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 Amenemhabî, 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 Qodshû 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 Hâtshopsîtû’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 Lotanû in the XXVth year of Thûtmosis, 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 Hâtshopsîtû’s regency, seriously disconcerted the Asiatic sovereigns. They had vainly flattered themselves that the invasion of Thûtmosis 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 Qodshû, 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 Thûtmosis, 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 Chaldæan 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 Cossæan 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 Thûtmosis 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 Assûr” 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
Nîi, 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.