[Illustration:  308.jpg THE DEFEAT OF THE PEOPLES OF THE SEA]

The Khati were still its masters; and all enfeebled as they were by the ravages of the invading barbarians, were nevertheless not slow in preparing to resist their ancient enemies.  The majority of the citadels shut their gates in the face of Ramses, who, wishing to lose no time, did not attempt to besiege them:  he treated their territory with the usual severity, devastating their open towns, destroying their harvests, breaking down their fruit trees, and cutting away their forests.  He was able, moreover, without arresting his march, to carry by assault several of their fortified towns, Alaza among the number, the destruction of which is represented in the scenes of his victories.  The spoils were considerable, and came very opportunely to reward the soldiers or to provide funds for the erection of monuments.  The last battalion of troops, however, had hardly recrossed the isthmus when Lotanu became again its own master, and Egyptian rule was once more limited to its traditional provinces of Kharu and Phoenicia.  The King of the Khati appears among the prisoners whom the Pharaoh is represented as bringing to his father Amon; Carchemish, Tunipa, Khalabu, Katna, Pabukhu, Arvad, Mitanni, Mannus, Asi, and a score of other famous towns of this period appear in the list of the subjugated nations, recalling the triumphs of Thutmosis III. and Amenothes II.  Ramses did not allow himself to be deceived into thinking that his success was final.  He accepted the protestations of obedience which were spontaneously offered him, but he undertook no further expedition of importance either to restrain or to provoke his enemies:  the restricted rule which satisfied his exemplar Ramses II. ought, he thought, to be sufficient for his own ambition.

Egypt breathed freely once more on the announcement of the victory; henceforward she was “as a bed without anguish.”  “Let each woman now go to and fro according to her will,” cried the sovereign, in describing the campaign, “her ornaments upon her, and directing her steps to any place she likes!” And in order to provide still further guarantees of public security, he converted his Asiatic captives, as he previously had his African prisoners, into a bulwark against the barbarians, and a safeguard of the frontier.  The war must, doubtless, have decimated Southern Syria; and he planted along its coast what remained of the defeated tribes—­the Philistines in the Shephelah, and the Zakkala on the borders of the great oak forest stretching from Oarmel to Dor.*

     * It is in this region that we find henceforward the Hebrews
     in contact with the Philistines:  at the end of the XXIst
     Egyptian dynasty a scribe makes Dor a town of the Zakkala.