requisitioned from local rulers subject or friendly to Hatti, through
whose territory a Hittite expeditionary force passed. The Hittite
king guaranteed that all requisitioned goods would be paid for in
full. But when the army marched through enemy or neutral
territories, its troops were were given free rein to loot whatever they
could from the towns and villages and foodlands to supplement
their rations.
Then there was the question of the return home after a
successful campaign. On the outward journey, the well-trained,
physicallyfit troops could move with considerable speed to their
destination. But the return must have been much slower. This was
because of the large number of deportees forcibly transplanted to
the homeland, along with large numbers of cattle and sheep, as part
of the spoils of war. Sometimes, according to Hittite records, the
numbers of deportees ran into the thousands–men, women and
children; the livestock, we’re told, were too numerous to count.
The upside of all this was that the deportees became an
important, indeed perhaps at times a vital, supplement to the
homeland population, particularly after the great plague which
broke out in thefinal years of Suppiluliuma I’sreign,andthe
livestock significantly built up the homeland’sherdsandflocks.
The downside was that the movement of the deportees and
livestock would have considerably slowed the return journey,
substantially more food had to be found to sustain both the
human as well as the animal booty, and all the booty had to be
closely guarded to prevent defections by the human part of it, and
the rustling of the animal part of it by local raiders. Dire warnings
issued by the king against any state which provided asylum for
escaping deportees, and extradition clauses in the vassal treaties
covering the return of fugitives who had reached the state of a
vassal ruler appear to have been reasonably effective in keeping
the attrition rate low.
Then of course there is the question of how quickly and
effectively the deportees were assimilated into the Hittite
population. We have no information about this. But given that
Hatti’s population was such a heterogeneous one to begin with,
new elements could more rapidly be absorbed into this population
ALL THE KING’S HORSES AND ALL THE KING’S MEN 177