* The position of the towns mentioned and of the three roads has been discussed by E. de Rouge, also by P. de Saulcy, who fixed the position of Yahmu at El-Kheimeh, and showed that the Egyptian army must have passed through the defiles of Umm el-Rahm. Conder disagreed with this opinion in certain respects, and identified Aluna, Aruna, at first with Arrabeh, and afterwards with Arraneh; he thought that Thutmosis came out upon Megiddo from the south-east, and he placed Megiddo at Mejeddah, near Beisan, while Tomkins placed Aruna in the Wady el-Arrian. W. Max Millier seems to place Yahinu too much to the north, in the neighbourhood of Jett.

They pitched their camp on the evening of the 19th near Aluna, and on the morning of the 20th they entered the wild defiles through which it was necessary to pass in order to reach the enemy. The king had taken precautionary measures against any possible attempt of the natives to cut the main column during this crossing of the mountains. His position might at any moment have become a critical one, had the allies taken advantage of it and attacked each battalion as it issued on to the plain before it could re-form. But the Prince of Qodshu, either from ignorance of his adversary's movements, or confident of victory in the open, declined to take the initiative. Towards one o'clock in the afternoon, the Egyptians found themselves once more united on the further side of the range, close to a torrent called the Qina, a little to the south of Megiddo. When the camp was pitched, Thutmosis announced his intention of engaging the enemy on the morrow. A council of war was held to decide on the position that each corps should occupy, after which the officers returned to their men to see that a liberal supply of rations was served out, and to organise an efficient system of patrols. They passed round the camp to the cry: "Keep a good heart: courage! Watch well, watch well! Keep alive in the camp!" The king refused to retire to rest until he had been assured that "the country was quiet, and also the host, both to south and north." By dawn the next day the whole army was in motion. It was formed into a single line, the right wing protected by the torrent, the left extended into the plain, stretching beyond Megiddo towards the north-west. Thutmosis and his guards occupied the centre, standing "armed in his chariot of electrum like unto Horus brandishing his pike, and like Montu the Theban god." The Syrians, who had not expected such an early attack, were seized with panic, and fled in the direction of the town, leaving their horses and chariots on the field; but the citizens, fearing lest in the confusion the Egyptians should effect an entrance with the fugitives, had closed their gates and refused to open them. Some of the townspeople, however, let down ropes to the leaders of the allied party, and drew them up to the top of the ramparts: "and would to heaven that the soldiers of His Majesty had not so far forgotten themselves as to gather up the spoil left by the vile enemy! They would then have entered Megiddo forthwith; for while the men of the garrison were drawing up the Lord of Qodshu and their own prince, the fear of His Majesty was upon their limbs, and their hands failed them by reason of the carnage which the royal urous carried into their ranks." The victorious soldiery were dispersed over the fields, gathering together the gilded and silvered chariots of the Syrian chiefs, collecting the scattered weapons and the hands of the slain, and securing the prisoners; then rallying about the king, they greeted him with acclamations and filed past to deliver up the spoil. He reproached them for having allowed themselves to be drawn away from the heat of pursuit. "Had you carried Megiddo, it would have been a favour granted to me by Ra my father this day; for all the kings of the country being shut up within it, it would have been as the taking of a thousand towns to have seized Megiddo." The Egyptians had made little progress in the art of besieging a stronghold since the times of the XIIth dynasty. When scaling failed, they had no other resource than a blockade, and even the most stubborn of the Pharaohs would naturally shrink from the tedium of such an undertaking. Thutmosis, however, was not inclined to lose the opportunity of closing the campaign by a decisive blow, and began the investment of the town according to the prescribed modes.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.

