lso when called upon to transfer a considerable part of
their revenue to his treasury. They found, moreover, among their own
cities and kinsfolk, those who were adverse to the foreign yoke, and
secretly urged their countrymen to revolt, or else competitors for the
throne who took advantage of the popular discontent to pose as champions
of national independence, and it was difficult for the vassal prince to
counteract the intrigues of these adversaries without openly declaring
himself hostile to his foreign master.**

* Among the Tel el-Amarna tablets there is a letter of a
petty Syrian king, Adadnirari, whose father was enthroned
after a fashion in Nukhassi by Thutmosis III.

** Thus, in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, Zimrida,
governor of Sidon, gives information to Amenothes III. on
the intrigues which the notables of the town were concocting
against Egyptian authority. Ribaddu relates in one of these
despatches that the notables of Byblos and the women of his
harem were urging him to revolt; later, a letter of Amunira
to the King of Egypt informs us that Ribaddu had been driven
from Byblos by his own brother.

A time quickly came when a vestige of fear alone constrained them to
conceal their wish for liberty; the most trivial incident then sufficed
to give them the necessary encouragement, and decided them to throw
off the mask, a repulse or the report of a repulse suffered by the
Egyptians, the news of a popular rising in some neighbouring state, the
passing visit of a Chaldaean emissary who left behind him the hope
of support and perhaps of subsidies from Babylon, and the unexpected
arrival of a troop of mercenaries whose services might be hired for
the occasion.* A rising of this sort usually brought about the most
disastrous results. The native prince or the town itself could keep back
the tribute and own allegiance to no one during the few months required
to convince Pharaoh of their defection and to allow him to prepare the
necessary means of vengeance; the advent of the Egyptians followed, and
the work of repression was systematically set in hand. They destroyed
the harvests, whether green or ready for the sickle, they cut down the
palms and olive trees, they tore up the vines, seized on the flocks,
dismantled the strongholds, and took the inhabitants prisoners.**

* Burnaburiash, King of Babylon, speaks of Syrian agents who
had come to ask