Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Bénédite.
Khâtusaru himself was on the point of perishing, when the troops which had been shut up in Qodshû, together with the inhabitants, made a general sortie; the Egyptians were for a moment held in check, and the fugitives meanwhile were able to enter the town. Either there was insufficient provision for so many mouths, or the enemy had lost all heart from the disaster; at any rate, further resistance appeared useless. The next morning Khâtusaru sent to propose a truce or peace to the victorious Pharaoh. The Egyptians had probably suffered at least as much as their adversaries, and perhaps regarded the eventuality of a siege with no small distaste; Ramses, therefore, accepted the offers made to him and prepared to return to Egypt. The fame of his exploits had gone before him, and he himself was not a little proud of the energy he had displayed on the day of battle. His predecessors had always shown themselves to be skilful generals and brave soldiers, but none of them had ever before borne, or all but borne, single-handed the brunt of an attack. Ramses loaded his shield-bearer Manna with rewards for having stood by him in the hour of danger, and ordered abundant provender and sumptuous harness for the good horses—“Strength-in-Thebaid” and “Nûrît the satisfied”—who had drawn his chariot.*
* A gold ring in the Louvre bears in relief on its bezel two
little horses; which are probably “Strength-in-Thebaid”and
“Nûrît satisfied.”
He determined that the most characteristic episodes of the campaign—the beating of the spies, the surprise of the camp, the king’s repeated charges, the arrival of his veterans, the flight of the Syrians, and the surrender of Qodshû—should be represented on the walls and pylons of the temples. A poem in rhymed strophes in every case accompanies these records of his glory, whether at Luxor, at the Eamesseum, at the Memnonium of Abydos, or in the heart of Nubia at Abu Simbel. The author of the poem must have been present during the campaign, or must have had the account of it from the lips of his sovereign, for his work bears no traces of the coldness of official reports, and a warlike strain runs through it from one end to the other, so as still to invest it with life after a lapse of more than thirty centuries.*
* The author is unknown: Pentaûr, or rather Pentaûîrît, to
whom E. de Rougé attributed the poem, is merely the
transcriber of the copy we possess on papyrus.
But little pains are bestowed on the introduction, and the poet does not give free vent to his enthusiasm until the moment when he describes his hero, left almost alone, charging the enemy in the sight of his followers. The Pharaoh was surrounded by two thousand five hundred chariots, and his retreat was cut off by the warriors of the “perverse” Khâti and of the other nations who accompanied them—the peoples of Arvad, Mysia, and Pedasos; each of their chariots contained three men, and the ranks were so serried that they formed but one dense mass. “No other prince was with me, no general officers, no one in command of the archers or chariots. My foot-soldiers deserted me, my charioteers fled before the foe, and not one of them stood firm beside me to fight against them.” Then said His Majesty: “Who art thou, then, my father Amon? A father who forgets his son? Or have I committed aught against thee? Have I not marched and halted according to thy command? When he does not violate thy orders, the lord of Egypt is indeed great, and he overthrows the barbarians in his path! What are these Asiatics to thy heart? Amon will humiliate those who know not the god. Have I not consecrated innumerable offerings to thee? Filling thy holy dwelling-place with my prisoners, I build thee a temple for millions of years, I lavish all my goods on thy storehouses, I offer thee the whole world to enrich thy domains.... A miserable fate indeed awaits him who sets himself against thy will, but happy is he who finds favour with thee by deeds done for thee with a loving heart. I invoke thee, O my father Amon! Here am I in the midst of people so numerous that it cannot be known who are the nations joined together against me, and I am alone among them, none other is with me. My many soldiers have forsaken me, none of my charioteers looked towards me when I called them, not one of them heard my voice when I cried to them. But I find that Amon is more to me than a million soldiers, than a hundred thousand charioteers, than a myriad of brothers or young sons, joined all together, for the number of men is as nothing, Amon is greater than all of them. Each time I have accomplished these things, Amon, by the counsel of thy mouth, as I do not transgress thy orders, I rendered thee glory even to the ends of the earth.” So calm an invocation in the thick of the battle would appear misplaced in the mouth of an ordinary man, but Pharaoh was a god, and the son of a god, and his actions and speeches cannot be measured by the same standard as that of a common mortal. He was possessed by the