In this concluding chapter we shall endeavour to relate the material evidences of Hittite handiwork to the story of their doings. The monuments have been described, their disposition noted, and in some cases the materials for dating them have been defined; but the outline of Hittite history as sketched in the second chapter remains to be filled in with such details as can be gleaned from the literary sources both old and new. The old sources are well known. They include the letters found at Tell el Amarna,[709] the decorative scenes and inscriptions on the walls of Egyptian temples,[710] and the archives of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings. In our use of these we must rely on the published translations and critical discussions of philologists,[711] which we can do with more reliance in that this branch of investigation is associated with such names as Maspero, Meyer, Müller, Sayce, Winckler, Hommel, Knudtzon, Reinach. The new sources are the archives of the Hatti kings, the first dynasty of the Hittites yet visible to history, discovered recently amid the ruins of their capital at Boghaz-Keui.[712] These documents are at the beginning contemporary with the Tell el Amarna letters, which they supplement and substantiate, and they range in date practically as far as the Egyptian references, by the side of which they provide a series of important synchronisms. These new archives have not yet been published in full, so that we do not reap the advantage of others’ criticisms in this case. But Dr. Winckler has given the world the first fruits of his labours,[713] which embody the materials for many long-lost pages of oriental history. These we have endeavoured to analyse, for they are difficult and obscurely put forward, and we shall express them in what appears to us to be their historical sequence and relationship.

As usual, however, in these investigations, the purely archæological evidences throw light on the settlement of the Hittites long before the earliest literary allusions. The mound of Sakje-Geuzi,[714] at the southern foot of Taurus, illustrates the development of local culture during a continuous occupation of the site throughout a period which is not overestimated as beginning before 3000 B.C. and lasting down to the time of Assyrian domination. We have already seen that the earliest settlers shared some features of their neolithic culture in common with Susa on the one hand and the Troad and even Crete on the other.[715] Was all western Asia and the Ægean infused with a common germ of civilisation in those days, or was this settlement in remote antiquity an incident in a migration from one point to the other? Unfortunately we have no collateral evidence as to the plateau of Asia Minor to help in answering these questions; yet if the Hittite culture had taken root in the north of Syria before the second millennium B.C., it may readily be believed that it had been planted equally long upon the tableland, where in historic times its chief power is found. The high standard of Hittite culture, as revealed by their own archives and monuments at the dawn of their history in the fourteenth century B.C., argues in itself a long period of settlement and development under civilised conditions; while a long contact with the culture of the Euphrates valley is indicated also by the fact that their earliest international correspondence was conducted in the Assyro-Babylonian language, while their scribes had sufficient intimacy with the cuneiform system of writing to be able to apply it to their own language, which was radically different. The great deities of the Hittite pantheon also have their prototypes in Babylonia.

