Page 258 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

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there had been peace between the Upper and the Lower Sea. It

was a peace of convenience rather than of friendship, for more
would be lost by an interruption of the trade routes than would
be gained in booty by a costly war between closely matched pow­
ers. And lately, too, it had been clear that any strife between the

four powers who shared Mesopotamia would only open the way
for the greatest power of all, Egypt.
To the merchant sailors sitting over their wine in Crete—as
to the soldiers of Babylon and Mitanni—Egypt was the arbiter
of destinies. It was at once the greatest market, the greatest man­

ufacturing country, and the greatest military power in the world.
Only at sea was it inferior to Crete. In the hundred years since
Amose had led the revolt against the Hyksos overlords, Egypt
had steadily extended its wealth and influence under his brilliant

descendants. Amose’s grandson had set up his boundary stones
at the fourth cataract of the Nile and on the Euphrates, and now
his great-granddaughter had ruled for twenty-two years, alone—
and many thought illegally and impiously. Amon and his priests
had originally proclaimed her stepson and son-in-law Thothmes

III as pharaoh, but the god had apparently changed his mind,
for the high priest of Amon sat as vizier in upper Egypt, and
Thothmes sat captive in the palace, as he had done for half his
life. While Hatshepsut reigned, there was peace. The people of

Egypt might very well be fooled by a false beard, it was com­
monly said, but the army of Egypt would not allow itself to be
led to battle by a woman; and the army could not, by custom,
move without a prince of the blood royal at its head.
Now the bluff of the “pharaohess” had been called. The main

topic of discussion in the Knossos tavern this evening in 1480
b.c. was the recent declaration of independence by some of the
cities of Palestine and Syria, cities which since the time of the
first Thothmes, Hatshepsut’s father, had been vassals of Egypt.

If Egypt let this defiance pass, then the passive presence of the
powerful Egyptian army, whose mere existence had kept the
peace for so long, would be known for a hollow sham, and half
the world might be at the throats of the other half tomorrow.
It was said that Hatshepsut had ordered her army out, and

that the prisoner of the palace, her weakling stepson, had been