At all events, he convoked his Syrian vassals and collected his mercenaries; the whole of Naharaim, Khalupu, Carchemish, and Arvad sent their quota, while bands of Dardanians, Mysians, Trojans, and Lycians, together with the people of Pedasos and Girgasha,* furnished further contingents, drawn from an area extending from the most distant coasts of the Mediterranean to the mountains of Cilicia. Ramses, informed of the enemy’s movement by his generals and the governors of places on the frontier, resolved to anticipate the attack. He assembled an army almost as incongruous in its component elements as that of his adversary: besides Egyptians of unmixed race, divided into four corps bearing the names of Amon, Phtah, Harmakhis and Sûtkhû, it contained Ethiopian auxiliaries, Libyans, Mazaiu, and Shardana.**
* The name of this nation is written Karkisha, Kalkisha, or
Kashkisha, by one of those changes of sh into r-l which
occur so frequently in Assyro-Chaldæan before a dental; the
two different spellings seem to show that the writers of the
inscriptions bearing on this war had before them a list of
the allies of Khâtusaru, written in cuneiform characters. If
we may identify the nation with the Kashki or Kashku of the
Assyrian texts, the ancestors of the people of Colchis of
classical times, the termination -isha of the Egyptian
word would be the inflexion -ash or -ush of the Eastern-
Asiatic tongues which we find in so many race-names, e.g.
Adaush, Saradaush, Ammaush. Rouge and Brugsch identified
them with the Girgashites of the Bible. Brugsch, adopting
the spelling Kashki, endeavoured to connect them with
Casiotis; later on he identified them with the people of
Gergis in Troas. Ramsay recognises in them the Kisldsos of
Cilicia.
** In the account of the campaign the Shardana only are
mentioned; but we learn from a list in the Anastasi Papyrus
I, that the army of Ramses II. included, in ordinary
circumstances, in addition to the Shardana, a contingent of
Mashauasha, Kahaka, and other Libyan and negro mercenaries.
When preparations were completed, the force crossed the canal at Zalû, on the 9th of Payni in his Vth year, marched rapidly across Canaan till they reached the valley of the Litâny, along which they took their way, and then followed up that of the Orontes. They encamped for a few days at Shabtuna, to the south-west of Qodshû,* in the midst of the Amorite country, sending out scouts and endeavouring to discover the position of the enemy, of whose movements they possessed but vague information.
* Shabtuna had been placed on the Nahr es-Sebta, on the site
now occupied by Kalaat el-Hosn, a conjecture approved by
Mariette; it was more probably a town situated in the plain,
to the south of Bahr el-Kades, a little to the south-west of
Tell Keby Mindoh which represents Qodshû, and close to some
forests which at that time covered the slopes of Lebanon,
and, extending as they did to the bottom of the valley,
concealed the position of the Khâti from the Egyptians.
Khâtusaru lay concealed in the wooded valleys of the Lebanon; he was kept well posted by his spies, and only waited an opportunity to take the field; as an occasion did not immediately present itself, he had recourse to a ruse with which the generals of the time were familiar. Ramses, at length uneasy at not falling in with the enemy, advanced to the south of Shabtuna, where he endeavoured to obtain information from two Bedawîn. “Our brethren,” said they, “who are the chiefs of the tribes united under the vile Prince of Khâti, send us to give information to your Majesty: We desire to serve the Pharaoh. We are deserting the vile Prince of the Khâti; he is close to Khalupu (Aleppo), to the north of the city of Tunipa, whither he has rapidly retired from fear of the Pharaoh.” This story had every appearance of probability; and the distance—Khalupu was at least forty leagues away—explained why the reconnoitring parties of the Egyptians had not fallen in with any of the enemy. The Pharaoh, with this information, could not decide whether to lay siege to Qodshû and wait until the Hittites were forced to succour the town, or to push on towards the Euphrates and there seek the engagement which his adversary seemed anxious to avoid.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.
He chose the latter of the two alternatives. He sent forward the legions of Anion, Phrâ, Phtah, and Sutkhu, which constituted the main body of his troops, and prepared to follow them with his household chariotry. At the very moment when this division was being effected, the Hittites, who had been represented by the spies as being far distant, were secretly massing their forces to the north-east of Qodshu, ready to make an attack upon the Pharaoh’s flank as soon as he should set out on his march towards Khalupu. The enemy had considerable forces at their disposal, and on the day of the engagement they placed 18,000 to 20,000 picked soldiers in the field.* Besides a well-disciplined infantry, they possessed 2500 to 3000 chariots, containing, as was the Asiatic custom, three men in each.**
* An army corps is reckoned as containing 9000 men on the
wall scenes at Luxor, and 8000 at the Eamesseum; the 3000
chariots were manned by 9000 men. In allowing four to five
thousand men for the rest of the soldiers engaged, we are
not likely to be far wrong, and shall thus obtain the modest
total mentioned in the text, contrary to the opinion current
among historians.
* The mercenaries are included in these figures, as is shown
by the reckoning of the Lycian, Dardanian, and Pedasian
chiefs who were in command of the chariots during the
charges against Ramses II.