not know. All we can say is that with Kizzuwatna on his side, the
way to Syria now lay open before him.
ANEWSYRIAN VENTURE
In the footsteps of his great predecessors Hattusili and Mursili, the
Great King Tudhaliya led his troops across the Taurus. Once there,
the city and kingdom of Aleppo became a prime focus of his
attention. Aleppo had long since risen from the ashes of its
destruction by Mursili, and was now once more a thriving royal
capital ruled by a succession of kings who extended their sway over
the neighbouring territories. But it was no longer the great power it
had been in earlier days, and already in the century preceding
Tudhaliya’s Syrian campaign it had become subject to Mittani.
That’s why Tudhaliya had his sights set sofirmly on it. Almost
certainly, the ultimate aim of his Syrian campaign was to weaken if
not eliminate Mittanian power on the western (‘Syrian’) side of the
Euphrates, and thus greatly reduce the threat of Mittanian
campaigns further west. Aleppo was an important bulwark of
Mittanian power in Syria. By one means or another, its allegiance to
Figure 7.1 Aleppo citadel.
BUILDING AN EMPIRE 59