wealth of
Naharaim would once more flow into Thebes as of old. Their illusion
was short-lived, for this initial victory was followed by no other.
Maurusaru, King of the Khati, and subsequently his son Mautallu,
withstood the Pharaoh with such resolution that he was forced to treat
with them. A new alliance was concluded on the same conditions as the
old one, and the boundaries of the two kingdoms remained the same as
under Harmhabi, a proof that neither sovereign had gained any advantage
over his rival. Hence the campaign did not in any way restore Egyptian
supremacy, as had been hoped at the moment; it merely served to
strengthen her authority in those provinces which the Khati had failed
to take from Egypt. The Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon had too many
commercial interests on the banks of the Nile to dream of breaking
the slender tie which held them to the Pharaoh, since independence,
or submission to another sovereign, might have ruined their trade. The
Kharu and the Bedawin, vanquished wherever they had ventured to oppose
the Pharaoh's troops, were less than ever capable of throwing off the
Egyptian yoke. Syria fell back into its former state. The local princes
once more resumed their intrigues and quarrels, varied at intervals by
appeals to their suzerain for justice or succour. The "Royal Messengers"
appeared from time to time with their escorts of archers and chariots
to claim tribute, levy taxes, to make peace between quarrelsome vassals,
or, if the case required it, to supersede some insubordinate chief by a
governor of undoubted loyalty; in fine, the entire administration of the
empire was a continuation of that of the preceding century. The peoples
of Kush meanwhile had remained quiet during the campaign in Syria, and
on the western frontier the Tihonu had suffered so severe a defeat that
they were not likely to recover from it for some time.* The bands of
pirates, Shardana and others, who infested the Delta, were hunted down,
and the prisoners taken from among them were incorporated into the royal
guard.**

* This war is represented at Karnak, and Ramses II. figures
there among the children of Seti I.

** We gather this from passages in the inscriptions from the
year V. onwards, in which Ramses II. boasts that he has a
number of Shardana prisoners in his guard; Rouge was,
perhaps, mistaken in magnifying these piratical raids into a
war of invasion.

[Illustration: 166.