and ankle-length robe of priestly office, and carries a staff with
curved end, another of his insignia of office. In royal propaganda,
he claims divine endorsement for his authority by stating that he
was‘favoured by (all) the gods’, who collectively extended their
protection over their approved deputy-on-earth. But each king also
had a special patron deity (for example, Mursili II’s patron was
the Sun Goddess of Arinna, Muwattalli II’s the Storm God of
Lightning, Hattusili III’s the goddess Ishtar) who kept their protégé
safe from harm both in war and in peace. In this respect at least, the
divine protectors seem to have been pretty good at their job,
because out of a total list of 29 rulers of the Hittite kingdom only a
few were driven from the throne or assassinated, and (with one
possibleexception) none were killed or fatally wounded in battle,
despite the numerous, often yearly, campaigns in which they
engaged.
The downside of being the gods’deputy-on-earth was that you
had also to bear responsibility for offences committed by your
subjects, offences which provoked the wrath of the gods and could
only be appeased by an appropriate punishment. Sometimes your
life could be threatened by divine wrath. You might be forewarned
of this in a dream, or through examination of the entrails of a
sacrificed animal. If the news was bad, you could try to avoid
punishment yourself by appointing a substitute–human or animal
or life-sized wooden image–to take your place during the period
you were deemed most at risk. In the case of an animal substitute,
the victim was taken to a high place, where it was clearly visible to
the offended deity, then sacrificed and burnt, representing the
death and cremation of the king. A human substitute if used was
generally a prisoner-of-war who would quite literally become king
for a time–dressed in the king’s regalia, and‘anointed with the
fine oil of kingship’. The real king was dismissed from the palace,
his replacement was wined and dined and he slept in the royal
bedroom. This was during the period when it had been ascertained
from divine consultation that the real king was most vulnerable.
But if the danger-period passed with the substitute none the worse
for it, he was sent back to his own land unharmed and the real king
resumed his position. (All this recalls an Old Babylonian
94 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA