Chapter I: THE EIGHTEENTH THEBAN DYNASTY--(continued) (1)

_Thutmosis III.: the organisation of the Syrian provinces--Amenothes III.: the royal worshippers of Atonû._

In the year XXXIV. the Egyptians reappeared in Zahi. The people of Anaugasa having revolted, two of their towns were taken, a third surrendered, while the chiefs of the Lotanû hastened to meet their lord with their usual tribute. Advantage was taken of the encampment being at the foot of the Lebanon to procure wood for building purposes, such as beams and planks, masts and yards for vessels, which were all shipped by the Kefâtiu at Byblos for exportation to the Delta. This expedition was, indeed, little more than a military march through the country. It would appear that the Syrians soon accustomed themselves to the presence of the Egyptians in their midst, and their obedience henceforward could be fairly relied on. We are unable to ascertain what were the circumstances or the intrigues which, in the year XXXV., led to a sudden outbreak among the tribes settled on the Euphrates and the Orontes. The King of Mitanni rallied round him the princes of Naharaim, and awaited the attack of the Egyptians near Aruna. Thûtmosis displayed great personal courage, and the victory was at once decisive. We find mention of only ten prisoners, one hundred and eighty mares, and sixty chariots in the lists of the spoil. Anaugasa again revolted, and was subdued afresh in the year XXXVIII.; the Shaûsû rebelled in the year XXXIX., and the Lotanû or some of the tribes connected with them two years later. The campaign of the year XLII. proved more serious. Troubles had arisen in the neighbourhood of Arvad. Thûtmosis, instead of following the usual caravan route, marched along the coast-road by way of Phoenicia. He destroyed Arka in the Lebanon and the surrounding strongholds, which were the haunts of robbers who lurked in the mountains; then turning to the northeast, he took Tunipa and extorted the usual tribute from the inhabitants of Naharaim. On the other hand, the Prince of Qodshû, trusting to the strength of his walled city, refused to do homage to the Pharaoh, and a deadly struggle took place under the ramparts, in which each side availed themselves of all the artifices which the strategic warfare of the times allowed. On a day when the assailants and besieged were about to come to close quarters, the Amorites let loose a mare among the chariotry of Thûtmosis. The Egyptian horses threatened to become unmanageable, and had begun to break through the ranks, when Amenemhabî, an officer of the guard, leaped to the ground, and, running up to the creature, disembowelled it with a thrust of his sword; this done, he cut off its tail and presented it to the king. The besieged were eventually obliged to shut themselves within their newly built walls, hoping by this means to tire out the patience of their assailants; but a picked body of men, led by the same brave Amenemhabî who had killed the mare, succeeded in making a breach and forcing an entrance into the town. Even the numerous successful campaigns we have mentioned, form but a part, though indeed an important part, of the wars undertaken by Thûtmosis to fix his frontiers in the ends of the earth. Scarcely a year elapsed without the viceroy of Ethiopia having a conflict with one or other of the tribes of the Upper Nile; little merit as he might gain in triumphing over such foes, the spoil taken from them formed a considerable adjunct to the treasure collected in Syria, while the tributes from the people of Kûsh and the Uaûaîû were paid with as great regularity as the taxes levied on the Egyptians themselves. It comprised gold both from the mines and from the rivers, feathers, oxen with curiously trained horns, giraffes, lions, leopards, and slaves of all ages. The distant regions explored by Hâtshopsîtû continued to pay a tribute at intervals. A fleet went to Pûanît to fetch large cargoes of incense, and from time to time some Ilîm chief would feel himself honoured by having one of his daughters accepted as an inmate of the harem of the great king. After the year XLII. we have no further records of the reign, but there is no reason to suppose that its closing years were less eventful or less prosperous than the earlier. Thûtmosis III., when conscious of failing powers, may have delegated the direction of his armies to his sons or to his generals, but it is also quite possible that he kept the supreme command in his own hands to the end of his days. Even when old age approached and threatened to abate his vigour, he was upheld by the belief that his father Amon was ever at hand to guide him with his counsel and assist him in battle. I give to thee, declared the god, the rebels that they may fall beneath thy sandals, that thou mayest crush the rebellious, for I grant to thee by decree the earth in its length and breadth. The tribes of the West and those of the East are under the place of thy countenance, and when thou goest up into all the strange lands with a joyous heart, there is none who will withstand Thy Majesty, for I am thy guide when thou treadest them underfoot. Thou hast crossed the water of the great curve of Naharaim* in thy strength and in thy power, and I have commanded thee to let them hear thy roaring which shall enter their dens, I have deprived their nostrils of the breath of life, I have granted to thee that thy deeds shall sink into their hearts, that my uraeus which is upon thy head may burn them, that it may bring prisoners in long files from the peoples of Qodi, that it may consume with its flame those who are in the marshes,** that it may cut off the heads of the Asiatics without one of them being able to escape from its clutch. I grant to thee that thy conquests may embrace all lands, that the urseus which shines upon my forehead may be thy vassal, so that in all the compass of the heaven there may not be one to rise against thee, but that the people may come bearing their tribute on their backs and bending before Thy Majesty according to my behest; I ordain that all aggressors arising in thy time shall fail before thee, their heart burning within them, their limbs trembling!

* The Euphrates, in the great curve described by it across
Naharaim, after issuing from the mountains of Cilicia.

