34 B.—“To the King my Lord my God my Sun thus (says) this Aziru thy servant: seven times and seven times at the feet of my Lord I bow. Now what you wish is desirable. Sun God my Lord I am thy servant forever; and my sons serve thee. . . . Now two men . . . I have commanded as envoys . . . what he says . . . and let him rule . . . in the land of the Amorites.”
34a B.—The salutation of the usual type is here injured. The letter continues: “My Lord my God my Sun, I am thy servant and my sons and my brethren, to serve the King my Lord forever. Now all my Lord’s wishes, and what he causes to be despatched, duly . . . the King my Lord having despatched. Now eight chiefs who are great, and many (decrees?) we . . . all of which . . . from . . . the King my Lord . . . And the Kings of the Land of Marhasse will follow with . . . and are these not promised (or leagued) to the city Simyra these thirty years? I turn me to the city Simyra. My Lord I am thy servant forever, and a King of men who are friends; will not my (agents?) my Lord (wilt not thou hear?). And the King is my Lord my God and my Sun: let him send his messenger with my messenger, and let them go up who serve the King . . .”
36 B.—“To the King . . . thus Aziru: seven times and seven times at . . . of my God and Sun. Behold truly thou hast known this, O King my Lord; behold I am thy servant forever; from my Lord’s commands I never rebel: my Lord from of old (it has been) thus. I am kind to the men who are servants of my King; but the chiefs of the city Simyra have not kept faith righteously with us; and behold neither one nor all are with us: my Lord the King did not you cause to be asked? The King my Lord has known that the chiefs are sinful; and why ask, ‘What does he contend for?’ I say nay . . .”
From these letters by Aziru, we must conclude either that he was a great liar or that he was induced to change sides later. The other correspondents seem to have believed that he had long deceived the King of Egypt; but, in the end, his invasion of Phœenicia—perhaps cloaked by pretences of hostility to the Hittite league—caused him, as we shall see, to be proclaimed a rebel. The quarrel with Simyra may have been due to his
