Page 260 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

x zirgvaxes L15IO-1440 B.C.]
On his eighth campaign, in 1472 b.c., he captured Cadesh
the important city (a little north of a little village called Damas­
cus) of the rebel ringleader. But though there were no further
rebels to subdue, his realm still fell short of that of his grand­

father. For since Thothmes I sixty years before had penetrated
to the Euphrates the Mitanni kings had crossed the river, and
their frontier now marched with that of Cadesh well south of
the Euphrates. They had given open support to the Syrian re­
volt and now gave refuge to the king of Cadesh.

But for twelve years Mitanni made no move, while Thoth­
mes reorganized Syria, taking the sons of the princes as hostages
for education in Egypt and appointing political observers to re­
port to him any breach of the terms of vassalage. Then, in 1460

b.c., with Mitanni support, the king of Cadesh came south, re­
gained his city, feverishly rebuilt the walls, and again called on
Syria to revolt.
It was a forlorn hope. Thothmes, now an experienced gen­
eral in his early sixties, swept north unresisted, and took and

razed the city. In the following two summers he led his army
into Mitanni territory.
The rumors that reached the sailors at the Syrian ports sug­
gested that he met no large Mitanni army, and in truth Mitanni

was not yet strong enough to challenge Egypt in open battle. But
an order came through to the quartermaster general for small
boats to be collected and transported over the mountains and the
plains beyond, to carry the pharaoh and his chariots across the
Euphrates. It caused some excitement on the coast, for it must

mean that Thothmes had achieved his ambition, and had
reached and surpassed the northern limits of his grandfathers
campaign. But more excitement was caused by a circumstantial
story of a hairbreadth escape of the pharaoh from a charging ele­

phant during a hunt of these rare beasts in the Euphrates valley.
But that was the only moment of danger. The Mitanni armies
still failed to appear, and Thothmes contented himself with
punitive destruction of crops, and with the erection of his own

boundary stone beside that of his grandfather.
His reign had now lasted as long as that of his stepmother,