded the Dardani in the hegemony of the Trojan nations, and the Lycians and the Philistines joined the confederation. Those on the ships attacked the coasts, and the others crossed Syria and laid siege to the fortresses of the isthmus. With forces increased by the people they subjugated on the way, they penetrated Cilicia, forced the Kati and Kheta [Hittites] to follow them, picked up the contingent of Carchemish, Arathu, and Kadesh, and after staying some time in the environs of this town in the country of the Amorites, pushed straight on to Egypt.

But prompt as this action had been, Ramses was quite prepared to meet it. After having armed the mouth of the Nile and the places of the Delta, he started to oppose the enemy. The encounter of the two armies and the two fleets took place in the year VIII between Raphia and Pelusium under the walls of the castle, called the Tower of Ramses III.

“The mouth of the river was like a mighty wall of ships and vessels of every kind, filled from prow to poop with brave armed men. The infantry soldiers, the picked men of the army of Egypt, were there like roaring lions on the mountains; the charioteers, chosen from the swiftest of heroes, were led by every kind of experienced officers; the horses trembled in every limb and longed to trample nations under foot.

“As for me,” says Ramses, “I was like Mentu, the warlike. I rose before them and they saw the work of my hands. I, the King Ramses, I have acted like a hero, who knows his valour and who stretches his arm over his people in the day of the struggle. Those who have violated frontiers will no longer cultivate the land, the time for their souls to pass into eternity is fixed. Those who were upon the shore were prostrated on the banks of the water, massacred as in a charnel house. I destroyed their vessels, and their goods were swallowed up by the waters.”

Prompt as this victory was, it did not conclude the wars of Ramses III. The Libyans, the old allies of the maritime races, would gladly have joined against Egypt in the year VIII; and if they did not do so, it was doubtless because they had not had time to repair their losses. As soon as they were ready, they reappeared upon the scene, and in the year XI the chief Kapur and his son Mashashal led the Mashauasha [Maxyes], the Sabita, the Kaikasha and other less important tribes, aided by the people of Tyre and Lycia, to the invasion of the Delta.

“For the second time their hearts told them that they would pass their lives in the nomes of Egypt, and that they would till the valleys and plains like their own land.”