Of what stock, then, were these early settlers, and whence did they come? Did they form part of a great migration from the East, like the Turks in modern history, according to an old school of thought? were they Semitic? or did they pass like the Phrygian conquerors, from Europe into Asia, absorbing and adopting Eastern thought and habits, a veritable mirage orientale? That the Hittites were not autochthonous, if such a term has any meaning, is apparent already, and will become more clear as we proceed, from the complexity of their pantheon and the mingled elements of their peoples. We must from the outset beware also of the pitfall of inconsistent terminology. The name Hittite is commonly employed in three senses which we must distinguish: it may be used in reference to the whole confederacy of peoples as depicted in the Egyptian scenes, or to the smaller and more homogeneous band of Hittite tribes, or to the dominant tribe of Hatti within the Halys, which seems to have given its name in antiquity to the whole. The Egyptian artists indeed recognised the mixed character of the confederates in their day, and noted some of their peculiarities, but did not distinguish between them with sufficient clearness or consistency for our purpose. Two types which we reproduce[716] will serve to illustrate the wide difference of racial character among the Hittite allies obvious to the Egyptians in the time of Rameses the Great. The one is Mongoloid, characterised by a definite pigtail,[717] oblique eyes, high cheek-bones; in short, a recognisable Tartar type. We are inclined to place it in the vicinity of Carchemish, if not beyond the Euphrates, upon the main trade route with the East. The other is a clean-cut proto-Greek type, with a special form of shield, which we are tempted to assign to Lydia or some part of western Asia Minor. The Amorites, an Aramæan (Semitic) people, are also conspicuous among the allies of these times, being distinguished by a projecting beard, receding forehead, and other features.[718] These vast differences among the peoples united under the Hatti leadership in the thirteenth century B.C. are now explained historically, as will become evident later in this chapter. They reveal to us a population of the Hittite lands no less mixed than that of Turkey in Asia to-day. They do not, however, throw any light upon the question of the original race of the Hittite tribes. These are commonly identified with another type with a long head, long nose, and receding forehead, deep-set eyes somewhat obliquely placed, and yellow, wrinkled skin. A sharp, firm line runs down from beside the nostril on either side of the lips.[719] On the walls of the Ramesseum, where it is best seen, this type is associated with Aleppo, and we must recognise in it an element of the Hittite peoples; but on comparing it with the Hittite sculptures of Sinjerli, Boghaz-Keui, and elsewhere, we must regard it as still hypothetical whether even the central Hittite states were strictly homogeneous in race. The Hatti themselves, indeed, we look on as a dominant conquering element, differing again, maybe, considerably from other Hittite peoples[720] in a manner best explained by considering the dominance of the Seljûks or the Osmanlis in later times, or most analogous perhaps to the position of the Phrygian rulers in antiquity amongst other peoples of kindred race who had preceded them.

Though we fail to identify the Hittite race,[721] there is some general indication of the direction whence they came. We have dismissed the direct evidence of the pigtailed element amongst the Hittite peoples, in spite of the temptation of the pigtails on the sculptures of Boghaz-Keui,[722] and the description of a pigtailed leader as a royal Hittite, lest we should push the argument there—from further than might be warranted. We may regard these facts, however, as a general indication of relationship with the East. The contact with Babylonia has been already argued, and we must recall the singular relations between the painted pottery of Sakje-Geuzi with that of Turkestan, extending over a long range of post-neolithic culture.[723] Another link, not previously mentioned, is the early employment by the Hittites of the horse, dating from at least the beginning of the second millennium B.C.,[724] and the antiquity of the remains of horses found equally in the mounds of Turkestan.[725] Another item of evidence on this question may be found in the footgear of the Hittites, which, except in the later sculptures of North Syria, is always represented, as we have seen, as a shoe or boot with upturned toe.[726] This feature is now specially characteristic of the Tartar peoples, and hence another eastward connection is suggested. But it is not so exclusively; the Arabs (who borrowed it in the Middle Ages from the Turks) employ it in the desert sands, and in the more special form in question it may be found in many mountain countries, for example Greece, and it has long been used in Crete. It is commonly supposed to be the natural form of snow-shoe for highland regions, though the shepherds of the Pyrenees, who also use it, believe it to be specially adapted to walking upon broken and stony ground. However that may be, most scholars are agreed that it argues a mountain origin for its Hittite wearers,[727] and this suggestion is borne out by the mountain cults found in the Hittite pantheon.[728] The mountains by which the Hittites reached the plateau of Asia Minor are not far to seek; they lie eastward, in Armenia, the Caucasus, and the Taurus.

