given some administrative responsibilities there, to keep him busy
and out of mischief. It didn’t work. Urhi-Teshub was determined to
get his throne back, and appears to have sought at least diplomatic
support from both the Assyrian and the Babylonian kings for this
purpose.
Relations between Hatti and Assyria had become strained when
Assyria’s king Adad-nirari attacked the land of Hanigalbat. This
was what was left of the old Mittanian kingdom, and until recently
it had been a Hittite puppet state, though nominally independent.
Adad-nirari reduced it to Assyrian vassal status, and then annexed
it. This was while Urhi-Teshub was on the Hittite throne. Not
wishing to pick afight with Hatti, Adad-nirari had made peaceful
overtures to Urhi-Teshub, and been rebuffed. Now Hattusili,
seeking to distance himself from his nephew’s regime, sought to
establish friendly ties with Adad-nirari, firstly by getting the
Assyrian to acknowledge him as the legitimate king of Hatti. But
his overtures to Adad-nirari failed, at least initially. We conclude
this from a letter Hattusili wrote to him, complaining that he had
snubbed the usurper’s coronation:
When I assumed kingship, you did not send a messenger to
me. It is the custom that when kings assume kingship, the
kings who are his equals in rank send him appropriate
greeting gifts, clothing befitting kingship, andfine oil for his
anointing. But you have not done this.^2Hattusili also had difficulties in establishing diplomatic relations
with the Babylonian king Kadashman-Enlil II, despite the fact that
the king’s father had made an alliance with Hattusili shortly before
his death.
Thus, and probably with many misgivings, the usurper felt he
had no option but to cultivate the goodwill of his former arch-
enemy Ramesses. To be acknowledged by the pharaoh as Hatti’s
rightful king would significantly add, he hoped, to his credibility
among his own subjects. But there was a major complication. Urhi-
Teshub hadfled his place of exile in Syria and taken refuge in
Egypt. Hattusili wanted him back. There was aflurry of letters
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING 189