** The meaning is doubtful. The word signifies pools,
marshes, the provinces situated beyond Egyptian territory,
and consequently the distant parts of the world--those which
are nearest the ocean which encircles the earth, and which
was considered as fed by the stagnant waters of the
celestial Nile, just as the extremities of Egypt were
watered by those of the terrestrial Nile.

I.--I am come that I may grant unto thee to crush the great ones of Zahi, I throw them under thy feet across their mountains,--I grant to thee that they shall see Thy Majesty as a lord of shining splendour when thou shinest before them in my likeness!

II.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush those of the country of Asia, to break the heads of the people of Lotanû,--I grant thee that they may see Thy Majesty, clothed in thy panoply, when thou seizest thy arms, in thy war-chariot.

III.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the land of the East, and invade those who dwell in the provinces of Tonûtir,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty as the comet which rains down the heat of its flame and sheds its dew.

IV.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the land of the West, so that Kafîti and Cyprus shall be in fear of thee,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty like the young bull, stout of heart, armed with horns which none may resist.

V.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush those who are in their marshes, so that the countries of Mitanni may tremble for fear of thee,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty like the crocodile, lord of terrors, in the midst of the water, which none can approach.

VI.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush those who are in the isles, so that the people who live in the midst of the Very-Green may be reached by thy roaring,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty like an avenger who stands on the back of his victim.

VII.--I am come, to grant that thou mayest crush the Tihonu, so that the isles of the Utanâtiû may be in the power of thy souls,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty like a spell-weaving lion, and that thou mayest make corpses of them in the midst of their own valleys.*

VIII.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the ends of the earth, so that the circle which surrounds the ocean may be grasped in thy fist,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty as the sparrow-hawk, lord of the wing, who sees at a glance all that he desires.

IX.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the peoples who are in their duars, so that thou mayest bring the Hirû-shâîtû into captivity,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty like the jackal of the south, lord of swiftness, the runner who prowls through the two lands.

X.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the nomads, so that the Nubians as far as the land of Pidît are in thy grasp,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty like unto thy two brothers Horus and Sit, whose arms I have joined in order to establish thy power.

* The name of the people associated with the Tihonu was read
at first Tanau, and identified with the Danai of the Greeks.
Chabas was inclined to read Ûtena, and Brugsch, Ûthent, more
correctly Utanâtiû, utanâti, the people of Uatanit. The
juxtaposition of this name with that of the Libyans compels
us to look towards the west for the site of this people: may
we assign to them the Ionian Islands, or even those in the
western Mediterranean.

The poem became celebrated. When Seti I., two centuries later, commanded the Poet Laureates of his court to celebrate his victories in verse, the latter, despairing of producing anything better, borrowed the finest strophes from this hymn to Thûtmosis IIL, merely changing the name of the hero. The composition, unlike so many other triumphal inscriptions, is not a mere piece of official rhetoric, in which the poverty of the subject is concealed by a multitude of common-places whether historical or mythological. Egypt indeed ruled the world, either directly or through her vassals, and from the mountains of Abyssinia to those of Cilicia her armies held the nations in awe with the threat of the Pharaoh.

The conqueror, as a rule, did not retain any part of their territory. He confined himself to the appropriation of the revenue of certain domains for the benefit of his gods.* Amon of Karnak thus became possessor of seven Syrian towns which he owed to the generosity of the victorious Pharaohs.**

* The seven towns which Amon possessed in Syria are
mentioned, in the time of Ramses III., in the list of the
domains and revenues of the god.

** In the year XXIII., on his return from his first
campaign, Thûtmosis III. provided offerings, guaranteed from
the three towns Anaûgasa, Inûâmû, and Hûrnikarû, for his
father Amonrâ.

Certain cities, like Tunipa, even begged for statues of Thûtmosis for which they built a temple and instituted a cultus. Amon and his fellow-gods too were adored there, side by side with the sovereign the inhabitants had chosen to represent them here below.* These rites were at once a sign of servitude, and a proof of gratitude for services rendered, or privileges which had been confirmed. The princes of neighbouring regions repaired annually to these temples to renew their oaths of allegiance, and to bring their tributes before the face of the king. Taking everything into account, the condition of the Pharaohs subjects might have been a pleasant one, had they been able to accept their lot without any mental reservation. They retained their own laws, their dynasties, and their frontiers, and paid a tax only in proportion to their resources, while the hostages given were answerable for their obedience. These hostages were as a rule taken by Thûtmosis from among the sons or the brothers of the enemys chief. They were carried to Thebes, where a suitable establishment was assigned to them,** the younger members receiving an education which practically made them Egyptians.

* The statues of Thûtmosis III. and of the gods of Egypt
erected at Tunipa are mentioned in a letter from the
inhabitants of that town to Amenôthes III. Later, Ramses
II., speaking of the two towns in the country of the Khâti
in which were two statues of His Majesty, mentions Tunipa as
one of them.

** The various titles of the lists of Thûtmosis III. at
Thebes show us the children of the Syrian chiefs conducted
as prisoners into the town of Sûhanû, which is elsewhere
mentioned as the depot, the prison of the temple of Anion.
W. Max Mullcr was the first to remark the historical value
of this indication, but without sufficiently insisting on
it; the name indicates, perhaps, as he says, a great prison,
but a prison like those where the princes of the family of
the Ottoman sultans were confined by the reigning monarch--
a palace usually provided with all the comforts of Oriental
life.

