The Historians' History of the World 01

It would be valuable and interesting to know what impression the strange land of Syria, with its wide, irregular plains, its high, snow-topped mountains, its walled towns perched in difficult positions in inaccessible places, its people different in customs and with a civilisation not below their own, made upon the Theban legions when at last they found themselves in Palestine. But of what they thought and felt, they have left no word. The lines with which Aahmes of El-Kab closes the record of this long life—he must have been over ninety when he died—goes no more into detail than the rest of his account.

“After this, his Majesty—life, health, and strength be his—went to Ruthen to take satisfaction upon the countries. His Majesty arrived at Naharain [Upper Mesopotamia]; he found the enemy that conspired against him. His Majesty made great destruction among them; an immense number of live captives was carried off from the victories.

“Behold, I was at the head of our soldiers. His Majesty saw my bravery as I captured a chariot, its horses and those who were in it. I took them to his Majesty and was once more given the collar of gold for valour. I have grown up and reached old age; my honours are many. I shall rest in my tomb which I myself have made.”

Tehutimes in his first campaign went far beyond his grandfather, and his route—Gaza to Megiddo, to Kadesh, to Carchemish—became in later times that followed by the Egyptians whenever they descended upon the Euphrates. Of the fortunes of his progress we have not the slightest information, except as Aahmes tells us, he met the enemy in Naharain. The opposing army was under the command of the king of Mitanni, or perhaps one of the captains of the Kossæan king of Babylon, and all the petty princes of the northern provinces served in it with their troops to repel the new invader. But the victory was Tehutimes’. No doubt his army was superior to that of his opponents. Its organisation and training had steadily improved since the days of Aahmes, for it was constantly called into service against the tribes of Ethiopia and Libya. The Syrians were wanting neither in efficiency nor bravery, but their country was much disorganised and their number of fighting men by no means so great as their enemy’s. Therefore they could not command such a force as the Egyptians mustered against them.

Tehutimes erected a stele on the Euphrates to mark the limits of his dominion, and then turned back, richly laden, to Thebes. The later Pharaohs, whenever they invaded Asia, pursued similar methods—a sudden advance diagonally to the northeast, routing and dispersing any opposing force, spreading destruction on every hand, then a quick return to the fatherland, before the approaching winter would put an end to all action.

But Tehutimes’ success in his first expedition was so decisive, so overwhelming, that he never found it necessary again to cross the Isthmus. Southern Syria made no murmur against the burden laid upon it, although the North, it is true, soon slipped from the Pharaoh’s grasp, if indeed he ever had his grip upon it. A strong garrison was left at Gaza, and the king returned to his still rebellious subjects in Ethiopia and Nubia. Two or three rebellions were easily silenced. On these expeditions Tehutimes passed through the old canal built by Usertsen III, and on the rocks that border it have been found many interesting inscriptions relating to the trip. One at Assuan reads, “Year III, Pakhons 20, his Majesty passed this canal in force and power in his campaign to crush Ethiopia, the vile”; on another there is cut, “His Majesty came to Cush to crush the vile”; and on a third, “His Majesty commanded to clear this canal, after he found it filled with stones so that no boat could pass up it. He passed up it, his heart filled with joy.” The king now placed the affairs of his southern lands in the hands of a viceroy, who is called “Royal Son of Cush,” and must, therefore, have had the blood of Ra in his veins. Likewise the king made extensive provisions for fortifications. He restored the fortresses of Semneh and Kummeh to the efficiency they possessed in the great days of the XIIth Dynasty, and he built a brickwork citadel to command the Nile on the island of Tombos, near the Third Cataract. All these precautions enabled Tehutimes I to live out the remainder of a reign of about twenty-five years in complete peace. The strange circumstance of his later years and the problems of his successor are well recounted in Maspero’s monumental work on “The Struggle of the Nations” and his history of the ancient oriental peoples.a