We do not press the argument of these suggestions, but only regret the paucity of evidence available. For the present we must be content that we have been able to find some evidence as to the antiquity of the Hittite settlement. We cannot suppose that the mounds of Sakje-Geuzi stand alone: indeed a myriad others, that remain unexamined,[729] are evidence to the contrary, and considerable inference may be made with these as basis from the disposition of the Hittite tribes as revealed by the first light of history. One powerful branch must have early seized the position of Carchemish, while others settled in the plains that lie westward of the Euphrates. Others again found their homes in the valleys of the Kara Su and the Orontes, while some branches passed the Lebanon and mingled with the aboriginal people of southern Syria, where they were gradually submerged. If we are right in our argument, the habitable valleys of the Taurus and anti-Taurus regions must have been earlier peopled; and to judge from the relationship we have indicated, the western extension of these tribes in Asia Minor must have been considerable even as early as neolithic times. Whether the Hatti rulers themselves were part of a later immigration is still open to consideration; upon that point we await further evidence. The Hittites would seem to have brought with them (sooner or later) a new cycle of deities, with Babylonian prototypes, including their national Sandes or Sandan, lord of heaven, a god of the skies with lightning in his hand, in one of his various forms; and they seem to have absorbed into their pantheon a number of acceptable nature-cults, like the worship of mountains and streams and of the mother-goddess of earth, already practised by an earlier population whom they overlaid. The sun-god they seem to have received from contact with the Semite, and to have identified him with their own chief god. With regard to other aspects of their primitive culture, we can argue from the one site of Sakje-Geuzi alone, and from the reflected witness of later times. There is only one general assumption, therefore, that we make, that once settled in a metal-producing country, in contact with the rich mines of the Caucasus,[730] and the copper sources in Cyprus and the Taurus, their civilisation would share to the full in the stimulus of the copper and bronze ages as these arose. It is at the latter stage that they emerge into the full light of history[731] in the fourteenth century B.C.

The earliest allusions to the Hittites, however, in oriental records take us back to the period of the great movements in western Asia some five or six centuries before. These references are naturally scanty, but they occur in the records of three different peoples, and are in a sense parallel to one another, so that the main facts bear the stamp of historical accuracy. From the Babylonian archives it appears that about 1800 B.C., or before, the Hittites were chiefly responsible for the overthrow of the first dynasty that ruled at Babylon;[732] while of even earlier date in the same dynasty are references to the king of the Hittites and his doings, contained in the great Babylonian work on astrology,[733] and there is an allusion of possibly much older date.[734] The mention of the Hittites at the beginning of the second millennium is almost synchronous with the earliest dated reference from Egyptian sources, in an inscription of the twelfth dynasty,[735] from which it would appear that settlements of the Hittites had been established in southern Syria, and that these were among the objectives of a military expedition. The historical setting of this record is apparent, and it is confirmed and amplified by the references in Hebrew history, which claim our consideration no less than the inscriptions carved by loyal subjects of the Pharaoh. These passages show us that in local tradition of the time of the Patriarchs the Hittite settlements were no matter for special comment.[736] On the other hand, their name was practically synonymous with that of Canaanites,[737] and, like the Amorites, they were long looked upon as one of the settled peoples of the land.[738] For some centuries, however, we are without dated records, nor is there any direct evidence as to the history and doings of the Hittites until the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. One thing, however, is clear, that the ‘Hyksos’ peoples who overran Egypt in the meanwhile were deeply imbued with the elements of a culture which, if not purely Hittite nor directly traceable to them at this date, was still largely shared by the Hittites in historic times.[739] The people that had overthrown the dynasty of Babylon was clearly an established power already organised.

Though the earliest kings[740] and dynasties of the Hittites remain unknown, the nature of the Hittite organisation in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. is now made clear by the archives recently discovered at Boghaz-Keui. These cover the reigns of six generations of the Hatti dynasty of kings, making allusion in all to eight of their sovereigns. They include treaties with internal states in Syria and elsewhere, with Mitanni, with the Amorites, and with Egypt, most of them prefaced by historical notes of events leading up to the conclusion of the treaty in question. There is also correspondence of a diplomatic character with the courts of Thebes, of Babylonia and of Mitanni, and other documents of varied sorts. These are written in cuneiform, and the language employed in foreign affairs is the Assyro-Babylonian: only in some internal matters the Hittite language is used. Though the documents have not yet disclosed the full nature of their contents, the archives as a whole[741] have already thrown as much light upon the history of the Hittites at this period as did the Tell el Amarna tablets, with which they are in part contemporary, on the foreign affairs of Egypt during the eighteenth dynasty.

The story opens with a bid for empire under the Hatti leadership in the person of Subbi-luliuma.[742] This ruler (known in Egyptian records as Sapalulu) had inherited only the kingship of his city-state of Kû-sar [or Sû-sar], which was possibly at Boghaz-Keui itself, from his father, Hattusil I.; but so well were his plans laid, and so accomplished his military leadership, that before his death he had won for himself the title of Great King.[743] We cannot follow the story of his doings in Asia Minor, for unfortunately the names of the places mentioned in Hittite in this and the succeeding reign cannot yet be identified; but it will be clear from what follows that his western frontiers, if not already peopled by Hittite tribes and subject to his authority, must have claimed his first attention. In other directions his policy and movements are revealed more clearly. Among his own peoples he seems to have arranged a series of alliances; other lands which he overran he parcelled out among his followers, while to some non-Hittite tribes he granted terms of vassalage.

