After this the power of Egypt increased. The venerable captain of marines, Aah-mes, relates that 'Aa-kheper-ka-Rê (Thothmes I.) went against the Rutennu (Syrians) for the purpose of taking satisfaction, and marched as far as Naharaina (Upper Mesopotamia), where he found that an enemy had plotted conspiracy. On this occasion Thothmes gained many victories and took many captives. Another official mentioning the Syrian campaigns of this ruler is Pen-nekheb, who accompanied him to Naharaina. Thothmes III. also refers to his grandfather's conquest in Syria, stating that he placed another inscription where the tablet of his father 'Aa-kheper-ka-Rê was, and adds that "his majesty came to the city of Niy on his return. Then his majesty set up his tablet in Naharaina to enlarge the frontiers of Kemi," _i.e._ Egypt. Niy was in the region of Aleppo, on the Euphrates.
Thothmes II. (1516-1503, Petrie) retained those portions of Syria which his father had conquered. An expedition thither is also mentioned by Pen-nekheb, who says: "I followed the king 'A-kheper-en-Rê (Thothmes II.), the blessed one. I brought away from the land of the Shasu (Bedouin, apparently the same tribes as those to which the Hyksos or _hak shasu_ belonged) very many prisoners--I cannot reckon them.... The king 'A-kheper-en-Rê gave me two gold bracelets, six collars, three bracelets of lapis-lazuli, and a silver war-ax."
Thothmes III. (1505-1449), son of Thothmes II., had one of the longest and most glorious reigns in all Egyptian history. He was born at Thebes, and crowned when about nine years old. On the death of Hatshepsut, the queen regent, his father's first wife, who, however, was not his own mother, his warlike expeditions began, and he assembled an army on the frontier of Zalu, preparatory to an expedition against the chiefs of Southern Syria, who had rebelled. This was his twenty-second year. Next year, on his coronation-day, he found himself, after a long march, at Gaza, on the way to Carmel and Megiddo, where he defeated the assembled Syrian chiefs, and utterly routed them on the plain of Esdraelon. The allies then took refuge in the town, which was besieged, and they were obliged to capitulate. Enormous spoils from this place, as well as from the other cities of Syria, was the result. This expedition was repeated in the two following years.