missing part of the text; see below), and Hattusili returned safely
home, his wagons laden with the plunder of the conquered states.
After what the Annals tell us was Hattusili’s‘first’campaign in
Syria (we’ll need to look more closely at this), the king apparently
suspended operations there, and turned his attention in the opposite
direction. Much of western Anatolia, as far as the Aegean coast, was
occupied by a conglomerate of territories known collectively as the
Arzawa lands. They were later to prove a troublesome bunch for a
number of Hittite kings, even when they became Hittite vassal states.
But these were early days in the relationship between Arzawa and the
Hittite kingdom. Arzawa enters our story in a single sentence–
Hattusili went there on what appears to have been little more than a
raid, bringing back cattle and sheep as plunder. Did his western
campaign (and we don’t know how far west he went) have any
purpose beyond a mere livestock-rustling expedition? We simply
don’t know. But the likelihood is that our text preserves only the very
end of a campaign to Arzawa, which resulted in the capture and
transportation to the homeland of large numbers of livestock. Cattle
and sheep were a regular part of the booty brought back by later
kings at the end of successful military campaigns.
But one important thing the text does tell us is that while
Hattusili was off with his troops on his Arzawan venture, his
absence prompted an attack on his core territory by a people from
the east. They were the Hurrians, one of the Hittites’ most
formidable enemies. For the next two centuries Hitites and
Hurrians would be locked in an almost constant state of war.
On this occasion, the Hurrian invasion led to fresh uprisings
among many of the king’s subject-states. Only Hattusa remained
intact. Hattusili’s regime, let alone his kingdom, was in serious
trouble. The action he took in response is recorded in only the
briefest detail in the Annals. Heevidentlydrove the Hurrians from
his land (though the text does not tell us this), and set about
restoring his authority over the rebellious states by launching brutal
punitive attacks against them. Then in the ‘following’year, he
reasserted his control over the rest of the defecting states that had
escaped his wrath earlier. Included among them was Sanahuitta,
which wasfinally captured and destroyed.
30 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA