warrior until about the time of Sesac; therefore Seşostris did not live earlier. I might confirm this account from another very remarkable particular in Diodorus Siculus. He tells us of a most excellent king of Egypt, begotten by the river Nile in the shape of a bull.' I may venture to reject the fable of the river and the bull, and suppose this person to be the son of Phruron or Nilus; his father's name being Nilus might occasion the mythologists to say, that he was begotten by the river. Now Dicæarchus informs us, that this Nilus reigned about four hundred and thirty-six years before the first Olympiad, i. e. about A. M. 2792, about which time Sir John Marsham places him." According to Diodorus, Sesostris was twenty successions after this Nilus, and Sir John Marsham makes his Sesac to be nineteen; so that in all probability they were one and the same person. Thus a strict view of the Egyptian antiquities will, Diodor. p. 33. ↑ Vid. vol. i. b. 4. p. 182. from several concurrent hints, oblige us to think that Sesostris was not earlier than the times of, and consequently was, the Sesac mentioned in the Scripture. I might add, that the sacred writers, who frequently mention the Egyptians from Abraham's time down to the time of this Sesac, give us great reason to think that the Egyptians had no such famous conqueror as Sesostris before Sesac; by giving as great a proof as we can expect of a negative, that they made no conquests in Asia before his days. In the time of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, we have no appearance of any thing but peace between Egypt and its Asiatic neighbours. Egypt was conquered by the Pastors who came out of Asia a little before the birth of Moses, when the new king arose who knew not Joseph. Whatever power and strength these new kings might have acquired at the exit of the Israelites, must be supposed to be greatly broken by the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea. The Egyptians had no part in the wars of the Canaanites with Joshua; nor in those of the Philis tines, Midianites, Moabites, Ammonites and Amalekites against Israel in the time of the Judges, or of Saul, or of king David. Solomon reigned over all the kings from the river (í. e. from the Euphrates) unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt; so that no Egyptian conqueror came this way until after his death. In the fifth year of Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem with twelve hundred chariots and threescore thousand horsemen ; and he took the fenced cities, which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem; and the Israelites were obliged to become his servants. Sesac conquered not only them, but the neighbouring nations; for the Jews in serving him felt only the service of the kingdoms of the countries round about them; that is, all the neighbouring nations underwent the This therefore was the first Egyptian conqueror who came into Asia, and we must same. * 2 Chron. ix. 26. * 2 Chron. xii. ver. 8. y 2 Chron. xii. 2, 3. b either think this Sesac and Sesostris to have been the same person, or, which was perhaps the opinion of Josephus, say, that Sesostris was no conqueror; but that Herodotus and the other historians through mistake ascribed to him what they found recorded of Sesac. Josephus represents Herodotus to have made two mistakes about this Egyptian conqueror, one in misnaming him, calling him Sesostris, when his real name was Sesac; the other, in thinking him a greater conqueror than he really was: and this mistake many of the historians have indeed made in the accounts which they give of him. 2, For neither Sesostris nor Sesac did ever conquer so many nations, as the historians represent; nor were they ever masters of any of those countries which were a part of the Assyrian empire. Diodorus Siculus indeed supposes, that Sesostris conquered all b Συσακον. ν. περι 8 πλανηθεις ΗρόδοτΘ. τας πράξεις αυτό Σεσως ζει goal. Id. ibid. « Μεμνηται δε ταυτης της τρατείας και ο Αλικαρνασσενς Ηροδότο περι μόνον το του βασιλέως πλανηθείς όνομα και ότι άλλοις τε πολλοίς επήλθε εθνεσι και την Παλαισίνην Ευξίαν εδήλωσατο. Id. ibid. Asia, not only all the nations, which Alexander afterwards subdued, but even many kingdoms which he never attempted; that he passed the Ganges, and conquered all India; that he subjugated the Scythians, and extended his conquest into Europe; and Strabo agrees with Diodorus in this account. What authority these great writers found for their opinion, I cannot say; but I find the learned annotator upon Tacitus did not believe any such accounts to be well grounded. In his note upon Germanicus' relation of the Egyptian conquests, he says, De hac tantá potentia Egyptiorum nihil legi, nec facilè credam; and indeed there is nothing to be read, which can seem well supported, nothing consistent with the allowed history of other nations, to represent the Egyptians as having ever obtained such extensive conquests. Herodotus confines the expedition of Sesostris to the nations upon the Asiatic coasts of the Red Sea; and after his return from subduing them, to the western parts of * Lipsii Comment. ad Tacit. Annal. 1. 2. n. 137. |