This return to an aggressive policy on the part of the Egyptians, after the weakness they had exhibited during the later period of Hatshopsitu’s regency, seriously disconcerted the Asiatic sovereigns.  They had vainly flattered themselves that the invasion of Thutmosis I. was merely the caprice of an adventurous prince, and they hoped that when his love of enterprise had expended itself, Egypt would permanently withdraw within her traditional boundaries, and that the relations of Elam with Babylon, Carchemish with Qodshu, and the barbarians of the Persian Gulf with the inhabitants of the Iranian table-land would resume their former course.  This vain delusion was dispelled by the advent of a new Thutmosis, who showed clearly by his actions that he intended to establish and maintain the sovereignty of Egypt over the western dependencies, at least, of the ancient Chaldaean empire, that is to say, over the countries which bordered the middle course of the Euphrates and the coasts of the Mediterranean.  The audacity of his marches, the valour of his men, the facility with which in a few hours he had crushed the assembled forces of half Syria, left no room to doubt that he was possessed of personal qualities and material resources sufficient to carry out projects of the most ambitious character.  Babylon, enfeebled by the perpetual dissensions of its Cossaean princes, was no longer in a position to contest with him the little authority she still retained over the peoples of Naharaim or of Coele-Syria; protected by the distance which separated her from the Nile valley, she preserved a sullen neutrality, while Assyria hastened to form a peaceful alliance with the invading power.  Again and again its kings sent to Thutmosis presents in proportion to their resources, and the Pharaoh naturally treated their advances as undeniable proofs of their voluntary vassalage.  Each time that he received from them a gift of metal or lapis-lazuli, he proudly recorded their tribute in the annals of his reign; and if, in exchange, he sent them some Egyptian product, it was in smaller quantities, as might be expected from a lord to his vassal.*

* The “tribute of Assur” is mentioned in this way under the years XXIII. and XXIV.  The presents sent by the Pharaoh in return are not mentioned in any Egyptian text, but there is frequent reference to them in the Tel el-Amarna tablets.  It may be mentioned here that the name of Nineveh does not occur on the Egyptian monuments, but only that of the town Nii, in which Champollion wrongly recognised the later capital of Assyria.

Sometimes there would accompany the convoy, surrounded by an escort of slaves and women, some princess, whom the king would place in his harem or graciously pass on to one of his children; but when, on the other hand, an even distant relative of the Pharaoh was asked in marriage for some king on the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates, the request was met with a disdainful negative:  the daughters of the Sun were of too noble a race to stoop to such alliances, and they would count it a humiliation to be sent in marriage to a foreign court.