The Hittites: The story of a Forgotten Empire

by A. H. Sayce

The change that had come over the relations between the Assyrians and the Hittite population is marked by a curious fact. From the time of Shalmaneser onwards, the name of Hittite is no longer used by the Assyrian writers in a correct sense. It is extended so as to embrace all the inhabitants of Northern Syria on the western side of the Euphrates, and subsequently came to include the inhabitants of Palestine as well. Khatta or 'Hittite' became synonymous with Syrian. How this happened is not difficult to explain. The first populations of Syria with whom the Assyrians had come into contact were of Hittite origin. When their power was broken, and the Assyrian armies had forced their way past the barrier they had so long presented to the invader, it was natural that the states next traversed by the Assyrian generals should be supposed also to belong to them. Moreover, many of these states were actually dependent on the Hittite princes, though inhabited by an Aramean people. The Hittites had imposed their yoke upon an alien race of Aramean descent, and accordingly in Northern Syria Hittite and Aramean cities and tribes were intermingled together. 'I took,' says Shalmaneser, 'what the men of the land of the Hittites had called the city of Pethor (Pitru), which is upon the river Sajur (Sagura), on the further side of the Euphrates, and the city of Mudkînu, on the eastern side of the Euphrates, which Tiglath-pileser (I.), the royal forefather who went before me, had united to my country, and Assur-rab-buri king of Assyria and the king of the Arameans had taken (from it) by a treaty.' At a later date Shalmaneser marched from Pethor to Aleppo, and there offered sacrifices to 'the god of the city,' Hadad-Rimmon, whose name betrays the Semitic character of its population. The Hittites, in short, had never been more than a conquering upper class in Syria, like the Normans in Sicily; and as time went on the subject population gained more and more upon them. Like all similar aristocracies, they tended to die out or to be absorbed into the native population of the country.

They still held possession of Carchemish, however, and the decadence of the first Assyrian empire gave them an unexpected respite. But the revolution which placed Tiglath-pileser III. on the throne of Assyria, in B. C. 725, brought with it the final doom of Hittite supremacy. Assyria entered upon a new career of conquest, and under its new rulers established an empire which extended over the whole of Western Asia. In B. C. 717 Carchemish finally fell before the armies of Sargon, and its last king Pisiris became the captive of the Assyrian king. Its trade and wealth passed into Assyrian hands, it was colonised by Assyrians and placed under an Assyrian satrap. The great Hittite stronghold on the Euphrates, which had been for so many centuries the visible sign of their power and southern conquests, became once more the possession of a Semitic people. The long struggle that had been carried on between the Hittites and the Semites was at an end; the Semite had triumphed, and the Hittite was driven back into the mountains from whence he had come.

But he did not yield without a struggle. The year following the capture of Carchemish saw Sargon confronted by a great league of the northern peoples, Meshech, Tubal, Melitene and others, under the leadership of the king of Ararat. The league, however, was shattered in a decisive battle, the king of Ararat committed suicide, and in less than three years Komagênê was annexed to the Assyrian empire. The Semite of Nineveh was supreme in the Eastern world.

Ararat was the name given by the Assyrians to the district in the immediate neighbourhood of Lake Van, as well as to the country to the south of it. It was not until post-Biblical days that the name was extended to the north, so that the modern Mount Ararat obtained a title which originally belonged to the Kurdish range in the south. But Ararat was not the native name of the country. This was Biainas or Bianas, a name which still survives in that of Lake Van. Numerous inscriptions are scattered over the country, written in cuneiform characters borrowed from Nineveh in the time of Assur-natsir-pal or his son Shalmaneser, but in a language which bears no resemblance to that of Assyria. They record the building of temples and palaces, the offerings made to the gods, and the campaigns of the Vannic kings. Among the latter mention is made of campaigns against the Khâte or Hittites.

The first of these campaigns was conducted by a king called Menuas, who reigned in the ninth century before our era. He overran the land of Alzi, and then found himself in the land of the Hittites. Here he plundered the cities of Surisilis and Tarkhi-gamas, belonging to the Hittite prince Sada-halis, and captured a number of soldiers, whom he dedicated to the service of his god Khaldis. On another occasion he marched as far as the city of Malatiyeh, and after passing through the country of the Hittites, caused an inscription commemorating his conquests to be engraved on the cliffs of Palu. Palu is situated on the northern bank of the Euphrates, about midway between Malatiyeh and Van, and as it lies to the east of the ancient district of Alzi, we can form some idea of the exact geographical position to which the Hittites of Menuas must be assigned. His son and successor, Argistis I, again made war upon them, and we gather from one of his inscriptions that the city of Malatiyeh was itself included among their fortresses. The 'land of the Hittites,' according to the statements of the Vannic kings, stretched along the banks of the Euphrates from Palu on the east as far as Malatiyeh on the west.

The Hittites of the Assyrian monuments lived to the south-west of this region, spreading through Komagênê to Carchemish and Aleppo. The Egyptian records bring them yet further south to Kadesh on the Orontes, while the Old Testament carries the name into the extreme south of Palestine. It is evident, therefore, that we must see in the Hittite tribes fragments of a race whose original seat was in the ranges of the Taurus, but who had pushed their way into the warm plains and valleys of Syria and Palestine. They belonged originally to Asia Minor, not to Syria, and it was conquest only which gave them a right to the name of Syrians. 'Hittite' was their true title, and whether the tribes to which it belonged lived in Judah or on the Orontes, at Carchemish or in the neighbourhood of Palu, this was the title under which they were known. We must regard it as a national name, which clung to them in all their conquests and migrations, and marked them out as a peculiar people, distinct from the other races of the Eastern world. It is now time to see what their own monuments have to tell us regarding them, and the influence they exercised upon the history of mankind.

[1] This translation is the one given by Brugsch in the second edition of the English translation of his History of Egypt.

[2] Now Tennib in Northern Syria.

[3] Also read Antarata.

[4] Called Eragiza in classical geography and in the Talmud.