In all probability there is one thing that will be considered as noteworthy, and that is, that as far as our records go, there is no reference whatever to any expedition to the West-land, and if that be due simply to the imperfection of the records which have come down to us, all that can be said is, that it is a noteworthy coincidence.(46) It must not be supposed, however, that it in any wise invalidates the trustworthiness of the narrative in the 14th chapter of Genesis--there is plenty of room in the mutilated list (of which I have given such a translation as is possible) for a date referring to this to have been recorded, though we must keep in mind the possibility, that if the Babylonian king considered that disaster had in any way overtaken his arms, he may not have recorded it at all. Then there is the fact, that the expedition was undertaken in conjunction with allies--Chedorlaomer, Tidal, and Arioch--for none of whom, in all probability, Hammurabi had any sympathy. The Elamite was a conqueror from a land over which the Babylonians of earlier ages had held sway, and Arioch had dominion over a neighbouring tract, to which Hammurabi himself laid claim, and over which, as the texts above translated show, he afterwards ruled. Hammurabi, moreover, claimed also the West-land--_mât Amurri_, the land of Amurru--as his hereditary possession, and he found himself obliged to aid Chedorlaomer, Tidal, and Arioch to subjugate it--indeed, it was Chedorlaomer whom the five kings had acknowledged for twelve years as their overlord, and against whom, in the thirteenth, they rebelled. It is, therefore, likely that Hammurabi regarded himself as having been forced by circumstances to aid Chedorlaomer to reconquer what really belonged to Babylonia, and the probability that he would cause it to be used as one of the events to date by, is on that account still less, even if the news of any success which he might have considered himself entitled to reached his own domain in time to be utilized for such a purpose.
It has been shown on p. 155 that Ammi-titana, the third in succession from Hammurabi, claimed the sovereignty of the land of Amurru, and from an inscription accompanying a portrait of Hammurabi discovered by Mr. Rassam, we learn that he, too, claimed sovereignty over it. Sargon of Agadé held sway over the tract centuries before, so that he probably reckoned that, by right of inheritance, it was his. It would therefore be natural that he should omit to mention as an event to be remembered, an expedition to a country which ought never to have thrown off his dominion.