At ten years of age Ramses is said to have made war in Syria, and, according to Greek tradition, in Arabia. And it was on his return from these campaigns, that, ripened by age and experience, he began to take an active part in the internal government of the kingdom and to claim his royal prerogative. And henceforth we see his increasing personal valour transform him from an obscure prince into a king, a “master of the two worlds.”
Seti, now old, and worn out with the exploits of his youth, gradually conceded all power to his son, and lived in retirement in his palace for the rest of his days, the object of divine honours.
Certain pictures of the temple of Abydos show him seated on a throne amid the gods. He holds the club in one hand and in the other a complex sceptre, combining the different symbols of life and death. Isis is at his side, and the lesser gods sit behind the all-powerful couple, to whom Ramses addresses his prayer. It is a premature apotheosis of which the conception does honour to the regent, but it leaves no doubt of the real state of the kings in their old age. They were worshipped as gods, but they did not reign. Seti was no exception to this common rule; he was worshipped, but he did not reign.
Peace was threatened by an unforeseen danger. The people of Asia Minor had hitherto been beyond the sphere of action of Egypt; but now several races, such as the Shardana and Tyrseni, whose names were new to the ears of the Egyptians, landed on the coast of Africa, and joined with the Libyans. Ramses II defeated them, and the prisoners that he took were incorporated in the Royal Guard; and the others returned to Asia Minor, with such a recollection of their defeat, that Egypt was secure from their invasion for nearly a century. Peace assured in the North, Ramses repaired to Ethiopia, where he spent the last years of his father’s reign in making raids on the nomadic tribes on the banks of the Upper Nile.
On the news of the death of his father, Ramses left Ethiopia and entered on his duties as sole king at Thebes. He was then at the height of his fortune, and had several sons old enough to fight under his banner. The first years of his reign were not disturbed by any war of importance: in the year II there was a short expedition against the Amorites, and in the year IV there was one to the banks of the Nahr-el-Kelb near Beyrut. The Kheta [Hittites], faithful to the alliance made with Seti, did not try to excite a rebellion; and the people of Canaan, kept in check by the Egyptian garrisons, remained quiet.
RAMSES II, THE GREAT
[ca. 1340 B.C.]
So all went well till the year IV, when a terrible rebellion broke out. The king of the Kheta (Mau-than-ar, son of Maro-sar) was assassinated and succeeded by his brother, Kheta-sar, who convoked his vassals and allies, and broke with Egypt. Naharain, and its capital Carchemish, Arathu and southern Phœnicia, Kadesh and the country of Amaour, Kati and the Lycians, joined the coalition, and the hope of pillaging the Egyptian provinces of Syria, if not Egypt herself, made Ilion, Pidasa, Kerkesh, the Masu, and Dardanians also join the Kheta against Sesostris [Ramses].