As soon as a vacancy occurred in the succession either in Syria or in Ethiopia, the Pharaoh would choose from among the members of the family whom he held in reserve, that prince on whose loyalty he could best count, and placed him upon the throne.* The method of procedure was not always successful, since these princes, whom one would have supposed from their training to have been the least likely to have asserted themselves against the man to whom they owed their elevation, often gave more trouble than others. The sense of the supreme power of Egypt, which had been inculcated in them during their exile, seemed to be weakened after their return to their native country, and to give place to a sense of their own importance. Their hearts misgave them as the time approached for them to send their own children as pledges to their suzerain, and also when called upon to transfer a considerable part of their revenue to his treasury. They found, moreover, among their own cities and kinsfolk, those who were adverse to the foreign yoke, and secretly urged their countrymen to revolt, or else competitors for the throne who took advantage of the popular discontent to pose as champions of national independence, and it was difficult for the vassal prince to counteract the intrigues of these adversaries without openly declaring himself hostile to his foreign master.**

* Among the Tel el-Amarna tablets there is a letter of a
petty Syrian king, Adadnirari, whose father was enthroned
after a fashion in Nûkhassi by Thûtmosis III.

** Thus, in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, Zimrida,
governor of Sidon, gives information to Amenôthes III. on
the intrigues which the notables of the town were concocting
against Egyptian authority. Ribaddû relates in one of these
despatches that the notables of Byblos and the women of his
harem were urging him to revolt; later, a letter of Amûnirâ
to the King of Egypt informs us that Ribaddû had been driven
from Byblos by his own brother.

A time quickly came when a vestige of fear alone constrained them to conceal their wish for liberty; the most trivial incident then sufficed to give them the necessary encouragement, and decided them to throw off the mask, a repulse or the report of a repulse suffered by the Egyptians, the news of a popular rising in some neighbouring state, the passing visit of a Chaldæan emissary who left behind him the hope of support and perhaps of subsidies from Babylon, and the unexpected arrival of a troop of mercenaries whose services might be hired for the occasion.* A rising of this sort usually brought about the most disastrous results. The native prince or the town itself could keep back the tribute and own allegiance to no one during the few months required to convince Pharaoh of their defection and to allow him to prepare the necessary means of vengeance; the advent of the Egyptians followed, and the work of repression was systematically set in hand. They destroyed the harvests, whether green or ready for the sickle, they cut down the palms and olive trees, they tore up the vines, seized on the flocks, dismantled the strongholds, and took the inhabitants prisoners.**

* Bûrnabûriash, King of Babylon, speaks of Syrian agents who
had come to ask for support from his father, Kûrigalzû, and
adds that the latter had counselled submission. In one of
the letters preserved in the British Museum, Azîrû defends
himself for having received an emissary of the King of the
Khâti.

** Cf. the raiding, for instance, of the regions of Arvad
and of the Zahi by Thûtmosis III., described in the Annals,
11. 4, 5. We are still in possession of the threats which
the messenger Khâni made against the rebellious chief of a
province of the Zahi--possibly Aziru.

The rebellious prince had to deliver up his silver and gold, the contents of his palace, even his children,* and when he had finally obtained peace by means of endless sacrifices, he found himself a vassal as before, but with an empty treasury, a wasted country, and a decimated people.

* See, in the accounts of the campaigns of Thûtmosis, the
record of the spoils, as well as the mention of the children
of the chiefs brought as prisoners into Egypt.

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gayet.

In spite of all this, some head-strong native princes never relinquished the hope of freedom, and no sooner had they made good the breaches in their walls as far as they were able, than they entered once more on this unequal contest, though at the risk of bringing irreparable disaster on their country. The majority of them, after one such struggle, resigned themselves to the inevitable, and fulfilled their feudal obligations regularly. They paid their fixed contribution, furnished rations and stores to the army when passing through their territory, and informed the ministers at Thebes of any intrigues among their neighbours.* Years elapsed before they could so far forget the failure of their first attempt to regain independence, as to venture to make a second, and expose themselves to fresh reverses.

The administration of so vast an empire entailed but a small expenditure on the Egyptians, and required the offices of merely a few functionaries.** The garrisons which they kept up in foreign provinces lived on the country, and were composed mainly of light troops, archers, a certain proportion of heavy infantry, and a few minor detachments of chariotry dispersed among the principal fortresses.***

* We find in the _Annals_, in addition to the enumeration of
the tributes, the mention of the foraging arrangements which
the chiefs were compelled to make for the army on its
passage. We find among the tablets letters from Aziru
denouncing the intrigues of the Khâti; letters also of
Ribaddu pointing out the misdeeds of Abdashirti, and other
communications of the same nature, which demonstrate the
supervision exercised by the petty Syrian princes over each
other.

** Under Thûtmosis III. we have among others Mir, or Nasi
sîtû mihâtîtû, governors of the northern countries, the
Thûtîi who became afterwards a hero of romance. The
individuals who bore this title held a middle rank in the
Egyptian hierarchy.

*** The archers--_pidâtid, pidâti, pidâte_--and the
chariotry quartered in Syria are often mentioned in the Tel
el-Amarna correspondence. Steindorff has recognised the term
-ddû aûîtû, meaning infantry, in the word ûeû, ûiû, of the
Tel el-Amarna tablets.

