Carl Niebuhr

“ Lo, he took three thousand talents from me and said to me, ‘Give me thy wife and thy sons that I may slay them.’ May my lord, the king, remember this deed and send us chariots to bring us away.”
Tagi. “Am I not a servant of the king? But my brother is full of wounds so that I can send no message by him to the king. Ask the rabisu (a title of Yanhamu) whether my brother is not full of wounds. But we turn our eyes to thee, to know whether we may rise to heaven or creep into the earth; our heads remain in thy hand. Behold, I shall try to make my way to the king by the hand of the surgeons.” ”

“ But in the face of perpetual complaints and counter-complaints, entreaties for help and what were for the most part incredible assurances of everlasting fidelity, there was no course for the king and his councillors to take but either to order a military expedition on a large scale, or to turn a sceptical ear to all alike and confine their attention simply to the tribute. Pride and weakness combined led them to take the dangerous middle course and send inadequate bodies of men singly into the disturbed districts. ”

“ To Nimmuria, the great king, the king of Egypt, my brother, my brother-in-law; who loves me and whom I love: Tushratta, the great king, thy (future) father-in-law, king of Mitani; who loves thee and is thy brother. It is well with me; may it be well with thee, with thy house, with my sister and thy [pg 030] other wives, with thy sons, thy chariots, thy horses, thy nobles, thy land, and all that is thine, may it be well with them indeed! Whereas thy fathers in their time kept fast friendship with my fathers, thou hast increased the friendship. ”

“ If he heed not the commands of his lord his city will fall, his house will perish, and his name will be known no more for ever in all lands. But he who followeth his lord as a faithful servant, his city is prosperous, his house is secure, and his name shall endure for ever.” The letter continues for some time in the same strain, but at the end the courtier bethinks him of his office of informer, and adds hastily:
“Furthermore, Zimrida, the prefect of Sidon, sends a report every day to Aziru, Abd-Ashera's son. Every word that comes from Egypt he telleth to him. ”

“ According to this flattering fiction there could be no equal union for a king of Egypt except with his own sister. No such marriage seems to have been made by Nimmuria, but, as if in amends for that, he worshipped, as above stated, his own divine image. ”

“ Rib-Addi, thy son! At my father's feet I fall. Again and again I asked thee, ‘Canst thou not rescue me from the hand of Abd-Ashera? All the Habiri are on his side; the princes will hear no remonstrances, but are in alliance with him ”

“ Not one man from their midst returned to his own land. And now I have sent to thee a chariot and two horses, a youth and a maiden, the booty of the land of the Hittites.” This letter betrays itself as one of the earliest written for Tushratta by the fact that it makes no request for gold. ”

“ Thus, a remark of Nimmuria's to [pg 026] the effect that no princess had ever been given away from Egypt is answered with delightful dryness:
“Why so? A king art thou, and canst do according to thy will. If thou give her, who shall say anything against it? I wrote before, ‘Send, at least, a beautiful woman.’ Who is there to say that she is not a king's daughter? If thou wilt not do this, thou hast no regard for our brotherhood and friendship.” Kadashman-Bel threatened that he in his turn would hesitate to give his daughter in marriage, and would make similar evasive excuses. ”

“ But the gifts—such as female slaves—which must needs be sent not only to the courtiers but even to the king himself, added enormously to the burden, so much so that to the poorer chiefs a summons from Egypt to appear in person meant little less than ruin. Resistance to it was so surely to be counted on that such a summons was often kept in the background more as a threat than anything else. Now and then petty chiefs in Palestine and Syria withheld their bushels of corn, their three oxen or their twenty sheep ”

“ On the whole, the Asiatic provinces enjoyed self-government under the supremacy of Egypt, and the disadvantages of this condition of things are revealed in numerous letters. These end almost invariably with a request to the king to come in person to the aid of his distressed vassals, or at least to send troops. Sometimes this was done, but usually such expeditions seem to have been undertaken with inadequate forces and seldom resulted in permanent peace. The native princes, chiefs, and village headmen were perpetually struggling with each other. ”

“ It is evident that this further pressure was calculated to bring matters to a crisis, for, like the tribute, it affected pre-eminently the vassal chiefs and tribes. We find the Habiri especially in the very act of ruining some of these petty princes, others of whom preferred to make treaties with their unwelcome guests, though this indeed was apparently in secret only. But the Sutu reached the domains of more powerful vassals, and by two of these, Aziru and Namjauza, were openly taken into pay. Obviously such alliances with land-seeking plunderers could only prolong and embitter the strife. ”

