17G Mevtnon, ment, that on the contrary he believes the conquests of Sesos- tris or Rameses (whom he considers as the same person) to have been greatly exaggerated both in Diodorus and Tacitus : and he suspects (p. S06) that Sesostris was no other than Osymandyas. He is however willing to receive his expedi- tion as a historical fact, provided it be confined within rea- sonable limits, and considered merely as a transient inroad into the heart of Asia, not as the beginning of a long period during which a great part of Asia was subject to the kings of Egypt : a state of things as to which Lipsius had already expressed his incredulity ^^ Freret observes " that it is im- possible to doubt that Sesostris conquered a part of Asia Minor, and even carried his arms into Thrace. In all these countries he left monuments of his conquests : Herodotus assures us that he saw two of these monuments in Ionia; and he speaks of those in Thrace as one who was certain of their existence (ii. 103). The same historian informs us, that Sesostris left a body of troops in Colchis, to secure this frontier of his new empire ^^ It is scarcely possible to doubt that he posted another with the same motive in Asia Minor ^^'^^ The progress of critical <:aution now renders it necessary to modify Freret'^s proposition, and will only permit us to say, that it is impossible to demonstrate that the expedition of Sesostris never took place. The authority on which it rests appears to a modern critic far from conclusive. He observes " that no really historical traces have yet been found of the expedition of Sesostris. For it is to be hoped that those strange monuments of it Avhich the ancients saw in Palestine and Scythia, though their existence is satisfactorily proved by the testimony of Herodotus, will not be pronounced such, until some of them shall have been brought under our inspection, so that modern as well as ancient criticism may attempt to decide, whether they are memorials which really demonstrate the fact, or whether the observers of those days 59 Ad Tacit. AnnaL ii. 60. De hac tanta potentia Aegyptiorum nihil legi, nee facile credam. He was perhaps equally ignorant of the vast extent of their ancient commerce. ^° This is not a correct statement of what Herodotus says. He assigns no such motive to Sesostris, and does not even make up his mind about the cause which led the Egyptians to settle there; see ii. 103.
- ^ Memoires de TAcademie des Inscrip. Vol. xlvii. p. 131.