His men were placed under canvas, and working under the protection of immense shields, supported on posts, they made a ditch around the walls, strengthening it with a palisade. The king constructed also on the east side a fort which he called "Manakhpirri-holds-the-Asiatics." Famine soon told on the demoralised citizens, and their surrender brought about the submission of the entire country. Most of the countries situated between the Jordan and the sea—Shunem, Cana, Kinnereth, Hazor, Bedippa, Laish, Merom, and Acre—besides the cities of the Hauran—Hamath, Magato, Ashtaroth, Ono-repha, and even Damascus itself—recognised the suzerainty of Egypt, and their lords came in to the camp to do homage.*

* The names of these towns are inscribed on the lists of Karnak published by Mariette.

The Syrian losses did not amount to more than 83 killed and 400 prisoners, showing how easily they had been routed; but they had abandoned considerable supplies, all of which had fallen into the hands of the victors. Some 724 chariots, 2041 mares, 200 suits of armour, 602 bows, the tent of the Prince of Qodshu with its poles of cypress inlaid with gold, besides oxen, cows, goats, and more than 20,000 sheep, were among the spoil. Before quitting the plain of Bsdraelon, the king caused an official survey of it to be made, and had the harvest reaped. It yielded 208,000 bushels of wheat, not taking into account what had been looted or damaged by the marauding soldiery. The return homewards of the Egyptians must have resembled the exodus of some emigrating tribe rather than the progress of a regular army

Thutmosis caused a long list of the vanquished to be engraved on the walls of the temple which he was building at Karnak, thus affording the good people of Thebes an opportunity for the first time of reading on the monuments the titles of the king's Syrian subjects written in hieroglyphics. One hundred and nineteen names follow each other in unbroken succession, some of them representing mere villages, while others denoted powerful nations; the catalogue, however, was not to end even here. Having once set out on a career of conquest, the Pharaoh had no inclination to lay aside his arms. From the XXIIth year of his reign to that of his death, we have a record of twelve military expeditions, all of which he led in person. Southern Syria was conquered at the outset—the whole of Kharu as far as the Lake of Grennesareth, and the Amorite power was broken at one blow.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.

The three succeeding campaigns consolidated the rule of Egypt in the country of the Negeb, which lay to the south-west of the Dead Sea, in Phoenicia, which prudently resigned itself to its fate, and in that part of Lotanii occupying the northern part of the basin of the Orontes.**

* We know of these three campaigns from the indirect testimony of the Annals, which end in the year XXIX. with the mention of the fifth campaign. The only dated one is referred to the year XXV., and we know of that of the Negeb only by the Inscription of Amenemhabi, 11. 3-5: the campaign began in the Negeb of Judah, but the king carried it to Naharaim the same year.

None of these expeditions appear to have been marked by any successes comparable to the victory at Megiddo, for the coalition of the Syrian chiefs did not survive the blow which they then sustained; but Qodshu long remained the centre of resistance, and the successive defeats which its inhabitants suffered never disarmed for more than a short interval the hatred which they felt for the Egyptian.



On One Of The Pylons Of The Temple At Karnak. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

During these years of glorious activity considerable tribute poured in to both Memphis and Thebes; not only ingots of gold and silver, bars and blocks of copper and lead, blocks of lapis-lazuli and valuable vases, but horses, oxen, sheep, goats, and useful animals of every kind, in addition to all of which we find, as in Hatshopsitu's reign, the mention of rare plants and shrubs brought back from countries traversed by the armies in their various expeditions. The Theban priests and savants exhibited much interest in such curiosities, and their royal pupil gave orders to his generals to collect for their benefit all that appeared either rare or novel. They endeavoured to acclimatise the species or the varieties likely to be useful, and in order to preserve a record of these experiments, they caused a representation of the strange plants or animals to be drawn on the walls of one of the chapels which they were then building to one of their gods. These pictures may still be seen there in interminable lines, portraying the specimens brought from the Upper Lotanu in the XXVth year of Thutmosis, and we are able to distinguish, side by side with many plants peculiar to the regions of the Euphrates, others having their habitat in the mountains and valleys of tropical Africa.

