Leadership Lessons from the Ancient World
How Learning from the Past Can Win You the Future
Chapter One
Courage: The Daring
of Ramesses II
at Kadesh
What happened?
The leader
In Egyptian tradition Ramesses II (pronounced 'Ram-e-sees')
was remembered as a colossus as large as his own
monumental statues, the ideal warrior-king whose 67-year
reign secured the country's survival as a great power
during a period of intense international rivalry. But at the
battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC, in the fifth year of his reign,
the 29-year-old pharaoh was lucky not to have suffered a
disastrous defeat.
The historical setting
Rivalry between the great powers of the ancient eastern
Mediterranean was at its greatest in Syria. There, Egypt's
sphere of influence stopped at Kadesh, a city built on the
banks of the Orontes river. However, there was one great
power that always found this frontier difficult to accept.
It was Hatti, whose inhabitants are now known as the
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