g by assault
such towns as were easy of capture, while passing by others which seemed
strongly defended--pillaging, burning, and slaying on every side. There
was no suspension of hostilities, no going into winter quarters, but a
triumphant return of the expedition at the end of four or five months,
with the probability of having to begin fresh operations in the
following year should the vanquished break out into revolt.*

* From the account of the campaigns of Amenothes II., I
thought we might conclude that this Pharaoh wintered in
Syria at least once; but the text does not admit of this
interpretation, and we must, therefore, for the present give
up the idea that the Pharaohs ever spent more than a few
months of the year on hostile territory.

The troops employed in these campaigns were superior to any others
hitherto put into the field. The Egyptian army, inured to war by its
long struggle with the Shepherd-kings, and kept in training since the
reign of Ahmosis by having to repulse the perpetual incursions of the
Ethiopian or Libyan barbarians, had no difficulty, in overcoming the
Syrians; not that the latter were wanting in courage or discipline,
but owing to their limited supply of recruits, and the political
disintegration of the country, they could not readily place under arms
such enormous numbers as those of the Egyptians. Egyptian military
organisation had remained practically unchanged since early times: the
army had always consisted, firstly, of the militia who held fiefs, and
were under the obligation of personal service either to the prince of
the nome or to the sovereign; secondly, of a permanent force, which was
divided into two corps, distributed respectively between the Sa'id and
the Delta. Those companies which were quartered on the frontier, or
about the king either at Thebes or at one of the royal residences, were
bound to hold themselves in readiness to muster for a campaign at any
given moment. The number of natives liable to be levied when occasion
required, by "generations," or as we should say by classes, may have
amounted to over a hundred thousand men,* but they were never all
called out, and it does not appear that the army on active service
ever contained more than thirty thousand men at a time, and probably on
ordinary occasions not much more than ten or fifteen thousand.**

* The only numbers which we know are those given by
Herodotus for the Sait