Gaza!” And when the Hittites hurled sealed jars over the walls containing venomous snakes, one of them would be found full of grain and among this Horemheb’s message: “Hold Gaza!” In what manner Gaza was able to withstand the combined assault of Aziru’s men and the Hittites is more than I can understand, but the irascible garrison commander, who had seen me hoisted up the walls in a basket, well deserved the renown he won by holding Gaza for Egypt.
Horemheb marched his forces rapidly to Tanis, where he surrounded and cut off a Hittite chariot squadron that had halted in the bight of the river. Under cover of darkness he set his men to digging out the dried-up irrigation canals so that the rising river filled them. In the morning the Hittites discovered that they were trapped on an island and began to slaughter their horses and destroy their chariots. At this Horemheb flew into a rage. His purpose had been to capture these unharmed. He sounded the horns and attacked. The raw Egyptian troops won an easy victory and cut down the enemy, who had alighted and fought on foot. In this way Horemheb captured a hundred chariots or more and above two hundred horses. The victory was more important than the capture, for after it the Egyptians no longer believed the enemy to be invincible.
Marshaling chariots and horses, Horemheb drove to Tanis at their head, leaving the slower foot soldiers and the supply wagons to follow. A wild fervor blazed in his face as he said to me, “If you strike, strike first and hard!”
So saying he thundered on his way to Tanis, heedless of the Hittite hordes that roved and ravaged through the Lower Kingdom. From Tanis he continued his advance straight into the desert, overpowered the Hittite detachments that had been posted to guard the water supplies, and captured store after store. The Hittites had stacked hundreds of thousands of water jars at intervals across the desert for the use of their foot soldiers since, being no mariners, they dared not attempt the invasion of Egypt from the sea. Without sparing their horses, Horemheb and his men pressed onward. Many beasts fell exhausted during this wild advance, of which eye witnesses declared that the hundred careering chariots sent up a pillar of dust to the very skies and that their progress was like that of the whirlwind. Each night beacons were kindled on the ranges of the Sinai hills, bringing the free forces from their hiding places to destroy the Hittite guards and their supplies all over the desert. From this grew the legend that Horemheb tore across the wilderness of Sinai like a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. After this campaign his fame was so illustrious that the people told stories of him as they tell stories of the gods.
Horemheb took the enemy entirely by surprise. With their knowledge of Egypt’s weakness they could not conceive how he dared to attack across the desert while their troops were harrying the Lower Kingdom. Their main forces were scattered among the cities and villages of Syria in the expectation of Gaza’s surrender, because the regions thereabout could not support the colossal army the Hittites had assembled in Syria for the conquest of Egypt. They were exceedingly thorough in their warfare and never attacked until they had assured themselves of their superiority. Their commanders had noted on their clay tablets every grazing ground, every watering place, and every village in the area they intended to attack. Because of these preparations they had postponed their invasion and were thunderstruck at Horemheb’s move, partly because never yet had anyone dared assail them first and partly because they had not believed that Egypt possessed chariots enough for so great an enterprise.
Horemheb’s purpose had been at most to destroy the Hittite water store in the desert, to gain time for the ordered training and equipment of his men. But his amazing success intoxicated him; he whirled on like the wind to Gaza, fell on the besiegers in their rear and scattered them, destroyed their engines of war and set their camps on fire. Yet he could not go into the city. When the besiegers saw how few were his chariots, they rallied and counterattacked. He would have been lost had these troops had chariots also. As it was he was able to withdraw into the desert, having destroyed the water stores on the fringe of it before the infuriated Hittites could call up chariots enough to pursue him.
Horemheb rightly augured from this that his falcon was with him.
