ucceeding years,
it is certain that he completely failed to break the power of the
Hittites, and that he was led in course of time to confess his failure,
and to adopt a policy of conciliation towards the people which he found
himself unable to subdue. Sixteen years after the battle of Kadesh he
concluded a solemn treaty with Khitasir, which was engraved on silver
and placed under the most sacred sanctions, whereby an exact equality
was established between the high contracting powers. Each nation bound
itself under no circumstances to attack the other; each promised to give
aid to the other, if requested, in case of its ally being attacked; each
pledged itself to the extradition both of criminals flying from justice
and of any other subjects wishing to change their allegiance; each
stipulated for an amnesty of offences in the case of all persons thus
surrendered. Thirteen years after the conclusion of the treaty the close
alliance between the two powers was further cemented by a marriage,
which, by giving the two dynasties common interests, greatly
strengthened the previously existing bond. Ramesses requested and
received in marriage a daughter of Khitasir in the thirty-fourth year of
his sole reign, when he had borne the royal title for forty-six years.
He thus became the son-in-law of his former adversary, whose daughter
was thenceforth recognized as his sole legitimate queen.

A considerable change in the relations of Egypt to her still remaining
Asiatic dependencies accompanied this alteration in the footing upon
which she stood with the Hittites. "The bonds of their subjection
became much less strict than they had been under Thothmes III.;
prudential motives constrained the Egyptians to be content with very
much less--with such acknowledgments, in fact, as satisfied their
vanity, rather than with the exercise of any real power." From and after
the conclusion of peace and alliance between Ramesses and Khitasir,
Egyptian influence in Asia grew vague, shadowy, and discontinuous. At
long intervals monarchs of more enterprize than the ordinary run
asserted it, and a brief success generally crowned their efforts; but,
speaking broadly, we may say that her Asiatic dominion was lost, and
that Egypt became once more an African power, confined within nearly her
ancient limits.

If, from a military point of view, the decline of Egypt is to be dated
from the reigns, partly joint reigns, of Seti I. and Ramesses II., from
the