"The great Sesostris", identified in this 19th-century engraving as Ramesses II during the Battle of Kadesh.Herodotus misidentified the relief of King TarkasnawaofMira, as belonging to Sesostris. Karabel relief, circa 1350 BC.
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 PhasisinColchis. Herodotus cautioned the reader that much of this story came second hand via Egyptian priests, but also noted that the Colchians were commonly believed to be Egyptian colonists.[3]
Herodotus also relates that when Sesostris defeated an army without much resistance he erected a pillar in their capital with a vulva on it to symbolize the fact that the army fought like women.[4]Pliny the Elder also makes mention of Sesostris, who, he claims, was defeated by Saulaces, a gold-rich king of Colchis.[5]
Herodotus describes Sesostris as the father of the blind king Pheron, who was less warlike than his father.
According to Professor Alan Lloyd 'The core of Herodotus’ narrative is provided by an Egyptian tradition which presented Sesostris as a model of the ideal of kingship. This certainly contained an historical element, but it has been supplemented and contaminated by folklore, nationalist propaganda, and Greek attitudes."[6]
According to Diodorus Siculus (who calls him Sesoosis) and Strabo, he conquered the whole world, even Scythia and Aethiopia, divided Egypt into administrative districts or nomes, was a great law-giver, and introduced a caste system into Egypt and the worship of Serapis.[7] Diodorus also wrote that "with regard to this king not only are the Greek writers at variance with one another, but also among the Egyptians the priests and the poets who sing his praises give conflicting stories” (1.53).[8]
The images of Sesostris carved in stone in Ionia which Herodotus said he had seen[10] are likely to be identified with the Luwian inscriptions of Karabel Pass, the Karabel relief, now known to have been carved by Tarkasnawa, king of the Arzawan rump state of Mira.[11] The kings of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties were possibly the greatest conquerors that Egypt ever produced, and their records are much clearer than the older dynasties[7] on the limits of Egyptian expansion. Senusret III raided into the Levant as far as Shechem,[12] also into Aethiopia, 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.[7]
Sesostris is also mentioned in the Alexander Romance where Alexander is described as "the new Sesostris, ruler of the world.[1]
^ abcdOne or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1911). "Sesostris". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 701.
^"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 EphesostoPhocaea, 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
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1911). "Sesostris". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 701.