The officers in command had orders to interfere as little as possible in local affairs, and to leave the natives to dispute or even to fight among themselves unhindered, so long as their quarrels did not threaten the security of the Pharaoh.* It was never part of the policy of Egypt to insist on her foreign subjects keeping an unbroken peace among themselves. If, theoretically, she did not recognise the right of private warfare, she at all events tolerated its practice. It mattered little to her whether some particular province passed out of the possession of a certain Eibaddû into that of a certain Azîru, or _vice versa_, so long as both Eibaddû and Azîru remained her faithful slaves. She never sought to repress their incessant quarrelling until such time as it threatened to take the form of an insurrection against her own power. Then alone did she throw off her neutrality; taking the side of one or other of the dissentients, she would grant him, as a pledge of help, ten, twenty, thirty, or even more archers.**

* A half at least of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence treats
of provincial wars between the kings of towns and countries
subject to Egypt--wars of Abdashirti and his son Azîru
against the cities of the Phoenician coast, wars of
Abdikhiba, or Abdi-Tabba, King of Jerusalem, against the
chiefs of the neighbouring cities.

** Abimilki (Abisharri) demands on one occasion from the
King of Egypt ten men to defend Tyre, on another occasion
twenty; the town of Gula requisitioned thirty or forty to
guard it. Delattre thinks that these are rhetorical
expressions answering to a general word, just as if we
should say a handful of men; the difference of value in
the figures is to me a proof of their reality.

No doubt the discipline and personal courage of these veterans exercised a certain influence on the turn of events, but they were after all a mere handful of men, and their individual action in the combat would scarcely ever have been sufficient to decide the result; the actual importance of their support, in spite of their numerical inferiority, lay in the moral weight they brought to the side on which they fought, since they represented the whole army of the Pharaoh which lay behind them, and their presence in a camp always ensured final success. The vanquished party had the right of appeal to the sovereign, through whom he might obtain a mitigation of the lot which his successful adversary had prepared for him; it was to the interest of Egypt to keep the balance of power as evenly as possible between the various states which looked to her, and when she prevented one or other of the princes from completely crushing his rivals, she was minimising the danger which might soon arise from the vassal whom she had allowed to extend his territory at the expense of others.

These relations gave rise to a perpetual exchange of letters and petitions between the court of Thebes and the northern and southern provinces, in which all the petty kings of Africa and Asia, of whatever colour or race, set forth, either openly or covertly, their ambitions and their fears, imploring a favour or begging for a subsidy, revealing the real or suspected intrigues of their fellow-chiefs, and while loudly proclaiming their own loyalty, denouncing the perfidy and the secret projects of their neighbours. As the Ethiopian peoples did not, apparently, possess an alphabet of their own, half of the correspondence which concerned them was carried on in Egyptian, and written on papyrus. In Syria, however, where Babylonian civilization maintained itself in spite of its conquest by Thûtmosis, cuneiform writing was still employed, and tablets of dried clay.* It had, therefore, been found necessary to establish in the Pharaohs palace a department for this service, in which the scribes should be competent to decipher the Chaldæan character. Dictionaries and easy mythological texts had been procured for their instruction, by means of which they had learned the meaning of words and the construction of sentences. Having once mastered the mechanism of the syllabary, they set to work to translate the despatches, marking on the back of each the date and the place from whence it came, and if necessary making a draft of the reply.** In these the Pharaoh does not appear, as a rule, to have insisted on the endless titles which we find so lavishly used in his inscriptions, but the shortened protocol employed shows that the theory of his divinity was as fully acknowledged by strangers as it was by his own subjects. They greet him as their sun, the god before whom they prostrate themselves seven times seven, while they are his slaves, his dogs, and the dust beneath his feet.***

* A discovery made by the fellahîn, in 1887, at Tel el-
Arnarna, in the rums of the palace of Khûniaton, brought to
light a portion of the correspondence between Asiatic
monarchs, whether vassals or independent of Egypt, with the
officers of Amenôthes III. and IV., and with these Pharaohs
themselves.

** Several of these registrations are still to be read on
the backs of the tablets at Berlin, London, and Gîzeh.

***The protocols of the letters of Abdashirti may be taken
as an example, or those of Abimilki to Pharaoh, sometimes
there is a development of the protocol which assumes
panegyrical features similar to those met with in Egypt.

The runners to whom these documents were entrusted, and who delivered them with their own hand, were not, as a rule, persons of any consideration; but for missions of grave importance the kings messengers were employed, whose functions in time became extended to a remarkable degree. Those who were restricted to a limited sphere of activity were called the kings messengers for the regions of the south, or the kings messengers for the regions of the north, according to their proficiency in the idiom and customs of Africa or of Asia. Others were deemed capable of undertaking missions wherever they might be required, and were, therefore, designated by the bold title of the kings messengers for all lands. In this case extended powers were conferred upon them, and they were permitted to cut short the disputes between two cities in some province they had to inspect, to excuse from tribute, to receive presents and hostages, and even princesses destined for the harem of the Pharaoh, and also to grant the support of troops to such as could give adequate reason for seeking it.* Their tasks were always of a delicate and not infrequently of a perilous nature, and constantly exposed them to the danger of being robbed by highwaymen or maltreated by some insubordinate vassal, at times even running the risk of mutilation or assassination by the way.**

* The Tel el-Amarna correspondence shows the messengers in
the time of Amenôthes III. and IV. as receiving tribute, as
bringing an army to the succour of a chief in difficulties,
as threatening with the anger of the Pharaoh the princes o£
doubtful loyalty, as giving to a faithful vassal compliments
and honours from his suzerain, as charged with the
conveyance of a gift of slaves, or of escorting a princess
to the harem of the Pharaoh.