This return to an aggressive policy on the part of the Egyptians, after the weakness they had exhibited during the later period of Hatshopsitu's regency, seriously disconcerted the Asiatic sovereigns. They had vainly flattered themselves that the invasion of Thutmosis I. was merely the caprice of an adventurous prince, and they hoped that when his love of enterprise had expended itself, Egypt would permanently withdraw within her traditional boundaries, and that the relations of Elam with Babylon, Carchemish with Qodshu, and the barbarians of the Persian Gulf with the inhabitants of the Iranian table-land would resume their former course. This vain delusion was dispelled by the advent of a new Thutmosis, who showed clearly by his actions that he intended to establish and maintain the sovereignty of Egypt over the western dependencies, at least, of the ancient Chaldaean empire, that is to say, over the countries which bordered the middle course of the Euphrates and the coasts of the Mediterranean. The audacity of his marches, the valour of his men, the facility with which in a few hours he had crushed the assembled forces of half Syria, left no room to doubt that he was possessed of personal qualities and material resources sufficient to carry out projects of the most ambitious character. Babylon, enfeebled by the perpetual dissensions of its Cossaean princes, was no longer in a position to contest with him the little authority she still retained over the peoples of Naharaim or of Coele-Syria; protected by the distance which separated her from the Nile valley, she preserved a sullen neutrality, while Assyria hastened to form a peaceful alliance with the invading power. Again and again its kings sent to Thutmosis presents in proportion to their resources, and the Pharaoh naturally treated their advances as undeniable proofs of their voluntary vassalage. Each time that he received from them a gift of metal or lapis-lazuli, he proudly recorded their tribute in the annals of his reign; and if, in exchange, he sent them some Egyptian product, it was in smaller quantities, as might be expected from a lord to his vassal.*

* The "tribute of Assur" is mentioned in this way under the years XXIII. and XXIV. The presents sent by the Pharaoh in return are not mentioned in any Egyptian text, but there is frequent reference to them in the Tel el-Amarna tablets. It may be mentioned here that the name of Nineveh does not occur on the Egyptian monuments, but only that of the town Nii, in which Champollion wrongly recognised the later capital of Assyria.

Sometimes there would accompany the convoy, surrounded by an escort of slaves and women, some princess, whom the king would place in his harem or graciously pass on to one of his children; but when, on the other hand, an even distant relative of the Pharaoh was asked in marriage for some king on the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates, the request was met with a disdainful negative: the daughters of the Sun were of too noble a race to stoop to such alliances, and they would count it a humiliation to be sent in marriage to a foreign court.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Champollion.

Free transit on the main road which ran diagonally through Kharu was ensured by fortresses constructed at strategic points,* and from this time forward Thutmosis was able to bring the whole force of his army to bear upon both Coele-Syria and Naharaim.** He encamped, in the year XXVII., on the table-land separating the Afrin and the Orontes from the Euphrates, and from that centre devastated the district of Uanit,*** which lay to the west of Aleppo; then crossing "the water of Naharaim" in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, he penetrated into the heart of Mitanni.

* The castle, for instance, near Megiddo, previously referred to, which, after having contributed to the siege of the town, probably served to keep it in subjection.

** The accounts of the campaigns of Thutmosis III. have been preserved in the Annals in a very mutilated condition, the fragments of which were discovered at different times. They are nothing but extracts from an official account, made for Amon and his priests.

*** The province of the Tree Uanu; cf. with this designation the epithet "Shad Erini," "mountain of the cedar tree," which the Assyrians bestowed on the Amanus.

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. Thutmosis "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 Senzauru on the Orontes,* he made his way to the westwards through the ravine formed by the Ishahr el-Kebir, 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.

* Senzauru 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 Nii.

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 Qodshu was harshly dealt with; Simyra and Arvad, which hitherto had held their own, now opened their gates to him; the lords of Upper Lotanu 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 Lotanu 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-nesrin. 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 Lotanu—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 Nii begged the king's 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 Lamnaniu 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 Manakhpirrisonbu. It was probably on his return from this campaign that Thutmosis 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.