Though we have no clear allusion to the kingdoms in the Taurus regions at this time, we may infer that the two great Hittite states of Arzawa[744] and Khali-rabbat,[745] which lay on either side of his pathway, were already allied with him in one or other of these ways, before he descended to the north of Syria, and ventured to enter the political arena of western Asia, where the older powers were stationed to resist his oncoming. The whole of Syria as far northward as Aleppo had indeed for something like a century been within the sphere of influence of the Pharaohs. It is claimed for the Egyptian monarch Thothmes I. that before the close of the sixteenth century B.C. he had set up the boundary of his empire somewhere near Carchemish on the Euphrates, in the ‘land of Naharain.’ Three of his successors by occasional expeditions, beginning with that of Thothmes III. about 1469 B.C.,[746] had sought to retain this boundary, and had come into conflict with the Hittite tribes already settled in these regions. These seem to have submitted like other northern states, nominally at any rate, to the Egyptian supremacy, and to have regularly sent their tribute to the Pharaoh. But though Amenhetep III. inherited the full power and dominion of his predecessors, he seems to have found it necessary to send an expedition at the beginning of his reign to maintain his suzerainty.

These frontier states indeed occupied at this time a position of considerable difficulty, where all the diplomacy of their chieftains was required to maintain the security of their inheritance. The reins held by the Pharaoh on his distant throne at Thebes may, it is true, have been only lightly felt: an occasional present or diplomatic letter to the court would generally secure respite from that direction; but their anxieties were not thereby ended, for in the East a nearer power claimed their allegiance also, before the arrival of the Hatti leader added to their perplexities. This power was the kingdom of Mitanni, which was firmly established in northern Mesopotamia, from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Tushratta, who now occupied the throne, represented the fourth generation of his illustrious house,[747] the authority of which had been strengthened through the foresight of his predecessors by intermarriage with the royal family of Thebes. His father’s sister had been wife of Thothmes IV., and his own sister was married to the ruling Pharaoh. He clearly realised that the continued support of Egypt would be necessary to him if he was to save his kingdom from being crushed by the increasing pressure of Assyria on the one hand and of the Hittite on the other; so that with some alacrity on his part[748] his daughter was sent to Egypt to become the wife of the heir-apparent. Propped up in this manner, the Mitannians had not only established a formidable barrier at the Euphrates against Hittite expansion eastward, but had even extended their own influence westward of that landmark, so much so that some of the princes of northern Syria first encountered by the Hittites hardly knew to whom they owed their allegiance, and were conquered as vassals of Mitanni while professing in their letters to be loyal subjects of the Pharaoh.[749]

With these two allied powers arrayed against him, Subbi-luliuma must have had confidence in the unity and valour of his forces when he crossed the Taurus to throw down the challenge. We cannot tell whether he employed any new method or weapon of war that encouraged him in his aspirations. As seen by us now, in unravelling the tangled record of his rapid movements and effective victories,[750] his successes appear to be attributable to the hardihood and mobility of his troops and to his own able generalship. As to his forces, we may assume from the absence of contrary evidence, that the whole region behind him, northwards and westwards from Marash, as well as the states round Carchemish and in the valley of the Kara Su, already acknowledged his supremacy, and united with him in this enterprise.

