Ramesses II was a genius in the art of self-promotion. Epic palaces, jaw-dropping temples and sycophantic scribes all projected his brilliance. But, asks Toby Wilkinson, do the achievements of Egypt’s ‘king of kings’ truly justify the hype?
In the long annals of ancient Egyptian history, only one pharaoh is accorded the epithet ‘the Great’: Ramesses II, third ruler of the 19th dynasty, who reigned for 66 years and two months in the 13th century BC (1279–1213). Lauded, like all pharaohs, during his lifetime, Ramesses also achieved lasting, posthumous fame as an exemplar of royal majesty and might. Before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb a century ago, Ramesses II was without doubt the most famous pharaoh. When writers wanted to conjure up the world of ancient Egypt – its divine kingship and monumental architecture, its abundance and imperial grandeur – they thought of Ramesses.
A simple list of his achievements is impressive enough: he sired more children, and left behind more monuments, than any other pharaoh; he celebrated 13 jubilees and lived into his nineties; he fortified Egypt’s borders, and maintained its commercial and diplomatic influence; he negotiated the earliest known comprehensive peace treaty in history with Egypt’s arch-enemy, and presided over a glittering court which drove innovations in literature, art, architecture and scholarship. But other pharaohs could – and did – claim similar accomplishments. What made Ramesses II a truly great king?
To examine that question we might first turn to the opening five books of the Hebrew Bible, compiled 700 years after Ramesses’ death, where the pharaoh is mentioned by name no fewer than four times. The Greek writer Herodotus, now regarded as the ‘father of history’, recounted tales he had heard about a pharaoh called ‘Rhampsinitus’ and claimed to have seen some of the king’s constructions in the ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. In the first and second centuries AD, the Roman authors Pliny and Tacitus mentioned ‘Ramses’ and ‘Rhamses’ respectively.
Most influential, in terms of Ramesses’ enduring reputation, was the first-century BC Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. He had heard of a pharaoh called ‘Remphis’. Yet when writing about his magnificent memorial temple on the west bank of the Nile opposite modern Luxor (a bui
