2.106.1
As to the pillars that Sesostris, king of Egypt, set up in the countries, most of them are no longer to be seen. But I myself saw them in the Palestine district of Syria, with the aforesaid writing and the women's private parts on them.
2.106.2
Also, there are in Ionia two figures note of this man carved in rock, one on the road from Ephesus to Phocaea, and the other on that from Sardis to Smyrna.
2.106.3
In both places, the figure is over twenty feet high, with a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left, and the rest of his equipment proportional; for it is both Egyptian and Ethiopian;
2.106.4
and right across the breast from one shoulder to the other a text is cut in the Egyptian sacred characters, saying: “I myself won this land with the strength of my shoulders.” There is nothing here to show who he is and whence he comes, but it is shown elsewhere.
2.106.5
Some of those who have seen these figures guess they are Memnon, but they are far indeed from the truth.
ch. 107
2.107.1
Now when this Egyptian Sesostris (so the priests said) reached Daphnae of Pelusium on his way home, leading many captives from the peoples whose lands he had subjugated, his brother, whom he had left in charge in Egypt, invited him and his sons to a banquet and then piled wood around the house and set it on fire.
2.107.2
When Sesostris was aware of this, he at once consulted his wife, whom (it was said) he had with him; and she advised him to lay two of his six sons on the fire and make a bridge over the burning so that they could walk over the bodies of the two and escape. This Sesostris did; two of his sons were thus burnt but the rest escaped alive with their father.
ch. 108
2.108.1
After returning to Egypt, and avenging himself on his brother, Sesostris found work for the multitude which he brought with him from the countries which he had subdued.
2.108.2
It was these who dragged the great and long blocks of stone which were brought in this king's reign to the temple of Hephaestus; and it was they who were compelled to dig all the canals which are now in Egypt, and involuntarily made what had been a land of horses and carts empty of these.
2.108.3
For from this time Egypt, although a level land, could use no horses or carts, because there were so many canals going every which way. The reason why the king thus intersected the country was this:
2.108.4
those Egyptians whose towns were not on the Nile, but inland from it, lacked water whenever the flood left their land, and drank only brackish water from wells.
ch. 109
2.109.1
For this reason Egypt was intersected. This king also (they said) divided the country among all the Egyptians by giving each an equal parcel of land, and made this his source of revenue, assessing the payment of a yearly tax.
2.109.2
And any man who was robbed by the river of part of his land could come to Sesostris and declare what had happened; then the king would send men to look into it and calculate the part by which the land was diminished, so that thereafter it should pay in proportion to the tax originally imposed.
2.109.3
From this, in my opinion, the Greeks learned the art of measuring land; the sunclock and the sundial, and the twelve divisions of the day, came to Hellas from Babylonia and not from Egypt.