** A letter of Ribaddu, in the time of Amenôthes III.,
represents a royal messenger as blockaded in By bios by the
rebels.

They were obliged to brave the dangers of the forests of Lebanon and of the Taurus, the solitudes of Mesopotamia, the marshes of Chaldoa, the voyages to Pûanît and Asia Minor. Some took their way towards Assyria and Babylon, while others embarked at Tyre or Sidon for the islands of the Ægean Archipelago.* The endurance of all these officers, whether governors or messengers, their courage, their tact, the ready wit they were obliged to summon to help them out of the difficulties into which their calling frequently brought them, all tended to enlist the public sympathy in their favour.**

* We hear from the tablets of several messengers to Babylon,
and the Mitanni, Rasi, Mani, Khamassi. The royal messenger
Thûtîi, who governed the countries of the north, speaks of
having satisfied the heart of the king in the isles which
are in the midst of the sea. This was not, as some think, a
case of hyperbole, for the messengers could embark on
Phoenician vessels; they had a less distance to cover in
order to reach the Ægean than the royal messenger of Queen
Hâtshopsîtû had before arriving at the country of the
Somalis and the Ladders of Incense.

** The hero of the _Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1, with whom
Chabas made us acquainted in his _Voyage dun Égyptien_, is
probably a type of the messenger or the time of Ramses
II.; in any case, his itinerary and adventures are natural
to a royal messenger compelled to traverse Syria alone.

Many of them achieved a reputation, and were made the heroes of popular romance. More than three centuries after it was still related how one of them, by name Thûtîi, had reduced and humbled Jaffa, whose chief had refused to come to terms. Thûtîi set about his task by feigning to throw off his allegiance to Thûtmosis III., and withdrew from the Egyptian service, having first stolen the great magic wand of his lord; he then invited the rebellious chief into his camp, under pretence of showing him this formidable talisman, and killed him after they had drunk together. The cunning envoy then packed five hundred of his soldiers into jars, and caused them to be carried on the backs of asses before the gates of the town, where he made the herald of the murdered prince proclaim that the Egyptians had been defeated, and that the pack train which accompanied him contained the spoil, among which was Thûtîi himself. The officer in charge of the city gate was deceived by this harangue, the asses were admitted within the walls, where the soldiers quitted their jars, massacred the garrison, and made themselves masters of the town. The tale is, in the main, the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves.

The frontier was continually shifting, and Thûtmosis III., like Thûtmosis I., vainly endeavoured to give it a fixed character by erecting stelas along the banks of the Euphrates, at those points where he contended it had run formerly. While Kharu and Phoenicia were completely in the hands of the conqueror, his suzerainty became more uncertain as it extended northwards in the direction of the Taurus. Beyond Qodshû, it could only be maintained by means of constant supervision, and in Naharaim its duration was coextensive with the sojourn of the conqueror in the locality during his campaign, for it vanished of itself as soon as he had set out on his return to Africa. It will be thus seen that, on the continent of Asia, Egypt possessed a nucleus of territories, so far securely under her rule that they might be actually reckoned as provinces; beyond this immediate domain there was a zone of waning influence, whose area varied with each reign, and even under one king depended largely on the activity which he personally displayed.

This was always the case when the rulers of Egypt attempted to carry their supremacy beyond the isthmus; whether under the Ptolemies or the native kings, the distance to which her influence extended was always practically the same, and the teaching of history enables us to note its limits on the map with relative accuracy.*

* The development of the Egyptian navy enabled the Ptolemies
to exercise authority over the coasts of Asia Minor and of
Thrace, but this extension of their power beyond the
indicated limits only hastened the exhaustion of their
empire. This instance, like that of Mehemet Ali, thus
confirms the position taken up in the text.

The coast towns, which were in maritime communication with the ports of the Delta, submitted to the Egyptian yoke more readily than those of the interior. But this submission could not be reckoned on beyond Berytus, on the banks of the Lykos, though occasionally it stretched a little further north as far as Byblos and Arvad; even then it did not extend inland, and the curve marking its limits traverses Coele-Syria from north-west to south-east, terminating at Mount Hermon. Damascus, securely entrenched behind Anti-Lebanon, almost always lay outside this limit. The rulers of Egypt generally succeeded without much difficulty in keeping possession of the countries lying to the south of this line; it demanded merely a slight effort, and this could be furnished for several centuries without encroaching seriously on the resources of the country, or endangering its prosperity. When, however, some province ventured to break away from the control of Egypt, the whole mechanism of the government was put into operation to provide soldiers and the necessary means for an expedition. Each stage of the advance beyond the frontier demanded a greater expenditure of energy, which, with prolonged distances, would naturally become exhausted. The expedition would scarcely have reached the Taurus or the Euphrates, before the force of circumstances would bring about its recall homewards, leaving but a slight bond of vassalage between the recently subdued countries and the conqueror, which would speedily be cast off or give place to relations dictated by interest or courtesy. Thûtmosis III. had to submit to this sort of necessary law; a further extension of territory had hardly been gained when his dominion began to shrink within the frontiers that appeared to have been prescribed by nature for an empire like that of Egypt. Kharû and Phoenicia proper paid him their tithes with due regularity; the cities of the Amurru and of Zahi, of Damascus, Qodshû, Hamath, and even of Tunipa, lying on the outskirts of these two subject nations, formed an ill-defined borderland, kept in a state of perpetual disturbance by the secret intrigues or open rebellions of the native princes. The kings of Alasia, Naharaim, and Mitanni preserved their independence in spite of repeated reverses, and they treated with the conqueror on equal terms.*

* The difference of tone between the letters of these kings
and those of the other princes, as well as the consequences
arising from it, has been clearly defined by Delattre.

