Note 877 — ANTIENT HEROES.

Among the writers who have written concerning this extraordinary personage, Diodorus Siculus is the most uniform and full; and with his evidence I will begin my account. He[877] informs us, that, when this prince was a youth, he was entrusted by his father with a great army. He upon this invaded Arabia: and though he was obliged to encounter hunger and thirst in the wilds, which he traversed; yet he subdued the whole of that large tract of country. He was afterwards sent far into the west; where he conquered all the legions of Lybia, and annexed great part of that country to the kingdom of Egypt. After the death of his father he formed a resolution to subdue all the nations upon earth. Accordingly, having settled everything at home, and appointed governors to each province, he set out with an army of six hundred thousand foot, and twenty-four thousand horse, and twenty-seven thousand armed chariots. With these he invaded the Ethiopians to the south; whom he defeated, and made tributaries to Egypt. He then built a fleet of ships upon the Red sea: and he is recorded as the first person who constructed vessels fit for distant navigation. With these, by means of his generals, he subdued all the sea-coast of Arabia, and all the coast upon the ocean as far as India. In the mean time he marched in person, with a puissant army, by land, and conquered the whole continent of Asia. He not only overran the countries, which Alexander afterwards invaded; but crossed both the Indus and the Ganges; and from thence penetrated to the eastern ocean. He then turned to the north, and attacked the nations of Scythia; till he at last arrived at the Tanäis, which divides Europe and Asia. Here he founded a colony; leaving behind him some of his people, as he had just before done at [878]Colchis. These nations are said to the last to have retained memorials of their original from Egypt. About the same time Asia Minor, and most of the islands near it, fell into his hands. He at last passed into [879]Thrace, where he is said to have been brought into some difficulties. He however persisted, and subdued all the regions of Europe. In most of these countries he erected pillars with hieroglyphical inscriptions; denoting that these parts of the world had been subdued by the great Sesostris, or, as [880]Diodorus expresses his name, Sesoosis. He likewise erected statues of himself, formed of stone, with a bow and a lance: which statues were in length four cubits and four palms, according to the dimensions of his own height and stature. Having thus finished his career of [881]victory, he returned laden with spoils to Egypt, after an absence of [882]nine years; which is one year less than was attributed to the expeditions of Hercules.