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 HETHITES

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HETHITES

the fourteenth century b. c. Thanks to the Egyptian and Assyrian documents we are in possession of more details concerning the history of the Hethites. At an early date some of their tribes forced their way through the defiles of the Taurus range into Northern Syria and established themselves in the valley of the Orontes: Hamath and Cades (A. V. Kadesh) were very early Hethite cities. Some bands, pursuing their march southwards, settled in the hilly region of Southern Palestine, where they intermingled with the Amorrhites, then in possession of the land. Ezechiel, stating that the mother of Jerusalem was a Hethite (an Hittite— A. V., xvi, 3, 45; D. V.: Cethite), very likely refers to an old tradition concerning the origin of the city. At all events, when Abraham came to Chanaan he found a Hethite colony clustered around Hebron (Gen., xxiii, 3; xxvi, 34, etc.). The bulk of the nation established itself in the Naharina (comp. Hebr.T Aram Naharuim), between the River Balikh and the Orontes, on the slopes of the Amanus range and in the C'ilician plains. This position, between the two foremost empires of the ancient world, namely Chaldee and Egypt, made the territory occupied by the Hethites, on the road followed by the merchants of both nations, one of the richest commercial countries in the East.

But the population was perhaps still more inclined to war than to commerce, and local monuments, no less than Eg>-ptian records, bear witness to the mili- tary conquests and the power of the Hethites in the distant regions of Western and Southern Asia Minor. There are some grounds for the belief that certain traditions lingering on in those regions centuries later (origin of the Lydian dynasty, legend of the .Amazons) originated in the Hethite conquests, and that we may recognize the swarthy Cappadocian warriors in the K-^Tcioi mentioned in Odyss., XI, 516-521. Certain it is, at any rate, that the Troa<l, Lydia, and the shores of the Cilician Sea acknowledged the Hethite suprem- acy at the l)eginning of the eighteenth century b. c.

The Hethites first appear in historical documents at the time of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty (about 1550 B. c). Thothmes I, in the first year of his reign, carried his arms to N. Syria and set up his trophies on the banks of the Euphrates, perhaps near Car- chemish. His grandson, Thothmes HI, w'as a great warrior. Twice, he tells us, in 1470 and 1463 B. c, the king of the land of the Hethites, "the Greater", paid him tribute. After a signal victory at Megiddo, and the taking of this city, which was the key to the Syrian valleys, Thothmes III repeated!}' seized Cades and Carchemish and invaded the Naharina. At his death the Egyptian empire bordered on the land of the Hethites. The successes of the Egj-ptian armies did not dishearten their sturdy neighbours. Their rest- less enterprises forced Ramman-Nirari, King of As- syria, to invoke the aid of Thothmes IV against the Hethites of Mer'ash; and the help was apparently given, for an inscription tells us that the first cam- paign of the Egj'ptian prince was directed against the Khetas. These, however, with their allies the Minni, the .\murTU, the Kasi, and the King of Zinzar, did not cease to press southwards, thereby causing serious alarm to the Egyptian governors. Held in check until the death of Amenhotep III by the King of Mitanni, Dushratti, who had made alliance with the King of Egj-pt, the Hethites resumed the offensive during the reign of .'Amenhotep IV. They were led by Etaqqama, son of Sutarna, Prince of Cades, who had formerly warred against them, had been made captive, and, although professing to be still acting on behalf of the pharaoh, had become their warm supporter. Before Etaqqama, Teuwaatti, Arzawj-ia, and Dasa, one by one the SjTian cities and the Egyptian strongholds fell, and Cades on the Orontes, conquered, became for centuries a strong centre of Hethite power. Subbilu- liuma, during whose reign the Hethite empire won, by

its military successes, a place of prominence in the Eastern world, is the first great Hethite so\-ere'ign named in inscriptions: Carchemish, Tunip, Nil, Ha- math, Cades, are mentioned among the principal cit- ies of his empire; the Mitanni, the Arzapi, and other principalities along the Euphrates acknowledged his suzerainty; and Troad, Cilicia, and Lydia owned his sway.

The successors of Amenhotep l\, hampered by the trouble and disorder prevailing at home, were no match for such a powerful neighbour; Ramses I, the founder of the nineteenth dynasty, after an attack, the success of which seems to have been doubtful, was compelled to conclude with Subbiluliuma a treaty which left the Hethites their entire freedom of action. His .son and successor, Seti I, attempted to reconquer Syria. At first he was victorious. Marching liis armies through Syria as far as the Orontes, he fell suddenly upon Cades which he ^Tested from the hands of Aluttalu. The success of this campaign was, however, by no means decisive, and an honourable peace was con- cluded with the Hethite ruler, Mursil.

The epoch of Seti's death was one of revolution in the Hethite Government. Muttallu, the son of Mursil, having been murdered, his brother Hattusil was called to the throne (about 1343 B. c). He at once mus- tered all his forces against Egj-pt. The encounter took place near the city of Cades: in a hard-fought battle in which the Egj-ptian king, surprised from an ambush, hardly escaped, the northern confederacy was defeated and the Hethite ruler sued for peace. The treaty then concluded was, however, but a short truce, and only sixteen years later, the twenty-first year of Ramses, on the twenty-first day of the month Tybi, was peace finally signed lietween the Egyptian ruler and ''the great king of the Hethites". The treaty, the Egyptian text of which has long been known in full, and of which a Babylonian minute was found in 1906 at Boghaz-Keui, was a compact of offensive and defensive alliance between the two powers thus put on a par; this treaty, as well as the marriage of Hattu- sil's daughter to Ramses in the thirty-fourth year of the latter's reign, shows forcibly the position then attained by the Hethite empire. So powerful a prince indeed was Hattusil that he pretended to interfere in Babylonian politics. An alliance had been entered upon between him and Katachman-Turgu, King of Babylon. At the latter's death Hattusil threatened to sever the alliance if the son of the deceased prince was not given the crown. The peaceful relations of the Hethite empire with its southern neighbour con- tinued during the reign of Ramses' son, Mincptah, the pharaoh of the Exodus; this prince, indeed, soon after his accession, sent corn to the Hethites at a time when Syria was devastated by famine. It is true that Eg>'pt had to repel on its own shores an invasion of the Libyans and other peoples of Asia Minor; but, although these peoples seem to have been vassals to the Hethites, nothing indicates that the latter had any interest in the enterprise. Such was not the case under Ramses III. A formidable con- federacy of the nations of the coast and of the islands of the lEgean Sea swept N.-W. Asia, conquered the Hethites and other inland peoples and, swollen by the troops of the conquered kingdoms, fell upon the shores of Egypt. The invading army met with a complete disaster, and, among other details, Ramses III records that the King of the Hethites was cap- tured in the battle. The Hethite empire was no longer a political unity, but had been split into ind»- pendent states: perhaps some tribes in the far west and the south of Asia Minor had shaken off the Heth- ite allegiance; however, we learn from Theglath- phalasar I (A. V. Tiglath-pileser) that, towards the end of the twelfth century, the "land of the Hatti" still extended from the Lebanon to the Euphrates and the Black Sea. As early as the close of the four-