His first operations were thus directed against Nukhasse, a region which we suppose to have extended northwards of Aleppo as far as Killiz, including some of the ancient cities of the plain. He took all the lands of the several states[751] that were included in this district. The king, Sarrupsi, fled, but his relatives were made prisoners, and a servant of the dethroned king was set up in his stead, doubtless as a vassal. The conqueror was turning his attention to the district of Abîna, being disposed to leave Kinza unmolested, when the king of the latter district, Sutatarra, and his son Aitakama, with their war chariots, bore down upon him and gave battle. Though he had been prepared to respect these adversaries, Subbi-luliuma was not slow to respond to and punish this provocation: the king and his son, together with many of the chiefs, were taken prisoners and sent in triumph to the capital. The fate of Sutatarra is unknown, but Aitakama reappeared later, reinstated in his kingdom, and a faithful ally of the Hittite, who entrusted him with the command of the Syrian armies.[752] The land of Kinza is unplaced, but it seems to have lain westward, possibly on the lower Orontes, corresponding with the district of Hamath or the kingdom of the Hattina in later times. It was probably peopled with a Hittite tribe, to judge from the nature of these chieftains’ names and the position subsequently accorded to Aitakama. Realising in these incidents the constant influence of Mitanni, and attributing them to the hostile attitude of Tushratta, Subbi-luliuma now deemed it desirable to establish his prestige, and so turned eastward, ready, if necessary, to join issue with Tushratta. In a single year he added to his territory the whole region of the plains lying between the mountains and the Euphrates.[753] In this campaign he seems to have overrun the Aramæan district of Am (or Amma), and with the aid of his allies to have captured several cities.[754] But the real objective of the Hittite leader was the destruction of the Mitannian supremacy and power. Therefore crossing the Euphrates[755] he ‘went forth against the might of the king Tushratta,’ and marched against the lands of Isuwa, which are supposed to have bordered on the Tigris, bringing its people into subjection, as it would appear his father had done in some previous campaign hitherto unrecorded.[756] This record is difficult to understand, but we are led to infer that Tushratta did not actually give battle to him on this expedition, and even when the conqueror made his way northwards into the mountainous region of Alshe, the Mitannian king still hesitated to join issue with him.[757] The newly acquired territory was handed over to a confederate, Antaraki, ‘as a present.’

The power of Tushratta would seem, indeed, to have been crushed by these irresistible exploits;[758] the kingdom fell into anarchy, and the king himself was shortly afterwards murdered, giving the Hittite a further occasion for interference in its affairs, an opportunity which we shall find he was not slow to seize. Meanwhile, however, disaffection had shown itself in the North of Syria, seemingly as a result of the overtures of Pharaoh’s emissaries.[759] ‘Wheeling about,’ the record says,[760] Subbi-luliuma recrossed the Euphrates and descended on Aleppo. His route lay probably from Malatia by way of Samsat or Marash, and the absence of comment at this stage confirms our impression that this region was already subject to him, though there is a suggestion that a generation previously it had been for a time in the hands of the Mitannians.[761] The subjection of Aleppo[762] and the neighbouring lands and cities of Nî and Katna[763] was swiftly effected, and at first these districts were placed under the rule of one Akia, king of Arakhti; but on the disaffection of this chief they were reduced to direct government by Hittite officials and became a province of the kingdom. A chieftain who remained loyal to Egypt made an effort about this time to recover the land of Am for the Pharaoh, but he was repulsed by Aitakama with the Hatti.[764] Aitakama thus reappears on the scene, and from the same record it is clear that he had been reinstated in his father’s kingdom. He now appears as the most influential agent of the Hittite king in the north of Syria, entrusted with the conduct of missions and command of troops, even while protesting to the Pharaoh[765] that he was maligned by those who accused him of infidelity. His attempts to seduce the frontier states from their old allegiance had been reported to the Pharaoh by Akizzi,[766] who wrote from Katna, apparently on the eve of the events we have just recorded, appealing at the same time in despair for help against the catastrophe that threatened. To Aitakama’s proposals Akizzi replied that though he should die he would not go over to the king of the Hatti. With him there remained faithful the kings of Nukhasse, of Nî, of Zinzar, and of Tunanat, all city-states near Aleppo, while with the Hittite there were leagued the kings of Rukhizi and Lapana, whose names were Arzawia and Teuwatti. We have seen that Akizzi’s appeal and his fidelity were alike in vain. The Pharaoh was powerless or unwilling to interpose; resistance unsupported was impossible; and Subbi-luliuma with his generals easily made good his victories. Akizzi himself seems to have escaped from Katna before that city fell,[767] but the king of Nî, by name Takua,[768] and his brother Aki-tessub were among the prisoners.

The triumph of the Hittite arms in these, and doubtless other minor expeditions, had now established the authority of the Hittite king throughout the region of northern Syria, and had extended his frontier until it bordered on that of the Amorites, hitherto professed allies of the Pharaoh. These early settlers have recently been recognised as of Aramaic (Semitic) stock; in records of Babylonia as old as the time of Hammurabi, from which this inference is made, they are described as living in the western deserts, and now appear to have pushed gradually northward, until they had occupied, like Bedouin, all the habitable fringe of the tongue of desert lying between Mesopotamia and the Lebanon. Their patriarch, Ebed-Asherah, now found himself in the same dilemma as Aitakama and other northern chieftains had before him, but the rapid advance of the Hittite power left him little time for hesitation.[769] He and his sons were the recognised leaders of the Amorite tribes in peace and policy and war. They had watched with anxiety the approach of the Hittite leader on Tunip from Nukhasse,[770] and the failure of the Pharaoh to send them support could not but have added to their concern. Quick by instinct to read the signs of the times, they covertly came to an understanding with the chief of Kadesh, a city already under the Hittite suzerainty, if not actually within the domain of Aitakama. At the same time Aziru, the most active of the sons of Ebed-Asherah, making pretence of still serving his old master, cast his eye upon the city of Sumur as his nearest prize. The change of attitude and subtle dealings of the Amorites did not escape the notice of the Pharaoh’s emissary, who reported Sumur to be in great danger though not yet fallen, and Ebed-Asherah’s sons as minions of the new northern power.[771] The Egyptian sovereign was grieved but inactive. In a letter addressed to the Amorite chief[772] he charged them with their duplicity, and ordered the appearance of Aziru as a hostage at his court. The latter, however, evaded the command. He would seem to have already brought about the downfall of Sumur and other cities, and felt some natural hesitation in accepting his sovereign’s invitation. He found also a pretext for postponing the rebuilding of Sumur as commanded,[773] and still protested his fidelity. In response, however, to a more peremptory summons, in spite of shifts and subterfuges, Aziru appeared ultimately at Thebes[774] for the judgment of his case. But the Amorites had influence at court, as appears from a letter of their patriarch to one of the officials asking for his son’s release.[775] Amon ‘passed sentence’ on Aziru and ‘granted him his life.’[776] The mercy extended to Aziru, however, was unavailing; and further allegiance to the Pharaoh could only have proved fatal to the best interests of his people. The Hittite cause was clearly triumphing, indeed the Egyptian made no apparent effort to resist his oncoming; in any case the Amorite hastened to take the winning side. Betaking himself to the Hittite, Aziru ‘cast himself under the feet of Subbi-luliuma,’ who ‘granted him grace.’[777] The price of the Amorite vassalage appears in another record as three hundred shekels of gold paid yearly.[778]

With the Amorites on his side it would appear that the Hittite leader might now have swept onwards to the frontiers of Egypt, but at this stage the southerly progress of the Hittite arms seems to have been stayed. Occupied probably with other campaigns of similar character for the expansion of his power in Asia Minor, Subbi-luliuma had been obliged to entrust the conduct of much of his Syrian wars to Aitagama, and possibly he found that the region of the Lebanon was a frontier already distant enough for effective control. However that may be, he found it desirable to come to terms with the Pharaoh, and concluded with him an alliance,[779] which brought their struggle for some time to an end.

