It is an easy step from monarchs to armies and war methods, although in Egypt the relationship was not so close and intimate as in the case of many other nations. We have seen all along that the Egyptians were not pre-eminently a warlike people, yet, first and last, war entered very largely into their life history as with every other nation, and there was one period under the New Kingdom when, as we have seen, the Egyptians became a conquering people. As the chief monarch of this epoch, Ramses II was greatly given to recording his own deeds in monumental fashion, very full data are at hand for interpreting the war methods of the people during this epoch. There is nothing particularly unique about these methods. The Egyptian army consisted principally of militia armed with bows and javelins. The cavalry, consisting of companies of charioteers, was led by the king himself. Equestrianship had not yet entered into warfare. In sieges, scaling-ladders and battering-rams were used. The monuments show us that the soldiers were drilled to the sound of bugles quite in the modern fashion. In a word, there was nothing particularly to distinguish the war customs of the Egyptians of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties from those of other nations of their time, and these methods, as we shall have occasion to see, were not greatly improved upon until about a thousand years later, when the Macedonian phalanx, as trained by Philip and Alexander along lines first laid out by the great Theban Epaminondas, introduced a new element into warfare.[a] The king was the representative of the deity, and his royal authority was directly derived from the gods. He was the head of the religion and of the state; he was the judge and law-giver; and he commanded the army and led it to war. It was his right and his office to preside over the sacrifices, and pour out libations to the gods; and, whenever he was present, he had the privilege of being the officiating high priest. The sceptre was hereditary; but, in the event of a direct heir failing, the claims for succession were determined by proximity of parentage, or by right of marriage. The king was always either of the military or priestly class, and the princes also belonged to one of them.