Rameses II even lies under the suspicion of having married two of his own daughters, Honuttani and Bint-Antha, the latter whom Baedaker speaks of as queen under the title of Bint-Anat, and of a small statue of her standing by the knee of a larger one of Rameses II, of whom he was known to be especially fond. It is this princess who is made the heroine of Ebers’ story of “Uarda,” but she is here provided with a more suitable lover, while Rameses himself is depicted as a more noble character than is perhaps quite warranted by the historical records. So true, however, are Professor Ebers’ stories to the ascertained facts in each case, that, as a rule, they may, serve as admirable historical studies, quite aside from any merit they may possess as artistic works of fiction.
Jewish tradition mentions a certain Princess Moeris (which some writers have believed to be one of Rameses II’s youngest children, the Princess Meri) as the one who rescued Moses in infancy, as above referred to.
Pictures and inscriptions give the number of Rameses II’s children as sixty sons and fifty-nine daughters, and one enumeration even reaches to one hundred and seventy-one children. Some of Rameses’ daughters were Meri Amun, Beken-Mut, Noferari, Nebtani and Isiemkheb, of whom Meri-Amun and Neb-tani, in addition to Houttani, and Bint-Antha are marked as queens in the family list, probably the wives of their brothers or near relatives.
On the walls of the temple at Deir Champollion found an imperfect list of these sons and daughters. As a curiosity one may cite the different dates assigned by historians as the beginning of the reign of Rameses II: Brugsch, B. C. 1407; Mariette, 1405; Lepsius, 1388; Bunson, 1352, and Poole, 1283.
Since his son was of the blood royal, it was the policy of Seti I to unite him with himself, as has been shown, in the government of the kingdom, thus pacifying all adherents to the old regime, and Queen Tuaa, from whom Rameses II derived his “blue blood,” appears in the family group. The attachment between this father and son is an attractive feature of their joint reigns, and reminds one of the similar bond between Thothmes I and his daughter Hatasu. In peace and war Seti and Rameses were ever side by side. Together they governed, together they took their pleasure and rode forth, each in his royal chariot, to fight and to conquer.
At Abydos, Karnak and other places are pictures of the prince; in one of them, adorned with the priestly panther skin, he is pouring libations on the altar in front of him, while his father holds a censor; according to these same representations and many inscriptions in the various temples adorned with his statues, the youthful Rameses performed prodigies of valor in the field. In the little temple of Betel-Wali are shown, on the right wall, the victories of Rameses II over the Libyans and Syrians, and on the left, over the Ethiopians. He was a “Black Prince” for whom the hand of fate did not lay out a brief career. The delight of his father’s heart, he lived to assume the full government and to pay royal honors in that beloved parent.
Like his ancestor Amenophis III, Rameses II seems to have had a passion for lions, not so much for the sport of hunting them as to train them for pets or instruments of warfare. Doubtless there was something that specially ministered to the pride of the haughty monarch in these favorites, known as the lion has ever been as “the king of beasts,” the “monarch of the forest,” etc.
Whether the queen shared his partiality we are not told, but since they were his playthings and his companions, she must have accepted them in a measure, if with a trembling heart. His favorite lion lay at the door of the king’s tent and went forth with him to the battlefield, probably at times even set loose to slay and destroy the enemy. The wall paintings show the king’s lions in various places.
There is something both attractive and repellant in this figure of the proud, handsome, vainglorious monarch, in the full vigor of his manhood, accompanied by this dangerous ally and slave. The tale of the lion and the mouse, Esop’s well known fable, is said to be of Egyptian origin, and within the last forty or fifty years many romantic stories and many love tales of the Egyptians have come to light.
A more modern character, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who wrote much on Egypt and also a great authority on Persian inscriptions, shared with this ancient king his taste for barbarous pets. He brought up a young lion who followed him around like a dog and lay at his feet when he wrote and studied. He also made such a pet of a leopard that it knew him after long separation, and displayed pleasure at his presence, when he visited the Zoological Garden in England, to which he had given it. The story goes that he put his hand into the cage when the keeper, who did not know him, exclaimed: “Take your hand out of the cage! The animal is very savage and will bite you!”