followed those he conducted in Syria). But in the interests of
simplicity, I’ll attribute all military campaigns conducted by a
Tudhaliya in this period to just one king.
In his Annals,^2 Tudhaliya tells of his extensive military
operations in western Anatolia, including the region called Arzawa.
We’ve noted that‘Arzawa’was a term applied in Hittite sources to a
group of western lands, among which a kingdom we now refer to as
‘Arzawa Proper’or‘Arzawa Minor’(simply called‘Arzawa’in our
texts) seems to have been prominent. Four other countries are
listed as members of the Arzawa group. All are shown on Map 6.1.
Beginning with northwestern Anatolia, they are Wilusa, Seha River
Land, Mira and Hapalla. It’s possible that the Arzawa lands were
originally components of a single kingdom, which later split into
separate states. But they may have developed independently of one
another from the beginning of their existence.
In any case, the region where they were located was inhabited by
the most populous of the Indo-European groups in Anatolia–the
Luwians. Almost certainly Luwians became the largest population
group of the Arzawa lands. Through central and southern Anatolia
too, Luwian-speakers had spread themselves widely during the
early centuries of the second millennium. And in Anatolia’s
southeastern corner, particularly in the land called Kizzuwatna,
they became one of the two major population groups of the region.
(Hurrians made up the other group.) Right along the southern
Anatolian coast, Luwian elements survived for centuries after the
collapse of the Bronze Age civilisations.
In the surviving fragments of his Annals, we learn of two
campaigns conducted by Tudhaliya in the west. During thefirst of
these, he allegedly conquered Arzawa and a number of other lands,
and brought home with him captured infantry and teams of horse
as booty. But far from intimidating the western countries, his
campaign merely fuelled their hostility against him. A military
confederacy of 22 states and cities along the Aegean coast declared
war. Tudhaliya returned promptly to the west to deal with this new
threat, and claimed a decisive victory over the confederacy.
He refers to it as his conquest of Assuwa, from which we assume
that Assuwa was the general name for the region where the alliance
62 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA