Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/45

Rh as he tells us, though more probably the truth was that he found himself unable to take it by storm. But he never succeeded in forcing his way across the fords of the Euphrates, which were commanded by the great fortress of Carchemish. Once he harried the land of Mitanni or Naharina, slaying and spoiling 'in one day' from Carchemish southwards to a point that faced the deserts of the nomad Sukhi, the Shuhites of the Book of Job. It was on this occasion that he killed ten elephants in the neighbourhood of Harran and on the banks of the Khabour, besides four wild bulls which he hunted with arrows and spears 'in the land of Mitanni and in the city of Araziqi, which lies opposite to the land of the Hittites.'

Towards the end of the twelfth century before our era, therefore, the Hittites were still strong enough to keep one of the mightiest of the Assyrian kings in check. It is true that they no longer obeyed a single head; it is also true that that portion of them which was settled in the land of Kummukh was overrun by the Assyrian armies, and forced to pay tribute to the Assyrian invader. But Carchemish compelled the respect of Tiglath-pileser; he never ventured to approach its walls or to cross the river which it was intended to defend. His way was barred to the west, and he never succeeded in traversing the high road which led to Phœnicia and Palestine.

After the death of Tiglath-pileser I. the Assyrian inscriptions fail us. His successors allowed the empire to fall into decay, and more than two hundred years elapsed before the curtain is lifted again. These two hundred years had witnessed the rise and fall of the