religious spirit in the hour of danger, and while his body continued to fight, his soul took wing to the throne of Amon. He contemplates the lord of heaven face to face, reminds him of the benefits which he had received from him, and summons him to his aid with an imperiousness which betrays the sense of his own divine origin. The expected help was not delayed. “While the voice resounds in Hermonthis, Amon arises at my behest, he stretches out his hand to me, and I cry out with joy when he hails me from behind: ‘Face to face with thee, face to face with thee, Ramses Miamun, I am with thee! It is I, thy father! My hand is with thee, and I am worth more to thee than hundreds of thousands. I am the strong one who loves valour; I have beheld in thee a courageous heart, and my heart is satisfied; my will is about to be accomplished!’ I am like Montû; from the right I shoot with the dart, from the left I seize the enemy. I am like Baal in his hour, before them; I have encountered two thousand five hundred chariots, and as soon as I am in their midst, they are overthrown before my mares. Not one of all these people has found a hand wherewith to fight; their hearts sink within their breasts, fear paralyses their limbs; they know not how to throw their darts, they have no strength to hold their lances. I precipitate them into the water like as the crocodile plunges therein; they are prostrate face to the earth, one upon the other, and I slay in the midst of them, for I have willed that not one should look behind him, nor that one should return; he who falls rises not again.” This sudden descent of the god has, even at the present day, an effect upon the reader, prepared though he is by his education to consider it as a literary artifice; but on the Egyptian, brought up to regard Amon with boundless reverence, its influence was irresistible. The Prince of the Khâti, repulsed at the very moment when he was certain of victory, “recoiled with terror. He sends against the enemy the various chiefs, followed by their chariots and skilled warriors,—the chiefs of Arvad, Lycia, and Ilion, the leaders of the Lycians and Dardanians, the lords of Carchemish, of the Girgashites, and of Khalupu; these allies of the Khâti, all together, comprised three thousand chariots.” Their efforts, however, were in vain. “I fell upon them like Montû, my hand devoured them in the space of a moment, in the midst of them I hewed down and slew. They said one to another: ‘This is no man who is amongst us; it is Sûtkhû the great warrior, it is Baal incarnate! These are not human actions which he accomplishes: alone, by himself, he repulses hundreds of thousands, without leaders or men. Up, let us flee before him, let us seek to save our lives, and let us breathe again!’” When at last, towards evening, the army again rallies round the king, and finds the enemy completely defeated, the men hang their heads with mingled shame and admiration as the Pharaoh reproaches them: “What will the whole earth say when it is known that you left me alone, and without any to succour me? that not a prince, not a charioteer, not a captain of archers, was found to place his hand in mine? I fought, I repulsed millions of people by myself alone. ‘Victory-in-Thebes’ and ‘Nûrît satisfied’ were my glorious horses; it was they that I found under my hand when I was alone in the midst of the quaking foe. I myself will cause them to take their food before me, each day, when I shall be in my palace, for I was with them when I was in the midst of the enemy, along with the Prince Manna my shield-bearer, and with the officers of my house who accompanied me, and who are my witnesses for the combat; these are those whom I was with. I have returned after a victorious struggle, and I have smitten with my sword the assembled multitudes.”
The ordeal was a terrible one for the Khâti; but when the first moment of defeat was over, they again took courage and resumed the campaign. This single effort had not exhausted their resources, and they rapidly filled up the gaps which had been made in their ranks. The plains of Naharaim and the mountains of Cilicia supplied them with fresh chariots and foot-soldiers in the place of those they had lost, and bands of mercenaries were furnished from the table-lands of Asia Minor, so that when Ramses II. reappeared in Syria, he found himself confronted by a completely fresh army. Khâtusaru, having profited by experience, did not again attempt a general engagement, but contented himself with disputing step by step the upper valleys of the Litany and Orontes. Meantime his emissaries spread themselves over Phoenicia and Kharû, sowing the seeds of rebellion, often only too successfully. In the king’s VIIIth year there was a general rising in Galilee, and its towns—Galaput in the hill-country of Bît-Aniti, Merorn, Shalama, Dapur, and Anamaîm*—had to be reduced one after another.
* Episodes from this war are represented at Karnak. The list
of the towns taken, now much mutilated, comprised twenty-
four names, which proves the importance of the revolt.