Chapter III: The Eighteenth Theban Dynasty (3)

The following year he reappeared in the same region. Tunipa, which had made an obstinate resistance, was taken, together with its king, and 329 of his nobles were forced to yield themselves prisoners. Thûtmosis with a joyous heart was carrying them away captive, when it occurred to him that the district of Zahi, which lay away for the most part from the great military highroads, was a tempting prey teeming with spoil. The barns were stored with wheat and barley, the cellars were filled with wine, the harvest was not yet gathered in, and the trees bent under the weight of their fruit. Having pillaged Senzaûrû on the Orontes,* he made his way to the westwards through the ravine formed by the Ishahr el-Kebîr, and descended suddenly on the territory of Arvad. The towns once more escaped pillage, but Thutmosis destroyed the harvests, plundered the orchards, carried off the cattle, and pitilessly wasted the whole of the maritime plain.

* Senzaûrû was thought by Ebers to be the double Tyre.
Brugsch considered it to be Tyre itself. It is, I believe,
the Sizara of classical writers, the Shaizar of the Arabs,
and is mentioned in one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets in
connection with Nîi.

There was such abundance within the camp that the men were continually getting drunk, and spent their time in anointing themselves with oil, which they could do only in Egypt at the most solemn festivals. They returned to Syria in the year XXX., and their good fortune again favoured them. The stubborn Qodshû was harshly dealt with; Simyra and Arvad, which hitherto had held their own, now opened their gates to him; the lords of Upper Lotanû poured in their contributions without delay, and gave up their sons and brothers as hostages. In the year XXXI., the city of Anamut in Tikhisa, on the shores of Lake Msrana, yielded in its turn;* on the 3rd of Pakhons, the anniversary of his coronation, the Lotanû renewed their homage to him in person.

* The site of the Tikhisa country is imperfectly defined.
Nisrana was seemingly applied to the marshy lake into which
the Koweik flows, and it is perhaps to be found in the name
Kin-nesrîn. In this case Tikhisa would be the country near
the lake; the district of the Grseco-Roruan Chalkis is
situated on the right of the military road.

The return of the expedition was a sort of triumphal procession. At every halting-place the troops found quarters and provisions prepared for them, bread and cakes, perfumes, oil, wine, and honey being provided in such quantities that they were obliged on their departure to leave the greater part behind them. The scribes took advantage of this peaceful state of affairs to draw up minute accounts of the products of Lotanû--corn, barley, millet, fruits, and various kinds of oil--prompted doubtless by the desire to arrive at a fairly just apportionment of the tribute. Indeed, the results of the expedition were considered so satisfactory that they were recorded on a special monument dedicated in the palace at Thebes. The names of the towns and peoples might change with every war, but the spoils suffered no diminution. In the year XXXIII., the kingdoms situated to the west of the Euphrates were so far pacified that Thutmosis was able without risk to carry his arms to Mesopotamia. He entered the country by the fords of Carchemish, near to the spot where his grandfather, Thutmosis I., had erected his stele half a century previously. He placed another beside this, and a third to the eastward to mark the point to which he had extended the frontier of his empire.. The Mitanni, who exercised a sort of hegemony over the whole of Naharaim, were this time the objects of his attack. Thirty-two of their towns fell one after another, their kings were taken captive and the walls of their cities were razed, without any serious resistance. The battalions of the enemy were dispersed at the first shock, and Pharaoh pursued them for the space of a mile, without one of them daring to look behind him, for they thought only of escape, and fled before him like a flock of goats. Thutmosis pushed forward as far certainly as the Balikh, and perhaps on to the Khabur or even to the Hermus; and as he approached the frontier, the king of Singar, a vassal of Assyria, sent him presents of lapis-lazuli.

When this prince had retired, another chief, the lord of the Great Kkati, whose territory had not even been threatened by the invaders, deemed it prudent to follow the example of the petty princes of the plain of the Euphrates, and despatched envoys to the Pharaoh bearing presents of no great value, but testifying to his desire to live on good terms with Egypt. Still further on, the inhabitants of Nîi begged the kings acceptance of a troop of slaves and two hundred and sixty mares; he remained among them long enough to erect a stele commemorating his triumph, and to indulge in one of those extensive hunts which were the delight of Oriental monarchs. The country abounded in elephants. The soldiers were employed as beaters, and the king and his court succeeded in killing one hundred and twenty head of big game, whose tusks were added to the spoils. These numbers indicate how the extinction of such animals in these parts was brought about. Beyond these regions, again, the sheikhs of the Lamnaniû came to meet the Pharaoh. They were a poor people, and had but little to offer, but among their gifts were some birds of a species unknown to the Egyptians, and two geese, with which, however, His Majesty deigned to be satisfied.*

* The campaign of the year XXXI. It is mentioned in the
_Annals of Thulmosis III._, 11. 17-27; the reference to the
elephant-hunt occurs only in the _Inscription of
Amenemhabi_, 11. 22, 23; an allusion to the defeat of the
kings of Mitanni is found in a mutilated inscription from
the tomb of Manakhpirrîsonbû. It was probably on his return
from this campaign that Thûtmosis caused the great list to
be engraved which, while it includes a certain number of
names assigned to places beyond the Euphrates, ought
necessarily to contain the cities of the Mitanni.

END OF VOL. IV.