by a Khammurabi at the point of the sword, but Agumkakrime doubtless felt that he was not strong enough to run the risk of war; he therefore sent an embassy to the Khani, and such was the prestige which the name of Babylon still possessed, from the deserts of the Caspian to the shores of the Mediterranean, that he was able to obtain a concession from that people which he would probably have been powerless to extort by force of arms.**

     * We do not possess the original of the inscription which
     tells us of these facts, but merely an early copy.

     ** Strictly speaking, one might suppose that a war took
     place; but most Assyriologists declare unhesitatingly that
     there was merely an embassy and a diplomatic negotiation.

The Egyptians had, therefore, no need to anticipate Chaldaean interference when, forsaking their ancient traditions, they penetrated for the first time into the heart of Syria.  Not only was Babylon no longer supreme there, but the coalition of those cities on which she had depended for help in subduing the West was partially dissolved, and the foreign princes who had succeeded to her patrimony were so far conscious of their weakness, that they voluntarily kept aloof from the countries in which, previous to their advent, Babylon had held undivided sway.  The Egyptian conquest of Syria had already begun in the days of Agumkakrime, and it is possible that dread of the Pharaoh was one of the chief causes which influenced the Cossaeans to return a favourable answer to the Khani.  Thutmosis I., on entering Syria, encountered therefore only the native levies, and it must be admitted that, in spite of their renowned courage, they were not likely to prove formidable adversaries in Egyptian estimation.  Not one of the local Syrian dynasties was sufficiently powerful to collect all the forces of the country around its chief, so as to oppose a compact body of troops to the attack of the African armies.  The whole country consisted of a collection of petty states, a complex group of peoples and territories which even the Egyptians themselves never completely succeeded in disentangling.  They classed the inhabitants, however, under three or four very comprehensive names—­Kharu, Zahi, Lotanu, and Kefatiu—­all of which frequently recur in the inscriptions, but without having always that exactness of meaning we look for in geographical terms.  As was often the case in similar circumstances, these names were used at first to denote the districts close to the Egyptian frontier with which the inhabitants of the Delta had constant intercourse.  The Kefatiu seem to have been at the outset the people of the sea-coast, more especially of the region occupied later by the Phoenicians, but all the tribes with whom the Phoenicians came in contact on the Asiatic and European border were before long included under the same name.*