PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 125 



by the priests of Thebes.* He Is noticed by Herodotus uudei 

 the name of Sesostris, which is probably owing to a confusion 

 with the almost equally victorious and powerful conqueror 

 Seti (Setos), who was the father of Rameses II." 



I have deemed it necessary to mention these few points of 

 chronology, in order that where we meet with solid historical 

 ground, we may pause to determine the relative ages of great 

 events in Egypt, Phoenicia, and Greece. As I have already 

 briefly described the geographical relations of the Mediterra- 

 nean, I would now also call attention to the number of cen- 

 turies that intervened between the epoch of human civilization 

 in the Valley of the Nile and its subsequent transmission to 

 Greece ; for, without such simultaneous reference to space and 

 time, it would be impossible, from the nature of our mental 

 faculties, to form to ourselves any clear and satisfactory pict- 

 ure of history. 



Civilization, which was early awakened and arbitrarily 

 modeled in the Valley of the Nile, owing to the mental re- 

 quirements of the people, the peculiar physical character of 

 the country, and its hierarchical and political institutions, ex- 

 cited there, as in every other portion of the earth, an impulse 

 toward increased intercourse with other nations, and a tend- 

 ency to undertake distant expeditions and establish colonies. 

 But the records preserved to us by history and monumental 

 representations testify only to transitory conquests on land, and 

 to few extensive voyages of the Egyptians themselves. This 

 anciently and highly civilized race appears to have exercised 

 a less permanent influence on foreigners than many other 

 smaller nations less stationary in their habits. The national 

 cultivation of the Egyptians, w^iich, from the long course of 

 its development, was more favorable to masses than to indi- 

 viduals, appears isolated in space, and has, on that account, 

 probably remained devoid of any beneficial result for the ex- 

 tension of cosmical views. Rameses Miamoun (who lived from 

 1388 to 1322 B.C., and therefore 600 years before the first 

 Olympiad of Corcebus) undertook distant expeditions, having, 

 according to the testimony of Herodotus, penetrated into Ethi- 

 opia (where Lepsius believed that he found his most southern 

 arcliitectural works at Mount Barkal) through Palestinian 

 Syria, and crossed from Asia Minor to Europe, through the 



* Tac, Annal., ii., 59. In the Papyrus of Sallier (Campagnes de 

 Siaostris) Chainpollion fouud the names of the Javaui or louni, and 

 that of the Luki (lonians and Lycians ?). See Bunsen, u^gypten, buch. 

 i., 8. 60. 