Some of the events which we have described seem to have happened with a swiftness surprising even in oriental history, but the Great King probably foresaw that a sterner task lay before him in the consolidation of his empire. Here again fortune proved to be on his side, by removing the two chief sources of inquietude on his Asiatic frontiers. In Egypt, Amenhetep IV., who had succeeded to the throne about 1375 B.C., was too young or too busily occupied with home affairs to take any active interest in the possession of Syria, and was only too glad to renew the Hittite treaty in due course.[780] Babylonia, where the kings of Karduniash sat upon the throne, was too distant to give occasion for anxiety, and in addition the broad tract subject to the Amorite régime was wedged between their respective spheres of influence. In the East the tragic development of affairs among the Mitannians,[781] the murder of Tushratta, the flight of the heir-apparent from the usurper and patricide, Sutatarra, and the invasion of the land by the Assyrians and by the mountaineers of Alshe, were a series of events all favourable to the Hittite cause. The armies of Subbi-luliuma crossed the Euphrates to make good his claim to a portion of the disintegrated kingdom, and when he realised the distressful condition which the anarchy of these times had brought about, he even sent his administrators with cattle, sheep, and horses to re-establish the population.[782] Finally, when the fugitive Mattiuaza, after a vain appeal to the court of Babylon,[783] turned to him for protection, he saw and grasped his opportunity. The oracle was consulted, and ‘the Hittite god gave judgment in favour of Mattiuaza, Tushratta’s son’ (as against Sutatarra, whom he had previously supported). Taking, therefore, the unhappy prince by the hand, Subbi-luliuma gave him one of his daughters to wife, and set him upon the remnants of his father’s throne. Terms of allegiance were defined, and the new but reduced kingdom of Mitanni was created a special Protectorate.[784] The gods of both peoples were invoked as guardians of the treaty. The frontier of Subbi-luliuma on the Euphrates was amply secured by the gratitude of the re-established king.

The empire of the Hittites beyond Taurus had now reached, under Subbi-luliuma, its furthest historical extent; and in Asia Minor, though direct evidence is not yet available, we may infer that his sway had been extended westward far beyond the confines of the Halys, even if his arms had not already penetrated to the Lydian coast.[785] We thus see in Subbi-luliuma the founder of the Hittite empire under the dynasty of the Hatti, which for nearly two hundred years continued to hold its own amid the constant tremblings of the balance of oriental power throughout this time. Relieved for the present from their frontier campaigns, the Great King and his allies seem to have reaped the reward of their good fortune and prosperity. In the capital at Boghaz-Keui, ‘the city of the Hatti,’ the royal palace seems to have stood on the northern crest of Beuyuk Kaleh.[786] At Malatia, the palace of his vassal or ally, the king of Khali-rabbat (the Milid of later Assyrian records), was decorated with sculptured blocks showing the ruler and his consort as high priest and high priestess, making oblations before Sandes (the Hittite national deity), and to the winged deity who seems to have been the guardian of the tribe.[787] To the same phase of art, though not necessarily the work of this generation, we must assign the similar oblation scenes of Eyuk[788] and Fraktin[789]; in the former case, moreover, the forms of the sacred vessels are the same as those seen at Malatia. It is true that such vases may have continued in use for ceremonial purposes after their common vogue had passed; but in any case the lower buildings at Eyuk, the existence of which we have pointed out,[790] must be as old as these times; while in the rock-sculptures of Fraktin we recognise a phase of art and motive as early as that of any recorded Hittite works.

It is a singular fact that notwithstanding the great deeds of Subbi-luliuma and his successors, no sculpture of any kind has come down to perpetuate the Hittite triumphs. The Hittite monuments of Asia Minor are all of primarily religious signification. The royal palaces were decorated with religious scenes, while even the warrior deities of Giaour-Kalesi and Kara-Bel are identified with forms of the national god Sandes. The king is always spoken of as The Sun, and this fact may be reflected in the terms of address to the Pharaoh by his Syrian subjects at this time,[791] who otherwise is invariably styled the Horus. At Malatia the local king and queen are already seen as high priest and high priestess of the gods.[792] In these early suggestions we see the first traces of ideals so clear in later history, namely, priest-kingship and the high status of the woman,[793] with all the ramifications which the maintenance of these principles involved.

The nature of the Hittite constitution as a whole becomes more clear in later reigns, but we have already seen something of the nature of the kingdom and confederacy in watching the tying of its bonds. Three distinct grades of allegiance can be recognised already:[794] the allies, the vassals under tribute, and the conquered states administered by the crown. The special protectorate of Mitanni may be classed with the first of these. Each subject state would seem to have been bound to the Great King by special treaty: that with the Amorites has been already mentioned, while even the petty kingdom of Nukhasse seems to have its special firman granted when first conquered, previous to the disaffection of its chief.[795]