The tone of their letters to the Pharaoh, the polite formulas with which they addressed him, the special protocol which the Egyptian ministry had drawn up for their reply, all differ widely from those which we see in the despatches coming from commanders of garrisons or actual vassals. In the former it is no longer a slave or a feudatory addressing his master and awaiting his orders, but equals holding courteous communication with each other, the brother of Alasia or of Mitanni with his brother of Egypt. They inform him of their good health, and then, before entering on business, they express their good wishes for himself, his wives, his sons, the lords of his court, his brave soldiers, and for his horses. They were careful never to forget that with a single word their correspondent could let loose upon them a whirlwind of chariots and archers without number, but the respect they felt for his formidable power never degenerated into a fear which would humiliate them before him with their faces in the dust.

This interchange of diplomatic compliments was called for by a variety of exigencies, such as incidents arising on the frontier, secret intrigues, personal alliances, and questions of general politics. The kings of Mesopotamia and of Northern Syria, even those of Assyria and Chaldæa, who were preserved by distance from the dangers of a direct invasion, were in constant fear of an unexpected war, and heartily desired the downfall of Egypt; they endeavoured meanwhile to occupy the Pharaoh so fully at home that he had no leisure to attack them. Even if they did not venture to give open encouragement to the disposition in his subjects to revolt, they at least experienced no scruple in hiring emissaries who secretly fanned the flame of discontent. The Pharaoh, aroused to indignation by such plotting, reminded them of their former oaths and treaties. The king in question would thereupon deny everything, would speak of his tried friendship, and recall the fact that he had refused to help a rebel against his beloved brother.* These protestations of innocence were usually accompanied by presents, and produced a twofold effect. They soothed the anger of the offended party, and suggested not only a courteous answer, but the sending of still more valuable gifts. Oriental etiquette, even in those early times, demanded that the present of a less rich or powerful friend should place the recipient under the obligation of sending back a gift of still greater worth. Every one, therefore, whether great or little, was obliged to regulate his liberality according to the estimation in which he held himself, or to the opinion which others formed of him, and a personage of such opulence as the King of Egypt was constrained by the laws of common civility to display an almost boundless generosity: was he not free to work the mines of the Divine Land or the diggings of the Upper Nile; and as for gold, was it not as the dust of his country?**

* See the letter of Amenôthes III. to Kallimmasin of
Babylon, where the King of Egypt complains of the inimical
designs which the Babylonian messengers had planned against
him, and of the intrigues they had connected on their return
to their own country; see also the letter from Burnaburiash
to Amenôthes IV., in which he defends himself from the
accusation of having plotted against the King of Egypt at
any time, and recalls the circumstance that his father
Kurigalzu had refused to encourage the rebellion of one of
the Syrian tribes, subjects of Amenôthes III.

** See the letter of Dushratta, King of Mitanni, to the
Pharaoh Amenôthes IV.

He would have desired nothing better than to exhibit such liberality, had not the repeated calls on his purse at last constrained him to parsimony; he would have been ruined, and Egypt with him, had he given all that was expected of him. Except in a few extraordinary cases, the gifts sent never realised the expectations of the recipients; for instance, when twenty or thirty pounds of precious metal were looked for, the amount despatched would be merely two or three. The indignation of these disappointed beggars and their recriminations were then most amusing: From the time when my father and thine entered into friendly relations, they loaded each other with presents, and never waited to be asked to exchange amenities;* and now my brother sends me two minas of gold as a gift! Send me abundance of gold, as much as thy father sent, and even, for so it must be, more than thy father. ** Pretexts were never wanting to give reasonable weight to such demands: one correspondent had begun to build a temple or a palace in one of his capitals,*** another was reserving his fairest daughter for the Pharaoh, and he gave him to understand that anything he might receive would help to complete the brides trousseau.****

* Burnaburiash complains that the kings messengers had only
brought him on one occasion two minas of gold, on another
occasion twenty minas; moreover, that the quality of the
metal was so bad that hardly five minas of pure gold could
be extracted from it.

** Literally, and they would never make each other a fair
request. The meaning I propose is doubtful, but it appears
to be required by the context. The letter from which this
passage was taken is from Burnaburiash, King of Babylon, to
Amenôthes IV.

*** This is the pretext advanced by Burnaburiash in the
letter just cited.

**** This seems to have been the motive in a somewhat
embarrassing letter which Dushratta, King of Mitanni, wrote
to the Pharaoh Amenôthes III. on the occasion of his fixing
the dowry of his daughter.

The princesses thus sent from Babylon or Mitanni to the court of Thebes enjoyed on their arrival a more honourable welcome, and were assigned a more exalted rank than those who came from Kharû and Phoenicia. As a matter of fact, they were not hostages given over to the conqueror to be disposed of at will, but queens who were united in legal marriage to an ally.* Once admitted to the Pharaohs court, they retained their full rights as his wife, as well as their own fortune and mode of life. Some would bring to their betrothed chests of jewels, utensils, and stuffs, the enumeration of which would cover both sides of a large tablet; others would arrive escorted by several hundred slaves or matrons as personal attendants.** A few of them preserved their original name,*** many assumed an Egyptian designation,**** and so far adapted themselves to the costumes, manners, and language of their adopted country, that they dropped all intercourse with their native land, and became regular Egyptians.

