Царь Рамсес и Бактрия. Об одном мотиве позднеегипетского историописания

Вестник древней истории. 2024. Т. 84. № 1. С. 5–26.

Ladynin I. A.

The article analyses a set of Classical evidence reflecting the Egyptian conquest of Bactria or its attempt (Diod. I. 46–47; Tac. Ann. II. 60. 3; Strabo XVII. 1. 46), a statement of Manetho of Sebennytos on the vast conquests of king Sethos-Ramesses (I) (Manetho. Frg. 50 = Ios. C.Ap. I. 15. § 98–102), and the text of the hieroglyphic Bentresh Stela telling about the relations of Egypt under a king Ramesses with a distant Asiatic land of Bakhtan. These sources reflect the Theban tradition based on the memories of Egyptian expansion under Dynasty XIX, i.e. the conquests of Sethy I, who successfully restored the sphere of Egyptian hegemony in Asia after the Hittite assault at the end of Dynasty XVIII (Manetho’s Sethos-Ramesses (I)), and the wars of Ramesses II, who failed to continue that effort and had to conclude a compromise peace with the Hittites (Osymandias of Hecataeus of Abdera and Diodorus, Ramesses of the Bentresh Stela). The images of these kings were partially intermingled (Tacitus’ king Ramesses), and probably involved the recollections of the whole New Kingdom expansion in Asia (under both Dynasty XVIII and XIX). The historical Hittite Kingdom happened to be replaced in this tradition with Bactria due not only to the erosion of its memory and the transformation of its denotation but also to the Egyptian notion that the adversary of Egypt at that stage of history was a great and a very distant realm, which remained outside of the Asiatic empires of the first millennium B.C. for a long time.

Keywords: Ancient Egypt, classical tradition, античная традиция, древний Египет, Hittite kingdom, Хеттское царство, Bactria, Бактрия, Ramesses II, Рамсес II