Remembering the burning tree he had once seen among the Sinai hills, he sent word to his javelin throwers and archers, ordering them to advance in forced marches across the desert along one of the roads constructed by the Hittites, where stood hundreds of thousands of earthenware jars containing water enough to supply a large body of foot soldiers. His purpose now was to fight in the desert, although the ground was better suited to chariot warfare. I think he had no choice, for after his flight from the Hittites his men and horses were so exhausted that they could hardly have reached the Lower Kingdom alive. Therefore he summoned his whole army into the desert, which was an act without precedent.
I got this account of Horemheb’s first attack on the Hittites from him and from his men; I was not with him. If I had been, I should assuredly never have lived to write this. It fell to me to survey the traces of the struggle from my carrying chair as I followed the foot regiments on their forced marches through the scorching dust, beneath the glare of the pitiless sun.
When we had toiled across the wilderness for two weeks, which, despite the plentiful supplies of water, were exhausting enough, we saw one night a pillar of fire rising from a hill beyond the desert and knew that Horemheb awaited us there with his chariots. This night has stayed in my memory, because I could not sleep. Darkness brings chill to the desert after the burning day, and men who have marched barefoot through sand and prickly plants for weeks cry out in their sleep and groan as if tormented by demons. It is for this reason no doubt that men believe the desert to be full of such beings. At dawn the horns rang out, and the march continued, although ever more men sank down unable to rise. Horemheb’s beacon called us, and from every quarter of the desert small groups of ragged, sun-blackened robbers and guerrilla fighters hurried toward the fiery signal.
If our troops hoped for time to rest when they arrived at Horemheb’s camp, they were to be sorely disappointed. If they believed he might commend them for their rapid march and for having worn the skin from their feet in the sand, they were indeed deluded. He received us with rage in his face; his eyes were bloodshot with weariness.
Swinging the golden whip, which was flecked with blood and dust, he said to us, “Where have you been loitering, dung beetles? Where have you skulked, you devils’ spawn? Truly I should rejoice to see your skulls whiten in the sand tomorrow; I am so filled with shame at the sight of you! You creep to me like tortoises; you smellof sweat and filth so that I am compelled to hold my nose, while my best men bleed from countless wounds and my noble horses pant their last. Dig now, you men of Egypt, dig for your lives! This is work most fitting for you who have dug all your lives in the mud.”
The raw warriors of Egypt were in no way resentful of his words but rejoiced at them and repeated them laughing to one another, having found protection from the terrifying wilderness in the mere presence of Horemheb. They forgot their flayed soles and parched tongues and began at his direction to dig deep trenches in the ground, to drive stakes between stones, to stretch rush ropes between these stakes, and to roll and drag huge stones down the slopes of the hills.
Horemheb’s weary charioteers crept out from their crannies and tents and limped up to display their wounds and boast of their prowess. Of the two thousand five hundred who had set out there remained not five hundred fit men.
The greater part of the army arrived at Horemheb’s encampment that day in an unbroken stream. Each man was sent immediately to dig trenches and build barricades, to keep the Hittites from the desert. He sent word to those exhausted troops that had not yet arrived that all must reach the fortified position in the course of that night. Any left in the desert at daybreak would die a fearful death at the hands of the enemy, should the chariots of these break through.
The courage of the Egyptians was notably strengthened at the sight of their own numbers in that empty wilderness, and they placed blind trust in Horemheb, confident that he would save them from the Hittites. But as they were building their barricades, stretching their ropes and rolling their rocks, they beheld the enemy approaching in a cloud of dust. With white faces and wavering glances they looked about them, in great dread of the chariots and their hideous scythes.
Night was drawing on, and the Hittites would not attack before they had surveyed the terrain or estimated the strength of their adversary. They pitched camp, tended their horses, and kindled fires. When darkness fell, the fringe of the desert was spangled with fires as far as the eye could see. All night long their scouts drove up to the barricades in light chariots, slaying guards and skirmishing along the whole front. Cut on either flank, where no barricades could be built, the ruffians of the free forces surprised the Hittites and captured their chariots and horses.
The night was loud with the thunder of wheels, the shrieks of the dying, the whine of arrows, and the clash of
