ns, with his troops
marshalled in exact and orderly array, the Hittite chariots in front
with their lines carefully dressed, and the auxiliaries and irregulars
on the flanks and rear. Of the four divisions of the Egyptian army, one
seems to have been absent, probably acting as a rear-guard; Ramesses,
with one, marched down the left bank of the stream, while the two
remaining divisions proceeded along the right bank, a slight interval
separating them. Khitasir commenced the fight by a flank movement to the
left, which brought him into collision with the extreme Egyptian right,
"the brigade of Ra," as it was called, and enabled him to engage that
division separately. His assault was irresistible. "Foot and horse of
King Ramesses," we are told, "gave way before him," the "brigade of Ra"
was utterly routed, and either cut to pieces or driven from the field.
Ramesses, informed of this disaster, endeavoured to cross the river to
the assistance of his beaten troops; but, before he could effect his
purpose, the enemy had anticipated him, had charged through the Orontes
in two lines, and was upon him. The adverse hosts met. The chariot of
Ramesses, skilfully guided by his squire, Menna, seems to have broken
through the front line of the Hittite chariot force; but his brethren in
arms were less fortunate, and Ramesses found himself separated from his
army, behind the front line and confronted by the second line of the
hostile chariots, in a position of the greatest possible danger. Then
began that Homeric combat, which the Egyptians were never tired of
celebrating, between a single warrior on the one hand, and the host of
the Hittites, reckoned at two thousand five hundred chariots, on the
other, in which Ramesses, like Diomed or Achilles, carried death and
destruction whithersoever he turned himself. "I became like the god
Mentu," he is made to say; "I hurled the dart with my right hand, I
fought with my left hand; I was like Baal in his fury against them. I
had come upon two thousand five hundred pairs of horses; I was in the
midst of them; but they were dashed in pieces before my steeds. Not one
of them raised his hand to fight; their heart shrank within them; their
limbs gave way, they could not hurl the dart, nor had they strength to
thrust with the spear. As crocodiles fall into the water, so I made them
fall; they tumbled headlong one over another. I killed them at my
pleasure, so that not one of them looked back behind him,