447

The Historical Background of the Trojan War.

By John L. Myres and K. T. Frost.

1. Rameses III. and the Sea-Raiders.

To give complete and accurate account of events in the Levant during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries B. C. is one of the most difficult tasks presented by ancient history. It is also one of the most fascinating; for it must include not only a summary of what is known of the peoples of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, but also a survey of the Mycenean Age, and the Late Minoan "Sea-Raiders". It is moreover the historical background of the Trojan War. It was a time of great unrest, of fierce invasions and national migrations, whose effects lasted long.

At the turn of the century, in 1200 B. C. these are the main lines of the picture. From the Adriatic Sea to the Persian Gulf a large proportion of cities and tribes were independent of any great overlord. Knossos had been overthrown for some two centuries and although partly reinhabited it no longer ruled the waves, and the Mediterranean was swept by the Late Minoan sea-rovers. Egypt was powerless abroad and decadent at home. Babylon was just driving out the Kassites who had ruled for some centuries, and as yet the new native dynasty had little influence outside1). Assyria, whose power had greatly declined since the death of Tukulti-Ninib some forty years earlier, was beginning to reassert herself but was still fully occupied in guarding her own frontiers. The empire of the Hittites was being finally overthrown by a fierce invasion of the Muski Phrygians who had crossed from Europe and were devastating Asia Minor. Further trouble was brewing in the North and pressure was felt from the Danube. The fortunes of all the great powers were at a low ebb: wars were frequent and records are scanty. Egypt alone gives us fragments of contemporary official narrative: particularly interesting in substance, it directly concerns the Homeric peoples, Achaeans, Danaans, Teukrians and the like, at the time of the traditional date of the Trojan

1) On the current reckoning; though a later date is suggested (see Lehmann-Haupt, Zwei Hauptprobleme 1898 and Klio X, 476 ff.).

War. In form, however, it is the narrative of the exploits of Rameses III. who more than any one man at that period decided the fate of the nations of the Levant.

Rameses III. ascended the throne in 1202. It was a critical time. During the closing regions of the XIX. Dynasty, Egypt, though still rich, had lost most of its power and foreign prestige and was itself in a state bordering on anarchy. Military spirit had declined and there is evidence of an antimilitary spirit in the schools, probably fostered by the Priests deliberately to weaken the Crown, whose authority depended on the Army. The Priests of Amon were working for the temporal power, which they ultimately secured; and this temporal power was necessarily gained at the expense of the crown and foreign policy. But in the year 1203 Setnekht came to the throne. He was a military chief who had married a grand-daughter of Rameses II. His reign seems to have lasted no more than a year, but during it he reorganised the army and restored order to the country; and in this task he probably associated his son Rameses with himself.

Setnekht died in 1202 and Rameses became king. He continued his father's work vigorously. His first care was to reorganise the army. He organised chariotry, archers, and different kinds of infantry, and the co-operation of these in the field goes far to explain his victories: for he realised that an efficient field-force is a complex organism, that different arms of the service have their special duties, and that in action all arms and ranks must be dominated by the commander-in-chief, to ensure the co-operation of all, and to turn an advantage to account. These principles sound very obvious and elementary, but they were seldom put into practice before the days of Philip and Alexander. In Homeric battles, which probably reflect the traditions of the Sea-Raiders against whom Rameses fought, the combatants seem to be launched at each other quite haphazard and engage in a general scrimmage; nor is there evidence that the Libyans had progressed any further than the Sea-Raiders, beyond this tribal system of fighting. Similar tactics, or absence of tactics, persist in the battles of the 5th century and recur even in the wars of the Diadochi. They are the natural mode of warfare among loosely organised levies, however brave and skilful their members may be individually. But organisation alone would have been of little use. The Sea-Raiders and their allies were formidable fighting men. Driven southwards apparently by pressure from the farther North, they had in many cases brought their families and property with them; they had staked their all on victory: behind them was the desolation they had wrought; before them, the gold and corn of Egypt. No less determined was the advance of the Libyans, tough fighters, even against modern artillery, as French and

Italians know. No purely native Egyptian army could stand against such enemies. The Egyptian is not, and never has been, a soldier by nature. Yet Egyptian troops can form a useful supplement to foreign troops in Egyptian service. Hence throughout history we find in successful Egyptian armies, a large proportion of auxiliaries European, Asiatic or Negro. Rameses III. understood this well.

He has two other reforms to his credit. The Egyptians excelled all other nations at that time in archery, and in chariotry, which took the place of the cavalry and mounted infantry among the early Mediterranean and Eastern peoples. Egyptian chariotry it should be noted resembled cavalry far more closely than did the Homeric chariot-fighting, since in Egyptian warfare we find the chariots on occasion charging in mass, whereas Homeric heroes usually dismount and fight on foot; their chariots are vehicles, not weapons. Yet the main weapon even of the Egyptian chariotry was the bow. The Egyptian foot-archers too were efficient: they used a long bow which they drew to the ear, not to the breast as was the custom of Homeric bowmen, and of most other nations till then. The bows were not as long and not nearly as strong as the English long-bow, but their light reed arrows had a considerable range and their archers were numerous and skilful. Moreover they wore defensive armour of quilted linen which seems to have afforded ample protection from the long-range missiles of the enemy. Thus the Egyptian army possessed the great initial advantage of being able to strike hard at an enemy before he could reply.

