In spite of the joy of the army Thothmes was angry with his troops for having failed to capture the city.  Every rebel chief was in Megiddo, and its capture would have been worth more than the capture of a thousand other cities, for he could have slain all the rebel chiefs, and the revolt would have collapsed completely.  Thothmes then laid siege to the city, and he threw up a strong wall round about it, through which none might pass, and the daily progress of the siege was recorded on a leather roll, which was subsequently preserved in the temple of Amen at Thebes.  After a time the chiefs in Megiddo left their city and advanced to the gate in the siege-wall and reported that they had come to tender their submission to His Majesty, and it was accepted.  They brought to him rich gifts of gold, silver, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, wheat, wine, cattle, sheep, goats, &c., and he reappointed many of the penitent chiefs to their former towns as vassals of Egypt.  Among the gifts were 340 prisoners, 83 hands, 2041 mares, 191 foals, 6 stallions, a royal chariot with a golden pole, a second royal chariot, 892 chariots, total 924 chariots; 2 royal coats of mail, 200 ordinary coats of mail, 502 bows, 7 tent poles inlaid with gold, 1929 cattle, 2000 goats, and 20,500 sheep.

              THE CONQUESTS OF THOTHMES III SUMMARISED BY
                        AMEN-RA, KING OF THE GODS

The conquests of Thothmes III were indeed splendid achievements, and the scribes of his time summarised them very skilfully in a fine text which they had cut in hieroglyphs on a large stele at Karnak.  The treatment is, of course, somewhat poetical, but there are enough historical facts underlying the statements to justify a rendering of it being given in this chapter.  The text is supposed to be a speech of Amen-Ra, the lord of the thrones of the Two Lands, to the king.  He says: 

“Thou hast come to me, thou hast rejoiced in beholding my beneficence, O my son, my advocate, Menkheperra, living for ever!  I rise upon thee through my love for thee.  My heart rejoiceth at thy auspicious comings to my temple.  My hands knit together thy limbs with the fluid of life; sweet unto me are thy gracious acts towards my person.  I have stablished thee in my sanctuary.  I have made thee to be a source of wonder [to men].  I have given unto thee strength and conquests over all lands.  I have set thy Souls and the fear of thee in all lands.  The terror of thee hath penetrated to the four pillars of the sky.  I have made great the awe of thee in all bodies.  I have set the roar of Thy Majesty everywhere [in the lands of] the Nine Bows (i.e. Nubia).  The Chiefs of all lands are grouped in a bunch within thy fist.  I put out my two hands; I tied them in a bundle for thee.  I collected the Antiu of Ta-sti[1] in tens of thousands and thousands, and I made captives by the hundred thousand of the Northern Nations.  I have cast down thy foes under thy sandals, thou hast trampled upon the hateful and