* The daughter of the King of the Khâti, wife of Ramses IL,
was treated, as we see from the monuments, with as much
honour as would have been accorded to Egyptian princesses of
pure blood.

** Gilukhipa, who was sent to Egypt to become the wife of
Amenôthes III., took with her a company of three hundred and
seventy women for her service. She was a daughter of
Sutarna, King of Mitanni, and is mentioned several times in
the Tel el-Amarna correspondence.

*** For example, Gilukhipa, whose name is transcribed
Kilagîpa in Egyptian, and another princess of Mitanni, niece
of Gilukhipa, called Tadu-khîpa, daughter of Dushratta and
wife of Amenôthes IV.

**** The prince of the Khâtis daughter who married Ramses
II. is an example; we know her only by her Egyptian name
Mâîtnofîrûrî. The wife of Ramses III. added to the Egyptian
name of Isis her original name, Humazarati.

When, after several years, an ambassador arrived with greetings from their father or brother, he would be puzzled by the changed appearance of these ladies, and would almost doubt their identity: indeed, those only who had been about them in childhood were in such cases able to recognise them.* These princesses all adopted the gods of their husbands,** though without necessarily renouncing their own. From time to time their parents would send them, with much pomp, a statue of one of their national divinities--Ishtar, for example--which, accompanied by native priests, would remain for some months at the court.***

* This was the case with the daughter of Kallimmasin, King
of Babylon, married to Amenôthes III.; her fathers
ambassador did not recognise her.

** The daughter of the King of the Khâti, wife of Ramses
II., is represented in an attitude of worship before her
deified husband and two Egyptian gods.

*** Dushratta of Mitanni, sending a statue of Ishtar to his
daughter, wife of Amenôthes III., reminds her that the same
statue had already made the voyage to Egypt in the time of
his father Sutarna.

The children of these queens ranked next in order to those whose mothers belonged to the solar race, but nothing prevented them marrying their brothers or sisters of pure descent, and being eventually raised to the throne. The members of their families who remained in Asia were naturally proud of these bonds of close affinity with the Pharaoh, and they rarely missed an opportunity of reminding him in their letters that they stood to him in the relationship of brother-in-law, or one of his fathers-in-law; their vanity stood them in good stead, since it afforded them another claim on the favours which they were perpetually asking of him.*

* Dushratta of Mitanni never loses an opportunity of calling
Aoienôthes III., husband of his sister Gilukhîpa, and of one
of his daughters, akhiya, my brother, and khatani-ya, my
son-in-law.

These foreign wives had often to interfere in some of the contentions which were bound to arise between two States whose subjects were in constant intercourse with one another. Invasions or provincial wars may have affected or even temporarily suspended the passage to and from of caravans between the countries of the Tigris and those of the Nile; but as soon as peace was re-established, even though it were the insecure peace of those distant ages, the desert traffic was again resumed and carried on with renewed vigour. The Egyptian traders who penetrated into regions beyond the Euphrates, carried with them, and almost unconsciously disseminated along the whole extent of their route, the numberless products of Egyptian industry, hitherto but little known outside their own country, and rendered expensive owing to the difficulty of transmission or the greed of the merchants. The Syrians now saw for the first time in great quantities, objects which had been known to them hitherto merely through the few rare specimens which made their way across the frontier: arms, stuffs, metal implements, household utensils--in fine, all the objects which ministered to daily needs or to luxury. These were now offered to them at reasonable prices, either by the hawkers who accompanied the army or by the soldiers themselves, always ready, as soldiers are, to part with their possessions in order to procure a few extra pleasures in the intervals of fighting.

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger. The scene
here reproduced occurs in most of the Theban tombs of the
XVIIII. dynasty.

On the other hand, whole convoys of spoil were despatched to Egypt after every successful campaign, and their contents were distributed in varying proportions among all classes of society, from the militiaman belonging to some feudal contingent, who received, as a reward of his valour, some half-dozen necklaces or bracelets, to the great lord of ancient family or the Crown Prince, who carried off waggon-loads of booty in their train. These distributions must have stimulated a passion for all Syrian goods, and as the spoil was insufficient to satisfy the increasing demands of the consumer, the waning commerce which had been carried on from early times was once more revived and extended, till every route, whether by land or water, between Thebes, Memphis, and the Asiatic cities, was thronged by those engaged in its pursuit. It would take too long to enumerate the various objects of merchandise brought in almost daily to the marts on the Nile by Phoenician vessels or the owners of caravans. They comprised slaves destined for the workshop or the harem,* Hittite bulls and stallions, horses from Singar, oxen from Alasia, rare and curious animals such as elephants from Nîi, and brown bears from the Lebanon,** smoked and salted fish, live birds of many-coloured plumage, goldsmithswork*** and precious stones, of which lapis-lazuli was the chief.

* Syrian slaves are mentioned along with Ethiopian in the
_Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1, and there is mention in the Tel
el-Amarna correspondence of Hittite slaves whom Dushratta of
Mitanni brought to Amenôthes III., and of other presents of
the same kind made by the King of Alasia as a testimony of
his grateful homage.

