Suppiluliuma I: Builder of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia

Suppiluliuma I was a king of the Hittites who ruled from Hattusa in central Anatolia in the mid-14th century BC, roughly 1344 to 1322 BC on the most widely used chronology. In about two decades of campaigning he destroyed the power of the rival kingdom of Mitanni, brought northern Syria under Hittite control and made his state one of the great powers of the Late Bronze Age alongside Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria. His reign ended with a plague that killed him and his heir.

Background: a kingdom on the brink

In the generation before Suppiluliuma, the Hittite kingdom was close to collapse. Enemies attacked from all sides, and later texts describe Hattusa itself being burned. Suppiluliuma, the son of King Tudhaliya (usually numbered III), first made his name as a general fighting alongside his father against the Kaska tribes of the north and other invaders, slowly winning back lost territory.

How he became king is unclear. Later Hittite texts suggest that the designated heir, known as Tudhaliya the Younger, was killed and that Suppiluliuma and his supporters took power. His son Mursili II later counted the killing among the sins that had angered the gods.

Exact dates for his reign are uncertain. Estimates for its start range from about 1380 to 1344 BC, and many historians now prefer the later date, with his death around 1322 BC.

The war with Mitanni

The main rival for control of Syria was Mitanni, a Hurrian kingdom in upper Mesopotamia ruled by Tushratta, who was allied with Egypt by marriage. An early Hittite attack appears to have been repulsed.

Suppiluliuma’s decisive move, often called the Great Syrian War or the one-year campaign, came later. He crossed the Euphrates, marched on the Mitannian capital Washshukanni, which Tushratta abandoned, and then turned west into Syria. Kingdoms that had owed loyalty to Mitanni, including Aleppo, Alalakh, Nuhashshe and Qatna, fell to him or submitted, and his army reached as far as Kadesh and the borders of Lebanon.

Some rulers came over willingly. Niqmaddu II of Ugarit accepted Hittite overlordship, and Aziru of Amurru, formerly an Egyptian vassal, later did the same. Each relationship was set out in a formal treaty, a type of text in which the Hittites were especially skilled.

Mitanni broken, Carchemish taken

Mitanni then fell into crisis. Tushratta was murdered by one of his sons, and the throne passed to a rival line that sought support from Assyria. A Mitannian prince, Shattiwaza, fled to Suppiluliuma, who gave him a daughter in marriage and helped him win the Mitannian throne with Hittite troops. The treaty between them survives and makes clear that Mitanni was now a Hittite dependant.

The last great Mitannian stronghold west of the Euphrates was Carchemish. Suppiluliuma besieged it in person and, according to his son’s account, took it after a siege of eight days. He made his son Piyassili, also called Sharri-Kushuh, king of Carchemish and another son, Telipinu, king of Aleppo. These two viceroys governed Hittite Syria for generations.

Diplomacy and the treaty system

Suppiluliuma ruled through agreements as much as through conquest. Hittite vassal treaties followed a recognisable pattern: a preamble naming the Great King, a historical prologue recalling past favours, the obligations of the vassal, a clause for depositing the text in a temple, a long list of gods called as witnesses, and finally curses on anyone who broke the oath and blessings on those who kept it. Vassals had to hand over fugitives, send troops when asked and pay tribute, and they were forbidden to deal with foreign powers on their own.

Royal marriages tied the system together. Suppiluliuma married a Babylonian princess, gave daughters to client kings such as Shattiwaza, and corresponded as an equal with the rulers of Egypt and Babylon. The great kings of the age addressed one another as “brother”, exchanged gifts and argued over the value of the gold they received.

His success had unintended effects. By breaking Mitanni he removed the buffer between Anatolia and Assyria. The Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I took over Mitanni’s eastern lands, and Assyria became the Hittites’ main rival in the east for the next century.

The Egyptian queen’s request and a fatal plague

During the siege of Carchemish, a letter arrived from the widow of an Egyptian king. She had no son, she wrote, and asked Suppiluliuma to send one of his sons to marry her and become king of Egypt. The episode, known as the Dakhamunzu affair, is told in the Deeds of Suppiluliuma. The queen is usually identified as Ankhesenamun, widow of Tutankhamun, though some scholars prefer Nefertiti or Meritaten.

Suppiluliuma suspected a trick and sent an envoy to check. Eventually he sent his son Zannanza, who died on the journey. The Hittites blamed Egypt, and Suppiluliuma sent his army against Egyptian-held lands in southern Syria.

Prisoners brought back from that campaign carried a plague into the Hittite lands. It killed Suppiluliuma around 1322 BC and soon afterwards his son and successor Arnuwanda II. The disease raged for some twenty years. Mursili II, the next king, composed prayers asking the gods to end it, and concluded that it was punishment for breaking an earlier oath with Egypt.

Key people

• Suppiluliuma I: Hittite king and empire builder.
• Tushratta: king of Mitanni, Suppiluliuma’s chief rival, murdered by a son.
• Shattiwaza: Mitannian prince installed as a Hittite client king.
• Piyassili (Sharri-Kushuh) and Telipinu: sons installed as kings of Carchemish and Aleppo.
• Mursili II: son and later successor, author of the Deeds of Suppiluliuma.
• Henti and a Babylonian princess: his queens; the second, a daughter of the Kassite king Burna-Buriash II, held the title Tawananna.

Sources

Much of what is known comes from the Deeds of Suppiluliuma, a long account composed by Mursili II and preserved in fragments from Hattusa. It is a royal narrative designed to honour the king, so its claims must be read critically. Treaties with Shattiwaza, Niqmaddu II, Aziru and others survive, as does a letter from Suppiluliuma to an Egyptian king among the Amarna letters. Mursili’s plague prayers add the story of the king’s death.

Legacy

Suppiluliuma’s successors held most of what he had won. Mursili II completed the conquest of western Anatolia, and Hittite kings remained overlords of northern Syria until the empire fell around 1185 BC. Even after that collapse, kings at Carchemish descended from Piyassili carried on as rulers of a Neo-Hittite state, and the name Suppiluliuma itself was borne by later kings, including the last Hittite emperor, Suppiluliuma II.

Timeline

• Early-mid 14th century BC: As a prince, Suppiluliuma campaigns with his father to restore Hittite territory.
• c. 1344 BC: He becomes king (dates vary by chronology).
• c. 1340s BC: The Great Syrian War: Washshukanni is attacked and Mitanni’s Syrian vassals are taken over.
• c. 1330s BC: Tushratta is murdered; Suppiluliuma backs Shattiwaza as king of Mitanni.
• c. 1323 BC: Siege and capture of Carchemish; sons installed in Carchemish and Aleppo.
• c. 1323 BC: An Egyptian queen requests a Hittite husband; Prince Zannanza dies.
• c. 1322 BC: Suppiluliuma dies of plague; Arnuwanda II succeeds and soon also dies.

Why it matters

Suppiluliuma I created the Hittite empire that, for the next century and a half, competed with Egypt for the Levant, a rivalry that led to the Battle of Kadesh and the first great peace treaty. His Syrian viceroyalties at Carchemish and Aleppo outlived the empire itself. His reign also shows the Late Bronze Age as a connected world of letters, treaties and royal marriages, in which a request from Egypt could reach a Hittite king in his siege camp.