The Cossaean king who seized on Babylon was named Gandish.  He and his tribe came from the mountainous regions of Zagros, on the borders of Media.  The Cossaean rule over the countries of the Euphrates was doubtless similar in its beginnings to that which the Hyksos exercised at first over the nomes of Egypt.  The Cossaean kings did not merely bring with them their army, but their whole nation, who spread over the whole land.  As in the case of the Hyksos, the barbarian conquerors thus became merged in the more civilised people which they had subdued.  But the successors of Gandish were unable permanently to retain their ascendancy over all the districts and provinces, and several of these withdrew their allegiance.  Thus in Syria the authority of Babylon was no longer supreme when the encroachments of Egypt began, and when Thutmosis entered the region the native levies which he encountered were by no means formidable.

The whole country consisted of a collection of petty states, a complex group of peoples and territories which the Egyptians themselves never completely succeeded in disentangling.  We are, however, able to distinguish at the present time several of these groups, all belonging to the same family, but possessing different characteristics—­the kinsfolk of the Hebrews, the children of Ishmael and Edom, the Moabites and Ammonites, the Arameans, the Khati and the Canaanites.  The Canaanites were the most numerous, and had they been able to confederate under a single king, it would have been impossible for the Egyptians to have broken through the barrier thus raised between them and the rest of Asia.

III.—­The Eighteenth Theban Dynasty

The account of the first expedition undertaken by Thutmosis I. in Asia, a region at that time new to the Egyptians, would be interesting if we could lay our hands on it.  We know that this king succeeded in reaching on his first campaign a limit which none of his successors was able to surpass.  The results of the campaign were of a decisive character, for Southern Syria accepted its defeat, and Gaza was garrisoned as the secure door of Asia for future invasions.  Freed from anxiety in this quarter, Pharaoh gave his whole time to the consolidation of his power in Ethiopia, where rebellion had become rife.  Subduing this southern region and thus extending the supremacy of Egypt in the regions of the upper Nile, Thutmosis was able to end his days in the enjoyment of profound peace.  Thutmosis II. did not long survive him.  His chief wife, Queen Hatshopsitu, reigned for many years with great ability while the new Pharaoh, Thutmosis III., was still a youth.