process of sacrificing an animal and examining its entrails had to be
repeated – and then again until an affirmative answer was
obtained. Collaboration between physician, incantation priests and
specialists in oracular enquiry was often essential if health was to be
restored to the victims of divine wrath.
But some afflictions were beyond cure, even after appeals to
the gods. Thus King Hattusili III was a chronic sufferer of an
indisposition his wife Puduhepa called‘fire-of-the-feet’.Shedid
so in her appeal to the goddess Lelwani for a cure. I once wrote
that the disease in question was possibly gout. Two neuro-
surgeons, one from Turkey and one from France, responded with
the same suggestion: almost certainly the king was suffering from
a painful disease called neuropathy. If you yourself suffer from
this condition, you’ll know that your feet really do feel as if they
are onfire when you walk. Despite this problem, Hattusili seems
to have been actively involved in military campaigns for most of
his long career, though presumably his wife ensured that he didn’t
have to do much walking on these campaigns. (She was very
influential in the kingdom’s affairs, as we shall see.)
DOCTORS ON LOAN FROM ABROAD
Despite what appears to have been a high level of medical expertise
available in the Hittite world, there were times when Hittite kings,
Hattusili III in particular, asked their Egyptian and Babylonian
Royal Brothers for a loan of their medical experts. Most famously,
Hattusili appealed to the pharaoh Ramesses II to send one of his
doctors to Hatti to help his sister become pregnant. She was
married to a man called Masturi, ruler of the important western
vassal state Seha River Land. Offspring of the union would ensure
that future rulers of this land would have Hittite blood in their veins.
But the marriage had so far failed to produce fruit. Hence Hattusili’s
last-resort appeal to Ramesses. He confessed that the task of making
the princess fertile was a challenging one: she was now 50 years old,
or so he claimed. Ramesses knew better, and made this clear in his
reply to the request.‘You say your sister isfifty. Fifty? She’ssixty!But
whether she’sfifty or sixty, I’ll send a physician and an incantation
124 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA