Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/79

Rh Assyrian successors of Tiglath-pileser III., which represented the organised union of numerous states and nations under a single ruler. Such a conception of empire was due to Tiglath-pileser III., and his successor Sargon; it was a new idea in the world, and had never been realised before. The first Assyrian empire, like the foreign empire of Egypt, was of an altogether different character. It depended on the military enterprise and strength of individual monarchs. As long as the Assyrian or Egyptian king could lead his armies into distant territories, and compel their inhabitants to pay him tribute and homage, his empire extended over them. But hardly had he returned home laden with spoil than we find the subject populations throwing off their allegiance and asserting their independence, while the death of the conqueror brought with it almost invariably the general uprising of the tribes and cities his arms had subdued. Before the days of Tiglath-pileser, in fact, empire in Western Asia meant the power of a prince to force a foreign people to submit to his rule. The conquered provinces had to be subdued again and again; but as long as this could be done, as long as the native struggles for freedom could be crushed by a campaign, so long did the empire exist.

It was an empire of this sort that the Hittites established in Asia Minor. How long it lasted we cannot say. But so long as the distant races of the West answered the summons to war of the Hittite princes, it remained a reality. The fact that the tribes of the Troad and Lydia are found fighting under the command of the Hittite kings of Kadesh, proves that they acknowledged the supremacy of their Hittite lords, and followed them to battle like the vassals of some feudal chief.