* The account of the youth of Thûtmosis III., such as
Brugsch made it out to be from an inscription of this king,
the exile of the royal child at Bûto, his long sojourn in
the marshes, his triumphal return, must all be rejected.
Brugsch accepted as actual history a poetical passage where
the king identifies himself with Horus son of Isis, and
goes so far as to attribute to himself the adventures of the
god.
She was forced to yield him precedence in those religious ceremonies which could be performed by a man only, such as the dedication of one of the city gates of Ombos, and the foundation and marking out of a temple at Medinet-Habû; but for the most part she obliged him to remain in the background and take a secondary place beside her. We are unable to determine the precise moment when this dual sovereignty came to an end. It was still existent in the XVIth year of the reign, but it had ceased before the XXIInd year. Death alone could take the sceptre from the hands that held it, and Thûtmosis had to curb his impatience for many a long day before becoming the real master of Egypt. He was about twenty-five years of age when this event took place, and he immediately revenged himself for the long repression he had undergone, by endeavouring to destroy the very remembrance of her whom he regarded as a usurper. Every portrait of her that he could deface without exposing himself to being accused of sacrilege was cut away, and he substituted for her name either that of Thûtmosis I. or of Thûtmosis II.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie.
A complete political change was effected both at home and abroad from the first day of his accession to power. Hâtshopsîtû had been averse to war. During the whole of her reign there had not been a single campaign undertaken beyond the isthmus of Suez, and by the end of her life she had lost nearly all that her father had gained in Syria; the people of Kharu had shaken off the yoke,* probably at the instigation of the king of the Amorites,** and nothing remained to Egypt of the Asiatic province but Gaza, Sharûhana,*** and the neighbouring villages. The young king set out with his army in the latter days of the year XXII. He reached Gaza on the 3rd of the month of Pakhons, in time to keep the anniversary of his coronation in that town, and to inaugurate the 24th year of his reign by festivals in honour of his father Amon.**** They lasted the usual length of time, and all the departments of State took part in them, but it was not a propitious moment for lengthy ceremonies.
* E. de Rougé thought that he had discovered, in a slightly
damaged inscription bearing upon the Pûanît expedition, the
mention of a tribute paid by the Lotanû. There is nothing in
the passage cited but the mention of the usual annual dues
paid by the chiefs of Pûanît and of the Ilîm.
** This is at least what may be inferred from the account of
the campaign, where the Prince of Qodshû, a town of the
Amaûru (Amorites), figures at the head of the coalition
formed against Thûtmosis III.
*** This is the conclusion to be adopted from the beginning
of the inscription of Thûtmosis III.: “Now, during the
duration of these same years, the country of the Lotanû was
in discord until other times succeeded them, when the people
who were in the town of Sharûhana, from the town of Yûrza,
to the most distant regions of the earth, succeeded in
making a revolt against his Majesty.”
**** The account of this campaign has been preserved to us
on a wall adjoining the granite sanctuary at Karnak.
The king left Gaza the following day, the 5th of Pakhons; he marched but slowly at first, following the usual caravan route, and despatching troops right and left to levy contributions on the cities of the Plain—Migdol, Yapu (Jaffa), Lotanû, Ono—and those within reach on the mountain spurs, or situated within the easily accessible wadys, such as Sauka (Socho), Hadid, and Harîlu. On the 16th day he had not proceeded further than Yahmu, where he received information which caused him to push quickly forward. The lord of Qodshû had formed an alliance with the Syrian princes on the borders of Naharaim, and had extorted from them promises of help; he had already gone so far as to summon contingents from the Upper Orontes, the Litany, and the Upper Jordan, and was concentrating them at Megiddo, where he proposed to stop the way of the invading army. Thûtmosis called together his principal officers, and having imparted the news to them, took counsel with them as to a plan of attack. Three alternative routes were open to him. The most direct approached the enemy’s position on the front, crossing Mount Carmel by the saddle now known as the Umm el-Fahm; but the great drawback attached to this route was its being so restricted that the troops would be forced to advance in too thin a file; and the head of the column would reach the plain and come into actual conflict with the enemy while the rear-guard would only be entering the defiles in the neighbourhood of Aluna. The second route bore a little to the east, crossing the mountains beyond Dutîna and reaching the plain near Taânach; but it offered the same disadvantages as the other. The third road ran north of Zafîti, to meet the great highway which cuts the hill-district of Nablûs, skirting the foot of Tabor near Jenîn, a little to the north of Megiddo. It was not so direct as the other two, but it was easier for troops, and the king’s generals advised that it should be followed. The king was so incensed that he was tempted to attribute their prudence to cowardice. “By my life! by the love that Râ hath for me, by the favour that I enjoy from my master Amon, by the perpetual youth of my nostril in life and power, My Majesty will go by the way of Aluna, and let him that will go by the roads of which ye have spoken, and let him that will follow My Majesty. What will be said among the vile enemies detested of Râ: ‘Doth not His Majesty go by another way? For fear of us he gives us a wide berth,’ they will cry.” The king’s counsellors did not insist further. “May thy father Amon of Thebes protect thee!” they exclaimed; “as for us, we will follow Thy Majesty whithersoever thou goest, as it befitteth a servant to follow his master.” The word of command was given to the men; Thûtmosis himself led the vanguard, and the whole army, horsemen and foot-soldiers, followed in single file, wending their way through the thickets which covered the southern slopes of Mount Carmel.*
* The position of the towns mentioned and of the three roads
has been discussed by E. de Rougé, 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
Thûtmosis came out upon Megiddo from the south-east, and he
placed Megiddo at Mejeddah, near Beisan, while Tomkins
placed Aruna in the Wady el-Arriân. 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 Qodshû, 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, Thûtmosis 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. Thûtmosis and his guards occupied the centre, standing “armed in his chariot of electrum like unto Horus brandishing his pike, and like Montû 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 Qodshû 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 Râ 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. Thûtmosis, 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.