-
Nysut Senusret of ancient Kmt made an expedition to West Afrika.
In his account of Sesostris, on the other hand, Acoreus does provide some circumstantial detail to flesh out the Pharaoh’s successes, namely the references to his penetration of the furthest West and to the yoking of his chariots to the necks of vassal kings. Even so, Acoreus takes steps to ensure that his recital of the deeds of Sesostris will not have the inflammatory effect on Caesar that a similar recital by another priest of Memphis did on the visiting Persian king Darius, who is said to have been not so much humbled by the record of Sesostris’ victories as inspired to rival and surpass them.
According to both Herodotus and Diodorus, Sesostris’ greatest conquests were largely restricted to Asia and to the directions of east and north; Diodorus in particular represents Sesostris as anticipating and exceeding the achievements of Alexander the Great by penetrating past the Ganges to the Ocean shore of India and by subduing the Scythians.
As for the West, Sesostris is not said by either Herodotus or Diodorus to have ventured further than Thrace into western Europe, while Diodorus (1.53.6) provides only a brief notice of a youthful expedition into Libya (that is, west of Egypt). Why, then, does Acoreus seem to limit the scope of Sesostris’ victories to the nations of the West with the words ad occasus mundique extrema, ‘to the West and the edge of the world???
The answer lies yet again in the example of Alexander’s Eastern triumphs. Among the projects cut short by Caesar’s assassination was a grand invasion of the East in general and of Parthia in particular26; in this respect, Caesar could easily be seen as desirous to follow in Alexander’s footsteps, and the even more resplendent Eastern campaign of Sesostris would only provide further spurs to such an ambition.
A report of a Western expedition by Sesostris, on the other hand, would be much less fraught with moral pitfalls for the listening Caesar. With the Roman conquest of Spain and then of Numidia, little scope for glory remains in that direction; Caesar himself has personally mastered Spain through his victory over the Pompeians at Ilerda in Book 4 and has thus already penetrated to the extrema… mundi, ‘the edge of the world’ (3.454), of the West. Acoreus may therefore safely recount Sesostris’ own invasion of the same extrema without fear of encouraging Caesar’s megalomaniacal designs against the human world. -Dr. John Tracy
