The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

He captured also Cretan warships and convinced their crews to serve Egypt since Cretan warships were now scattered about the sea and were cruising from port to port, unwilling to return back to Crete, unaware as to what was going on there. It was said that insurrection had broken out amongst the slaves in Crete and that the city of the nobles upon the hill had been blazing like a torch for weeks already and this sight could be seen far out from sea. Yet no one had any sure report of the situation in Crete, and the Cretan seamen lied as was their custom, so that no one believed their stories. So some claimed that the Hittites had invaded Crete, although how this could have happened when the Hittites were not a seafaring nation is hard to understand. Others maintained that an unknown white race from the north had sailed there to lay waste and plunder Crete, vanquishing its navy when its main part had been guarding the sea routes off the Syrian coast. But consistently all Cretans declared that all the calamities had come about because the god of Crete was dead. For this reason, they were glad to take service of Egypt but those who had sailed to Syria were employed by Aziru and the Hittites.

All this was much to Horemheb’s advantage, for great chaos prevailed at sea, where it was all against all in the scramble for ships. Also rebellion had broken out in Tyre against Aziru, and surviving rebels had made their escape in ships to Egypt, where they enrolled under Horemheb. Thus Horemheb was able to muster a fleet and fit it out for war with experienced crews — but what was the cost of all of this, I don’t even try to calculate since building and fitting warships is more expensive and requires more gold than any war on land.

While all this was unfolding, Gaza still held its own in Syria, and when the harvest was in and the flood began to rise, Horemheb set forth from Memphis with his troops. He sent forward messengers to Gaza by sea and land, penetrating the lines of besiegers, and a vessel that sailed into Gaza harbour under the cover of night, laden with sacks of grain, carried Horemheb’s message: “Hold Gaza! Hold Gaza at any price!” While battering rams thundered at the gates of Gaza and the roofs of buildings blazed because no one had time to extinguish the fires, an arrow here and there came swooshing in with the message, “Horemheb commands you: hold Gaza.” And when the Hittites hurled sealed jars over the walls containing venomous snakes, one of them would break and be found full of grain and among this Horemheb’s message, “Hold Gaza!” In what manner Gaza was able to withstand the combined assault of Aziru’s men and the Hittites, is more than I can understand, but the brooding garrison commander, who had seen me shamefully hoisted up the walls in a basket, well deserved the renown he won by holding Gaza for Egypt.

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When the flood started rising, Horemheb left Memphis and let his troops march rapidly towards Tanis and cut off a Hittite chariot squadron that had halted in the bight of the river, where the Hittites were grazing their horses thinking that the river would protect them from surprises on three sides. But under the cover of darkness, Horemheb’s men dug out deeper the irrigation ditches that were dried up during summer so that the rising river filled the ditches. In the morning, the Hittites discovered that they were trapped on an island, surrounded by water on all sides, so that their chariots were powerless. Realising this, they began to destroy their chariots and slaughter their horses, and seeing this, Horemheb flew into a rage, for his sole purpose had been to capture the chariots and horses unharmed. Therefore he sounded the horns and attacked against the Hittites, and the untrained Egyptian troops won an easy victory, cutting down the Hittites, who had alighted and fought on foot. In this way, Horemheb captured a hundred chariots or more and over two hundred horses, and he let the chariots be quickly painted with Egyptian emblems and brand the horses with the brand of Egyptian war horses. But the victory was more important than the capture, for after it, the Egyptians no longer believed the Hittites to be invincible.

Following the battle, Horemheb gathered all chariots and horses and drove to Tanis at their head, leaving the slower infantry and the supply wagons to follow behind. A wild fervour blazed upon his face as he said to me, “If you plan to strike, strike first and hard.” So he thundered with his chariots to Tanis, heedless of the Hittite hordes that plundered the Lower Kingdom, and from Tanis he continued his advance straight into the desert, overpowering the Hittite detachments that had been posted to guard the water jar stores — and he captured water store after water store within the desert. The Hittites had stacked hundreds of thousands of water jars across the desert for the use of their

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