This whole episode of invasion, attack and counter-attack
provides ourfirst instance of what was to be a recurring theme
throughout Hittite history: Major military expeditions far from the
base of Hittite power left the homeland dangerously exposed to
incursions by its enemies, from almost anywhere across its
porous frontiers. Which highlights an ongoing problem Hittite
kings faced–a chronic shortage of manpower. For much of its
history, Hatti simply did not have enough forces to mount major
military campaigns against distant enemies without seriously
compromising its homeland defences. And successful attacks on
the homeland by enemy forces often had a domino-effect,
prompting the defection of many of the kingdom’s own subject-
states. How the various kings dealt with this problem is something
we’ll look at in more detail later.
But let’s return to Hattusili’s Annals. In the‘fifth’ and last
recorded year of the Annals, the king returned to Syria. This
campaign was a much more ambitious, far-reaching one than his
earlier foray across the Taurus. Declaring himself to be like a lion
on the rampage, Hattusili led his troops through Syria in an orgy of
destruction and plunder as one city after another fell before his
arms. Wagon after wagon was laden with the plunder of the cities
and lands he destroyed, their palaces and temples and other places
stripped of their statues and furniture and items of gold and silver
and other precious materials, for transport back to Hattusa. The
king was merciless in victory, repaying the courage of two of the
local rulers who had defended their cities to the bitter end by
harnessing them to one of the wagons laden with their cities’spoils.
Like beasts of burden, they were made to haul the wagon back to
their conqueror’s capital. Hattusili gloated over their fate.
There was one achievement of which Hattusili was particularly
proud. His rampage through Syria took him across the Euphrates
to the western fringes of Mesopotamia. Only one other king had
managed this crossing, he claimed: the legendary Mesopotamian
ruler Sargon, king of Akkad, who had crossed the river in the other
direction seven centuries earlier.
All this we learn from Hattusili’s Annals. It’s one of our most
important sources for the early history of the Hittite kingdom, but
THE DAWN OF THE HITTITE ERA 31