Herodotus wrote: "The priests told me that the kingdom passed from Proteus to Rhampsinitis ...now they say Rhampsinitis had a huge fortune in silver, more than any of his successors, none of whom even came close..." Not only do *they* say it, but the Great Harris Papyrus goes into great detail in cataloguing the vast wealth of Ramesses III. Diodorus goes so far as to point this pharaoh out as a veritable miser: "This ruler spent his whole life looking after the revenues and amassing riches from every source, and because of his niggardly and miserly character spent nothing on votive offerings to the gods or on benefactions to the inhabitants. Consequently, since he had not been so much a king as only an efficient steward, in the place of a fame based upon virtue he left a treasure larger than that of any king before him; for according to tradition he amassed some four hundred thousand talents of silver and gold."
The source of some of this treasure is hinted at in the Elephantine Stela. Setnakht and his army evidently went in pursuit of an enemy of Egypt, "repelling the foe before him to withdraw for the fear of him in their hearts. They flee like birds in frenzied flight, the Hawk close behind them. They leave behind silver and much gold to the Egyptians because of their retreat to Stt...."
In the text, it is not so apparent whether these "expelled ones" had been living in Egypt long enough to acquire a lot of silver and gold, which they were forced to leave to their neighbors, or whether the undesirables were raiders who had stolen treasure from the inhabitants of the two lands but had to abandon their booty in flight. The Great Harris Papyrus seems to indicate the former scenario, but it remains unclear. At any rate, one does not doubt that the bulk of the treasure went straight into the royal coffers.
The reputation of Ramesses III, ascertained by Diodorus the Sicilian, is contradicted by the Great Harris Papyrus--at least as far as the part about the "votive offerings" is concerned, but otherwise this unsavory reputation is corroborated universally, even in Egyptian sources. The account of the "Harem Plot", related in several papyri, the best preserved being in the Turin Museum, suggest that numerous people in the palace tried to rid themselves of their king, including some of his wives.
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