Sesostris
Sesostris (Greek: Σέσωστρις) was the name of a king of ancient Egypt who, according to Herodotus, led a military expedition into parts of Europe.
Account of Herodotus
In Herodotus' Histories there appears a story told by Egyptian priests about a Pharaoh Sesostris, who once led an army northward overland to Asia Minor, then fought his way westward until he crossed into Europe, where he defeated the Scythians and Thracians (possibly in modern Romania and Bulgaria). Sesostris then returned home, leaving colonists behind at the river Phasis in Colchis. Herodotus cautioned the reader that much of this story came second hand via Egyptian priests, but also noted that the Colchians were commonly known to be Egyptian colonists.[1]
According to Diodorus Siculus (who calls him Sesoösis), and Strabo, he conquered the whole world, even Scythia and Ethiopia, divided Egypt into administrative districts or nomes, was a great law-giver, and introduced a caste system into Egypt and the worship of Serapis. Herodotus also relates that when Sesostris defeated an army without much resistance he erected a pillar in their capital with a vagina on it to symbolize the fact that the army fought like women.[2]
Herodotus describes Sesostris as the father of the blind king Pheron, who was less warlike than his father.
Modern research
Sesostris has been considered a compound of Senusret III of the Twelfth Dynasty, Seti I and Ramesses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty. In Manetho, however, a pharaoh called Sesostris occupied the same position as the known pharaoh Senusret III of the Twelfth Dynasty, and his name is now usually viewed as a corruption of Senwosret.[3] The 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica states "So far as is known no Egyptian king penetrated a day's journey beyond the Euphrates or into Asia Minor, or touched the continent of Europe" - the images of Sesostris carved in stone in Ionia which Herodotus said he had seen [4] match the Luwian inscriptions of Karabel Pass. The kings of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties were the greatest conquerors[citation needed] that Egypt ever produced, and their records are clear on the limits of Egyptian expansion. Senusret III raided into the Levant as far as Shechem,[5] also into Ethiopia, and at Semna above the second cataract set up a stela of conquest that in its expressions recalls the stelae of Sesostris in Herodotus: Sesostris may, therefore, be the highly magnified portrait of this Pharaoh.
See also
References
- ↑ "For it is plain to see that the Colchians are Egyptians; and what I say, I myself noted before I heard it from others." Herodotus Histories 2.104
- ↑ Herodotus Histories 2.102
- ↑ Silverman, David P. Ancient Egypt Oxford University Press (5 Jun 2003) ISBN 978-0-19-521952-4 p. 29
- ↑ "Most of the memorial pillars which King Sesostris erected in conquered countries have disappeared, but I have seen some myself in Palestine with the inscription I mentioned and the drawing of a woman's genitals. In Ionia also there are two images of Sesostris cut on rock, one on the road from Ephesos to Phocaea, the other between Sardis and Smyrna; in each case the carved figure is nearly seven feet high and represents a man with a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left, and the rest of his equipment to match - partly Egyptian partly Ethiopian." Herodotus II.106
- ↑ Aldred, Cyril (1987). The Egyptians (second ed.). Thames and Hudson. p. 130.
Bibliography
- Herodotus ii. 102-1ll
- Diodorus Siculus i. 53-59
- Strabo xv. p. 687
- Kurt Sethe, "Sesostris," in Unters. z. Gesch. u. Altertumskunde Agyptens, tome ii. Hinrichs, Leipzig (1900).
External links
- Sesostris in EB 1911
- "Sesostris". J. Rank Encyclopedia (copy of EB 1911)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press