** The elephant and the bear are represented on the tomb of
liakhmirî among the articles of tribute brought into Egypt.

*** The _Annals of Thutmosis III_. make a record in each
campaign of the importation of gold and silver vases,
objects in lapis-lazuli and crystal, or of blocks of the
same materials; the Theban tombs of this period afford
examples of the vases and blocks brought by the Syrians. The
Tel el-Amarna letters also mention vessels of gold or blocks
of precious stone sent as presents or as objects of exchange
to the Pharaoh by the King of Babylon, by the King of
Mitanni, by the King of the Hittites, and by other princes.
The lapis-lazuli of Babylon, which probably came from
Persia, was that which was most prized by the Egyptians on
account of the golden sparks in it, which enhanced the blue
colour; this is, perhaps, the Uknu of the cuneiform
inscriptions, which has been read for a long time as
crystal.

Wood for building or for ornamental work--pine,cypress, yew, cedar, and oak,* musical instruments,** helmets, leathern jerkins covered with metal scales, weapons of bronze and iron,*** chariots,**** dyed and embroidered stuffs,^ perfumes,^^ dried cakes, oil, wines of Kharû, liqueurs from Alasia, Khâti, Singar, Naharaim, Amurru, and beer from Qodi.^^^

* Building and ornamental woods are often mentioned in the
inscriptions of Thûtmosis III. A scene at Karnak represents
Seti I. causing building-wood to be cut in the region of the
Lebanon. A letter of the King of Alasia speaks of
contributions of wood which several of his subjects had to
make to the King of Egypt.

** Some stringed instruments of music, and two or three
kinds of flutes and flageolets, are designated in Egyptian
by names borrowed from some Semitic tongue--a fact which
proves that they were imported; the wooden framework of the
harp, decorated with sculptured heads of Astartô, figures
among the objects coming from Syria in the temple of the
Theban Anion.

*** Several names of arms borrowed from some Semitic dialect
have been noticed in the texts of this period. The objects
as well as the words must have been imported into Egypt,
e.g. the quiver, the sword and javelins used by the
charioteers. Cuirasses and leathern jerkins are mentioned in
the inscriptions of Thûtmosis III.

**** Chariots plated with gold and silver figure frequently
among the spoils of Thûtmosis III.: the Anastasi Papyrus,
No. 1, contains a detailed description of Syrian chariots--
Markabûti--with a reference to the localities whore certain
parts of them were made;--the country of the Amurru, that of
Aûpa, the town of Pahira. The Tel el-Amarna correspondence
mentions very frequently chariots sent to the Pharaoh by the
King of Babylon, either as presents or to be sold in Egypt;
others sent by the King of Alasia and by the King of
Mitanni.

^ Some linen, cotton, or woollen stuffs are mentioned in the
_Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 4, and elsewhere as coming from
Syria. The Egyptian love of white linen always prevented
their estimating highly the coloured and brocaded stuffs of
Asia; and one sees nowhere, in the representations, any
examples of stuffs of such origin, except on furniture or in
ships equipped with something of the kind in the form of
sails.

^^ The perfumed oils of Syria are mentioned in a general way
in the _Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1; the King of Alasia speaks
of essences which he is sending to Amenôthes III.; the King
of Mitanni refers to bottles of oil which he is forwarding
to Gilukhîpa and to Tii.

^^^ A list of cakes of Syrian origin is found in the
_Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1; also a reference to balsamic oils
from Naharaim, and to various oils which had arrived in the
ports of the Delta, to the wines of Syria, to palm wine and
various liqueurs manufactured in Alasia, in Singar, among
the Khâti, Amorites, and the people of. Tikhisa; finally, to
the beer of Qodi.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of Prisse
dAvennes sketch.

On arriving at the frontier, whether by sea or by land, the majority of these objects had to pay the custom dues which were rigorously collected by the officers of the Pharaoh. This, no doubt, was a reprisal tariff, since independent sovereigns, such as those of Mitanni, Assyria, and Babylon, were accustomed to impose a similar duty on all the products of Egypt. The latter, indeed, supplied more than she received, for many articles which reached her in their raw condition were, by means of native industry, worked up and exported as ornaments, vases, and highly decorated weapons, which, in the course of international traffic, were dispersed to all four corners of the earth. The merchants of Babylon and Assyria had little to fear as long as they kept within the domains of their own sovereign or in those of the Pharaoh; but no sooner did they venture within the borders of those turbulent states which separated the two great powers, than they were exposed to dangers at every turn. Safe-conducts were of little use if they had not taken the additional precaution of providing a strong escort and carefully guarding their caravan, for the Shaûsû concealed in the depths of the Lebanon or the needy sheikhs of Kharû could never resist the temptation to rob the passing traveller.*

* The scribe who in the reign of Ramses II. composed the
_Travels of an Egyptian_, speaks in several places of
marauding tribes and robbers, who infested the roads
followed by the hero. The Tel el-Amarna correspondence
contains a letter from the King of Alasia, who exculpates
himself from being implicated in the harsh treatment certain
Egyptians had received in passing through his territory; and
another letter in which the King of Babylon complains that
Chaldoan merchants had been robbed at Khinnatun, in Galilee,
by the Prince of Akku (Acre) and his accomplices: one of
them had his feet cut off, and the other was still a
prisoner in Akku, and Burnaburiash demands from Amenôthes
IV. the death of the guilty persons.