* This is the order of march represented during the Syrian
campaign, as gathered from the arrangement observed in the
pictures at Medinet-Habu.
It was well for Ramses that on ascending the throne he had devoted himself to the task of recruiting the Egyptian army, and of personally and carefully superintending the instruction and equipment of his men; for it was thanks to these precautions that, when the confederated Libyans attacked the country about the Vth year of his reign, he was enabled to repulse them with complete success. “Didi, Mashaknû, Maraîû, together with Zamarû and Zaûtmarû, had strongly urged them to attack Egypt and to carry fire before them from one end of it to the other.”—“Their warriors confided to each other in their counsels, and their hearts were full: ‘We will be drunk!’ and their princes said within their breasts: ‘We will fill our hearts with violence!’ But their plans were overthrown, thwarted, broken against the heart of the god, and the prayer of their chief, which their lips repeated, was not granted by the god.” They met the Egyptians at a place called “Kamsisû-Khasfi-Timihû” (“Ramses repulses the Timihû”), but their attack was broken by the latter, who were ably led and displayed considerable valour. “They bleated like goats surprised by a bull who stamps its foot, who pushes forward its horn and shakes the mountains, charging whoever seeks to annoy it.” They fled afar, howling with fear, and many of them, in endeavouring to escape their pursuers, perished in the canals. “It is,” said they, “the breaking of our spines which threatens us in the land of Egypt, and its lord destroys our souls for ever and ever. Woe be upon them! for they have seen their dances changed into carnage, Sokhît is behind them, fear weighs upon them. We march no longer upon roads where we can walk, but we run across fields, all the fields! And their soldiers did not even need to measure arms with us in the struggle! Pharaoh alone was our destruction, a fire against us every time that he willed it, and no sooner did we approach than the flame curled round us, and no water could quench it on us.” The victory was a brilliant one; the victors counted 12,535 of the enemy killed,* and many more who surrendered at discretion. The latter were formed into a brigade, and were distributed throughout the valley of the Nile in military settlements. They submitted to their fate with that resignation which we know to have been a characteristic of the vanquished at that date.
* The number of the dead is calculated from that of the
hands and phalli brought in by the soldiers after the
victory, the heaps of which are represented at Medinet-Habu.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from Champollion.
They regarded their defeat as a judgment from God against which there was no appeal; when their fate had been once pronounced, nothing remained to the condemned except to submit to it humbly, and to accommodate themselves to the master to whom they were now bound by a decree from on high. The prisoners of one day became on the next the devoted soldiers of the prince against whom they had formerly fought resolutely, and they were employed against their own tribes, their employers having no fear of their deserting to the other side during the engagement. They were lodged in the barracks at Thebes, or in the provinces under the feudal lords and governors of the Pharaoh, and were encouraged to retain their savage customs and warlike spirit. They intermarried either with the fellahîn or with women of their own tribes, and were reinforced at intervals by fresh prisoners or volunteers. Drafted principally into the Delta and the cities of Middle Egypt, they thus ended by constituting a semi-foreign population, destined by nature and training to the calling of arms, and forming a sort of warrior caste, differing widely from the militia of former times, and known for many generations by their national name of Mashaûasha. As early as the XIIth dynasty, the Pharaohs had, in a similar way, imported the Mazaîû from Nubia, and had used them as a military police; Ramses III. now resolved to naturalise the Libyans for much the same purpose. His victory did not bear the immediate fruits that we might have expected from his own account of it; the memory of the exploits of Ramses II. haunted him, and, stimulated by the example of his ancestor at Qodshû, he doubtless desired to have the sole credit of the victory over the Libyans. He certainly did overcome their kings, and arrested their invasion; we may go so far as to allow that he wrested from them the provinces which they had occupied on the left bank of the Canopic branch, from Marea to the Natron Lakes, but he did not conquer them, and their power still remained as formidable as ever. He had gained a respite at the point of the sword, but he had not delivered Egypt from their future attacks.
He might perhaps have been tempted to follow up his success and assume the offensive, had not affairs in Asia at this juncture demanded the whole of his attention. The movement of great masses of European tribes in a southerly and easterly direction was beginning to be felt by the inhabitants of the Balkans, who were forced to set out in a double stream of emigration—one crossing the Bosphorus and the Propontis towards the centre of Asia Minor, while the other made for what was later known as Greece Proper, by way of the passes over Olympus and Pindus. The nations who had hitherto inhabited these regions, now found themselves thrust forward by the pressure of invading hordes, and were constrained to move towards the south and east by every avenue which presented itself. It was probably the irruption of the Phrygians into the high table-land which gave rise to the general exodus of these various nations—the Pulasati, the Zakkala, the Shagalasha, the Danauna, and the Uashasha—some of whom had already made their way into Syria and taken part in campaigns there, while others had as yet never measured strength with the Egyptians. The main body of these migrating tribes chose the overland route, keeping within easy distance of the coast, from Pamphylia as far as the confines of Naharaim.
