* We find in the _Annals_, in addition to the enumeration of the tributes, the mention of the foraging arrangements which the chiefs were compelled to make for the army on its passage. We find among the tablets letters from Aziru denouncing the intrigues of the Khâti; letters also of Ribaddu pointing out the misdeeds of Abdashirti, and other communications of the same nature, which demonstrate the supervision exercised by the petty Syrian princes over each other.
** Under Thûtmosis III. we have among others Mir, or Nasi sîtû mihâtîtû, governors of the northern countries, the Thûtîi who became afterwards a hero of romance. The individuals who bore this title held a middle rank in the Egyptian hierarchy.
*** The archers--_pidâtid, pidâti, pidâte_--and the chariotry quartered in Syria are often mentioned in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence. Steindorff has recognised the term -ddû aûîtû, meaning infantry, in the word ûeû, ûiû, of the Tel el-Amarna tablets.
The officers in command had orders to interfere as little as possible in local affairs, and to leave the natives to dispute or even to fight among themselves unhindered, so long as their quarrels did not threaten the security of the Pharaoh.* It was never part of the policy of Egypt to insist on her foreign subjects keeping an unbroken peace among themselves. If, theoretically, she did not recognise the right of private warfare, she at all events tolerated its practice. It mattered little to her whether some particular province passed out of the possession of a certain Eibaddû into that of a certain Azîru, or _vice versa_, so long as both Eibaddû and Azîru remained her faithful slaves. She never sought to repress their incessant quarrelling until such time as it threatened to take the form of an insurrection against her own power. Then alone did she throw off her neutrality; taking the side of one or other of the dissentients, she would grant him, as a pledge of help, ten, twenty, thirty, or even more archers.
* A half at least of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence treats of provincial wars between the kings of towns and countries subject to Egypt--wars of Abdashirti and his son Azîru against the cities of the Phoenician coast, wars of Abdikhiba, or Abdi-Tabba, King of Jerusalem, against the chiefs of the neighbouring cities.