Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/141

Rh formed footstools. The food was placed on low cross-legged tables, which resembled a camp-stool in shape.

At times, as we may gather from a bas-relief at Merash, they entertained themselves at a banquet with the sounds of music. Several different kinds of musical instruments are represented on the monuments, among which we may recognise a lyre, a trumpet, and a sort of guitar. It is evident that they were fond of music, and had cultivated the art, as befitted a people to whom wealth had given leisure. A curious indication of the same leisured ease is to be found in a sculpture at Eyuk, where an attendant is depicted carrying a monkey on his shoulders. Those only who enjoyed the quiet of a peaceful and wealthy life would have gratified the taste for animals which the monuments reveal, by importing an animal like the monkey from the distant south. The Hittites were doubtless a warlike people when they first swooped down upon the plains of Syria, but they soon began to cultivate the arts of peace and to become one of the great mercantile peoples of the ancient world.

We learn from the Books of Kings that horses and chariots were exported from Egypt for the Hittite princes, the Israelites serving as intermediaries in the trade. But they must also have obtained horses from the north, and perhaps have bred them for themselves. The prophet Ezekiel tells us (xxvii. 14) that 'they of Togarmah traded' in the fairs of Tyre 'with horses and horsemen and mules,' and Togarmah has been identified with the Tul-Garimmi of the Assyrian inscriptions, which was situated in Komagênê. In the wars between Egypt and Kadesh a portion of the Hittite army fought in chariots, each drawn by two horses, and holding sometimes two, sometimes three men. The chariots