force to win over a subject-people. Mursili must have welcomed the
rebel’sfinal submission without the need for military action–
especially as the campaigning season was rapidly drawing to a
close. It was a happy ending all round. The king was spared the
necessity of spending more days or even weeks capturing and
subduing the rebel land by force, he could represent his decision as
the act of a benevolent and merciful conqueror, and the land and its
people were spared inevitable and brutal destruction.
There were a number of occasions when vassal rulers broke
their allegiance and rebelled against their overlord, or when loyal
vassals were overthrown by local rebels. Expeditionary forces had
often to be despatched to bring the rebels to heel. But by and large
the vassal system seemed to work pretty well. Many local rulers
remained loyal to their allegiance and to the treaty obligations to
which they swore, or at least long enough for their overlords to
divert their resources to other regions in more urgent need of
attention and action. Undoubtedly we should attribute the success
of the Hittite empire as much, or almost as much, to the treaty
system and the diplomatic skills of its rulers, as to the prowess of its
troops on the battlefield.
But in the empire’s closing decades, troubles within the subject-
territories became increasingly frequent, and attempts to reassert
authority over them imposed an ever greater drain on His Majesty’s
resources. The empire’s decline and fall were inevitable. And all the
king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Hatti together
again.
182 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA