against the Hittite counter-offensive. Even when Suppiluliuma
finally managed to expel all the Arzawan troops from Hatti’s
peripheral territories, Arzawan military might continued to pose a
major threat to the kingdom’s security. Hittite campaigns into
Arzawan territory were undertaken to eliminate this threat, and
sometimes ended in humiliating defeats. It allegedly took
Suppiluliuma 20 years to re-establish Hittite control in Anatolia,
or at least in the regions which were subject to Hittite authority. His
Anatolian campaigns may have begun while Tudhaliya occupied the
throne, but they must have continued well down into his own reign.
And we cannot be sure that Tudhaliya ever again saw Hattusa.
He may have died in Samuha before the ravaged city was once more
able to serve as the kingdom’sroyalseat.
ANOTHER ROYAL COUP
Despite the close relationship between Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma,
especially as partners on the battlefield, Suppiluliuma was not the
designated heir to the throne. Another Tudhaliya, called in the
texts‘Tudhaliya the Younger’, had been given the nod. Why not
Suppiluliuma? Both he and‘the younger’Tudhaliya were apparently
sons of the elder Tudhaliya. And by his military exploits
Suppiluliuma had certainly proved himself worthy of the throne,
especially in those troubled times. But the other man had been
clearly marked out for the job–perhaps because he was the older of
the two (despite his epithet), or, it has been suggested, Suppiluliuma
may have been an adopted son of the former king who preferred the
succession to pass to his natural son. In any case, Tudhaliya the
Younger was clearly the legitimate appointee to the throne, and
initially Suppiluliuma and all the dignitaries of the land and all the
armed forces swore allegiance to him.
We don’t know whether the new Tudhaliya ever occupied his
throne. But despite his oath of allegiance, Suppiluliuma’s ambition
to become king could not be restrained. As tensions increased
between the two‘brothers’, many of the land’s powerful elements
swung their support behind Suppiluliuma, and the hapless
Tudhaliya was assassinated. To be completely fair to Suppiluliuma,
FROM NEAR EXTINCTION TO THE THRESHOLD OF SUPREMACY 79