Wars, however, are not decided by missile warfare alone. Victory is won in the end by hand-to-hand fighting or the threat of it. But the Egyptian is the very opposite of a Berserker and has always had to rely on more virile nations to bear the brunt of battle. Mercenaries and allies have always been prominent in successful Egyptian armies. Just as victory depended at Omdurman on the British and Sudanese regiments, so we find that the heavy infantry of Rameses was mainly composed of foreigners. Chief of these were the Shardana, an over-sea people, probably from an Aegean coastland, some of whom seem to have joined the "People of the Sea" in the great attack on Egypt in the eighth year of Rameses. They had been employed in the foreign wars of the later XVIII dynasty, but not in those of the XIX, which represents a period of anti-foreign reaction. It is therefore some testimony to the political courage of Rameses III., as well as to his military insight, that he ventured to reinstate these corps.

Rameses' other innovation is his fleet. Egypt had made occasional use of "King's ships" in the Tell-el-Amarna period, to patrol the Syrian coast, and in the early part of the XVIII dynasty Queen Hatshepsut had

organized a great seaborne expedition to Punt, along the Red Sea. But in the Syrian campaigns of Rameses II no fleets appear. Yet for a strong foreign policy, under the conditions of the next generation, a sea-going fleet was a necessity; and Merenptah's difficulties, in his Libyan war, had been greatly increased through the want of it. But a fleet is no natural product of Egypt, an almost timberless country, and devoid of ports. Seeing then that the fleet of Rameses III., as presented to us, is no mere coast-patrol but thoroughly at home on the sea which it was designed to dominate, it is reasonable to suppose that here too, as in the land army, he turned his enemies against one another, and made use of Sea-Raider crews, if not also of oversea vessels. Just so, we find Greek fleets at a later date in Egyptian and in Persian pay.

But fleet and army, native and foreign alike, were commanded and paid by Rameses. How he raised the necessary means we do not know, but it must have been a hard struggle with the Priests.

The first attack came in his fifth year. The Libyan tribes who had recovered from their defeat by Merenptah, made a determined attempt to overrun the Delta; and they were helped by Sea-Raiders. This attack Rameses decisively defeated, strengthening his political position by the victory while he gained experience for his army and fleet. Then in his eighth year came the struggle which makes the reign of Rameses III a landmark in Mediterranean history. A great league of tribes of Asia Minor, and with them Sea-Raiders, combined to invade Egypt by land and by sea. Their strength may be measured by the record of their advance. "Not one stood before their hands; from Kheta, Kode, Carchemish, Arvad, Alasa they were wasted. They set up a camp in one place in Amor. They desolated his people and his land like that which is not. They came with fire prepared before them, forward to Egypt. Their main support was Peleset, Thekel, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh. These lands were united and they laid their hands upon the land as far as the Circle of the Earth. Their hearts were confident, full of their plans."1) So runs the inscription of Rameses himself on the north wall of his temple at Medinet Habu). None of these peoples occur in the invasion from the west, and only the Shekelesh are found earlier in a western connection. The Peleset or Pulosatu are generally recognised as Philistines, a people of Cretan traditions, eventually domiciled also in Palestine to which they give their name. Here they are said to be "in the midst of the sea". The Zakkaru seem to be the Teukroi, whose legends are localized from the Troad to Crete and from the Attic to the Cyprian Salamis; "perhaps

1) Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt IV pp. 38-39.

2) For further commentary see Petrie, A History of Egypt Vol. III p. 151.

we may see the name yet in Zakro at the eastern end of Crete.") The Denyen (Danauna) and Weshesh are both described as sea-folk. The former seem to be the Danaoi of Rhodes and Argos. The Uasha have been connected with Oaxos in Crete, with Ixid at the south end of Rhodes, with Iasos, on the mainland of Caria, or all three. Whatever the precise identification of these peoples may be, it is clear that we have record of an alliance between the powers of the Levant in the phase of culture known as Late Minoan III. We are reminded of the expeditions of Minos and the Argonauts, in the Greek tradition; of the alliance arranged at the suggestion of Odysseus between the suitors of Helen before her marriage with Menelaus; and of the leagues of Priam and Agamemnon.

The records of the land campaign have unfortunately disappeared; but as the Hittites are mentioned as having been overcome by the confederacy, we must infer that the invaders came from beyond the Hittite countries. There seems indeed no room for doubt that about the year 1194 the Egean states, the Teukrians, and other peoples of western Asia Minor, were on friendly terms and were acting together, and that it was this combined host which advanced now against Egypt, conquering and plundering as it went. The attack of 'Muski' folk on Assyria, (within a few years of this date if the common reckoning is upheld) is part of the same movement).

Rameses determined not to await attack in Egypt. So he fortified his base, blocked the river mouths to secure his communications, and marched north-eastward. The exact site of the encounter is unknown, somewhere north east of the Delta, or in Southern Palestine, not far from the coast. There the two fleets and armies met, and fought the earliest known of the Decisive Battles of the World. The records of the battle on land have perished. But there is no doubt as to the result. The Egytians were completely victorious; the Northern host was shattered, and the Egyptian army turned swiftly to the coast to help the fleet, for victory by sea over the vikings of that age was much less likely than victory by land. But the triumph of Rameses was complete. I was armed, and trapped them like wild fowl" says the king, and in inscription and reliefs he shows how this was done. The Egyptian fleet moving rapidly, surprised the Sea-Raiders in a bay, and blocked its mouth, while the army lined the shore. From all sides a storm of arrows rained in, to which the sea kings could not reply; for among the Aegean peoples archery was in small repute. Even Odysseus leaves his famous bow behind when he goes to the war, and Paris and Teukros counted for little beside Hector and Ajax. When the archers had done their work, the ships grappled. 1) Petrie l. c.

2) Annals of the kings of Assyria i. p. 35. (Cylinder of Tiglath-pileser I.)