More chariot warfare may have occurred when regional military forces in Greece
became rivals. Violence of some sort may have accompanied the synoikismosof
Attika, which seems to have occurred at the end of LH II (ca. 1400 BC) and to
have shifted power from eastern Attika (Thorikos and Marathon especially) to
Athens.^59 Similar centralizations may have happened in Messenia and Boiotia.
Finally, if—as it seems—the rulers of Mycenae did indeed become Great Kings,
their consolidation of power at Mycenae must have required the subordination of
a constellation of petty kings.
In the IIIA and IIIB periods Mycenaean chariot armies must have served
primarily as a deterrent or as an offensive threat against any pharaoh or Great King
in the Near East who was hostile to the Great King of Achaea. Relevant here is
the vaunt that shortly before 1350 BCAmenhotep III had inscribed on a statue base
in his mortuary temple at Kom el-Hetan, across from Karnak.^60 Inscriptions on four
other bases from Kom el-Hetan refer to Syria and Meso potamia, each listing cities
in those lands that Amenhotep boasted were subject to him. The fifth base referred
not to Syrians or Mesopotamians but to k-f-tj-w(Crete and Cretans) and tj-n3-
jj-w, the Egyptian name for the Greek mainland.^61 In apposition to the names k-f-
tj-wand tj-n3-jj-wwere eight place-names that Egyptologists have with some
confidence identified as Amnisos, Knossos, Kydonia, Kythera, Lyktos, Messena
(or Methana), Nauplia and Mycenae. We have, of course, no reason to think that
Amenhotep III ever reduced any of these places to vassalage, but he clearly wished
his subjects and his gods to believe that he had done so.
Also relevant is the chronic hostility between the Achaean and Hittite kings.
This was centered on the coast of western Anatolia, and especially at the cities
of Miletos and Troy. These two small kingdoms seem several times to have changed
their allegiance between Hatti and Achaea, and “Hittite texts show that from the
late 15th until the third quarter of the 13th century BC, the kings of Ahhiyawa
were in a position to threaten Hittite interests in Western Anatolia.”^62 Various Hittite
kings also had ambitions to subdue cities across the sea. The Hittite kings were
especially keen to have vassals in Cyprus, rich in copper, an island in which the
kings of Achaea also had an interest. According to the Madduwatta text, a Hittite
king late in the fifteenth century BC—probably Arnuwanda I—claimed that
Cyprus (Alashiya) belonged to him. As Hans Güterbock observed, however, “We
do not know on what grounds Arnuwandas could claim Cyprus for himself.”^63 In
any case, the island obviously did not remain under Hittite control. According to
a clay tablet found at Hattusha, shortly before 1200 BCSuppiluliuma II, the last
Great King of Hatti, defeated ships of Alashiya and then conquered the island,
removing the king of Alashiya, his wives and his children. In Güterbock’s
translation of the tablet, Suppiluliuma claims that “the country of Alašiya,
however, I [enslaved] and made tributary on the spot,” imposing on the man
he installed as king of Alashiya an annual tribute of gold, copper and other
valuables.^64 It is most unlikely that Suppiluliuma did in fact conquer or re-conquer
Cyprus, although it may well be that one or two cities on the island became tributary
to him. In any case, it is clear that the Great Kings of both Achaea and Hatti had
continuing designs on cities abroad.
Militarism in Greece 187