“ Warlike expeditions among the vassal chiefs were the order of the day. Most dangerous of all the chiefs was Aziru, prefect of the land of the Amorites, whose territory included the district north of Damascus and part of the valley of the Orontes. In the hope of founding an independent kingdom, Aziru had swiftly seized on the dominions of all the chiefs on his northern boundary, and in this action his admirable understanding with the Egyptian officials afforded him invaluable help. ”

“ The knowledge that Egypt was far away, and that the Son of the Sun was highly exalted, led the chiefs and officials in Syria and Canaan to deeds of open defiance of their suzerain. Ambassadors from foreign states were robbed in passing on their journey to Egypt, caravans were plundered, and gifts sent to Pharaoh were intercepted. ”

“ Even though thou do it not he ought nevertheless to deliver unto me statuettes of gold and in no way to slight me. Thus friendship will reign between us tenfold. Let thy messengers to Yuni my wife depart with Napkhuria's ambassador, and Yuni's messenger shall come to thee. Lo, I send gifts for thee; boxes filled with good oil (perfume) ,” &c. &c. To Napkhuria also Tushratta insists on his rights in detail. The messengers from Mitani were said to have been present at the casting of the images, and even to have started on their journey home when Nimmuria died. ”

“ The natural consequence was that the ambassadors themselves were attacked. Their caravan with gifts for Napkhuria was robbed twice in succession, and they themselves were held to ransom. The Egyptian Government nevertheless remained outrageously slack as ever, as we may see from the following safe conduct granted on behalf of the Canaanite miscreants: “To the princes in the land of Canaan, the vassals of my brother. Akiya, my messenger, I send to the King of Egypt my brother. Bring him safe and quickly to Egypt. Let no violence befall him.” ”

“ Neither the royal nor the national pride of Egypt would suffer any such familiarities.
The new capital received the significant name of “Akhet-Aten” (“Horizon of the Sun”) and was solemnly consecrated long before it was half finished. The widow of Amenophis III., the queen-mother Teye, came occasionally to visit the new capital, and was received with all honour; evidently she had paid timely respect to her son's opinions. How far the Aten dogma represented real progress in religious thought can be gathered only from the contents of a few hymns remaining on the walls of some of the tombs. ”

“ Let it not grieve my brother's heart that it is too little. For in my land the hand of Nergal (the god of pestilence) has slain all the workers, and copper cannot be produced. And, my brother, take it not to heart that thy messenger stayed three years in my land. For the hand of Nergal is in it, and in my house my young wife died.” Yet this ruler also had to guard himself against embassies unworthy of a king sent by Napkhuria. Another prince, in a letter unfortunately much damaged, made the complaint that Napkhuria had once caused his own name to be written first in a letter. ”

“ This prince, a certain Yadi Addu, had already been released and was on his way home when the allies of Aziru caused him to be recalled.
“If, however, we have to mourn,” so the complaint proceeds, “the king himself will soon have to mourn over those things which Aziru has committed against us, for next he will turn his hand against his lord. [pg 041] But Tunip, thy city, weeps; her tears flow; nowhere is there help for us.” The most bitter complaints against Aziru and his father Abd-Ashera come from Rib-Addi of Gebal. ”

“ Tushratta was evidently much distressed that he dared not venture to send his Gilia back again and that none of the later letters which he had from Nimmuria contained any word of the golden images. It is evident also that Napkhuria, supported by Teye, had actually recalled embassies that his father had already sent out. The old king, who had called Ishtar of Nineveh to his help, may have been brought by the approach of death into a generous state of mind not uncommon in such cases. Even now we say, “He must be near his end,” when a man shows unexpected [pg 039] and unusual gentleness. ”

“ To this influence our clay tablets bear witness by twice making emphatic reference to the days of the powerful “Manakhbiria”—the prenomen of King Thutmosis III. With the accession of Amenophis III. the warlike spirit ceased to prevail at the Court of Thebes. Nothing more was to be gained by Egypt in Western Asia, and the tastes of the new king lay in other directions than war. ”

“ The two celebrated Colossi of Memnon (statues of himself) , many great buildings, the important part played by his favourite wife Teye, the well-filled harem, the cultivation of “wisdom” [pg 015] (which practically, no doubt, was tantamount to what we should call “preciosity”) ; last, but not least, the solemn adoration of his own divine image—all these facts combine to indicate the altered condition of things which came about under Amenophis III. He reigned thirty-six years, long enough to allow the movement introduced by him to run its course. ”