Episode 78 – Hittite 11 Foreigners and Vassals of Hatti

Things are tough for the Hittite Empire. The vassals who promise to be loyal keep being disloyal, the enemies who promise to attack keep attacking, and we can’t even know for certain what the logistical situation looked like, though it was surely quite grim, given the number of folks who appear unwilling to show up to work when called on. That said, the Tudhaliya and Arnuwanda tag team is the rocky beginning of the uphill climb for the Hittite empire, and things are going to end up still uncertain, but certainly moving in the right direction.

For those who like maps, which includes me, Hittites.info has another good one. I am going to stick a little before and after, making this sort of the opposite of a weight loss advertisement:

This is the before, circa 1450 BCE

And here is the after, approximately the reign of Arnuwanda. Not a bad improvement?

And for those interested in obsessive levels of detail about these instructions texts, here is the promised link to the Lord of the Towers: https://web.archive.org/web/20071007141748/http://www.hittites.info/translations.aspx?text=translations/adminInstruction%2fAWARIYAS.html