These frontier states indeed occupied at this time a position of considerable difficulty, where all the diplomacy of their chieftains was required to maintain the security of their inheritance. The reins held by the Pharaoh on his distant throne at Thebes may, it is true, have been only lightly felt: an occasional present or diplomatic letter to the court would generally secure respite from that direction; but their anxieties were not thereby ended, for in the East a nearer power claimed their allegiance also, before the arrival of the Hatti leader added to their perplexities. This power was the kingdom of Mitanni, which was firmly established in northern Mesopotamia, from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Tushratta, who now occupied the throne, represented the fourth generation of his illustrious house,[747] the authority of which had been strengthened through the foresight of his predecessors by intermarriage with the royal family of Thebes. His father’s sister had been wife of Thothmes IV., and his own sister was married to the ruling Pharaoh. He clearly realised that the continued support of Egypt would be necessary to him if he was to save his kingdom from being crushed by the increasing pressure of Assyria on the one hand and of the Hittite on the other; so that with some alacrity on his part[748] his daughter was sent to Egypt to become the wife of the heir-apparent. Propped up in this manner, the Mitannians had not only established a formidable barrier at the Euphrates against Hittite expansion eastward, but had even extended their own influence westward of that landmark, so much so that some of the princes of northern Syria first encountered by the Hittites hardly knew to whom they owed their allegiance, and were conquered as vassals of Mitanni while professing in their letters to be loyal subjects of the Pharaoh.[749]
TABLE SHOWING CONTEMPORARY RULERS AND ROYAL ALLIANCES
Compiled from the Hittite Archives and the Tell el-Amarna Letters.
With these two allied powers arrayed against him, Subbi-luliuma must have had confidence in the unity and valour of his forces when he crossed the Taurus to throw down the challenge. We cannot tell whether he employed any new method or weapon of war that encouraged him in his aspirations. As seen by us now, in unravelling the tangled record of his rapid movements and effective victories,[750] his successes appear to be attributable to the hardihood and mobility of his troops and to his own able generalship. As to his forces, we may assume from the absence of contrary evidence, that the whole region behind him, northwards and westwards from Marash, as well as the states round Carchemish and in the valley of the Kara Su, already acknowledged his supremacy, and united with him in this enterprise.
His first operations were thus directed against Nukhasse, a region which we suppose to have extended northwards of Aleppo as far as Killiz, including some of the ancient cities of the plain. He took all the lands of the several states[751] that were included in this district. The king, Sarrupsi, fled, but his relatives were made prisoners, and a servant of the dethroned king was set up in his stead, doubtless as a vassal. The conqueror was turning his attention to the district of Abîna, being disposed to leave Kinza unmolested, when the king of the latter district, Sutatarra, and his son Aitakama, with their war chariots, bore down upon him and gave battle. Though he had been prepared to respect these adversaries, Subbi-luliuma was not slow to respond to and punish this provocation: the king and his son, together with many of the chiefs, were taken prisoners and sent in triumph to the capital. The fate of Sutatarra is unknown, but Aitakama reappeared later, reinstated in his kingdom, and a faithful ally of the Hittite, who entrusted him with the command of the Syrian armies.[752] The land of Kinza is unplaced, but it seems to have lain westward, possibly on the lower Orontes, corresponding with the district of Hamath or the kingdom of the Hattina in later times. It was probably peopled with a Hittite tribe, to judge from the nature of these chieftains’ names and the position subsequently accorded to Aitakama. Realising in these incidents the constant influence of Mitanni, and attributing them to the hostile attitude of Tushratta, Subbi-luliuma now deemed it desirable to establish his prestige, and so turned eastward, ready, if necessary, to join issue with Tushratta. In a single year he added to his territory the whole region of the plains lying between the mountains and the Euphrates.[753] In this campaign he seems to have overrun the Aramæan district of Am (or Amma), and with the aid of his allies to have captured several cities.[754] But the real objective of the Hittite leader was the destruction of the Mitannian supremacy and power. Therefore crossing the Euphrates[755] he ‘went forth against the might of the king Tushratta,’ and marched against the lands of Isuwa, which are supposed to have bordered on the Tigris, bringing its people into subjection, as it would appear his father had done in some previous campaign hitherto unrecorded.[756] This record is difficult to understand, but we are led to infer that Tushratta did not actually give battle to him on this expedition, and even when the conqueror made his way northwards into the mountainous region of Alshe, the Mitannian king still hesitated to join issue with him.[757] The newly acquired territory was handed over to a confederate, Antaraki, ‘as a present.’
The power of Tushratta would seem, indeed, to have been crushed by these irresistible exploits;[758] the kingdom fell into anarchy, and the king himself was shortly afterwards murdered, giving the Hittite a further occasion for interference in its affairs, an opportunity which we shall find he was not slow to seize. Meanwhile, however, disaffection had shown itself in the North of Syria, seemingly as a result of the overtures of Pharaoh’s emissaries.[759] ‘Wheeling about,’ the record says,[760] Subbi-luliuma recrossed the Euphrates and descended on Aleppo. His route lay probably from Malatia by way of Samsat or Marash, and the absence of comment at this stage confirms our impression that this region was already subject to him, though there is a suggestion that a generation previously it had been for a time in the hands of the Mitannians.[761] The subjection of Aleppo[762] and the neighbouring lands and cities of Nî and Katna[763] was swiftly effected, and at first these districts were placed under the rule of one Akia, king of Arakhti; but on the disaffection of this chief they were reduced to direct government by Hittite officials and became a province of the kingdom. A chieftain who remained loyal to Egypt made an effort about this time to recover the land of Am for the Pharaoh, but he was repulsed by Aitakama with the Hatti.[764] Aitakama thus reappears on the scene, and from the same record it is clear that he had been reinstated in his father’s kingdom. He now appears as the most influential agent of the Hittite king in the north of Syria, entrusted with the conduct of missions and command of troops, even while protesting to the Pharaoh[765] that he was maligned by those who accused him of infidelity. His attempts to seduce the frontier states from their old allegiance had been reported to the Pharaoh by Akizzi,[766] who wrote from Katna, apparently on the eve of the events we have just recorded, appealing at the same time in despair for help against the catastrophe that threatened. To Aitakama’s proposals Akizzi replied that though he should die he would not go over to the king of the Hatti. With him there remained faithful the kings of Nukhasse, of Nî, of Zinzar, and of Tunanat, all city-states near Aleppo, while with the Hittite there were leagued the kings of Rukhizi and Lapana, whose names were Arzawia and Teuwatti. We have seen that Akizzi’s appeal and his fidelity were alike in vain. The Pharaoh was powerless or unwilling to interpose; resistance unsupported was impossible; and Subbi-luliuma with his generals easily made good his victories. Akizzi himself seems to have escaped from Katna before that city fell,[767] but the king of Nî, by name Takua,[768] and his brother Aki-tessub were among the prisoners.
PLATE LXXXVI