Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [92]
The painted walls of the tomb depict Rekhmire in the process of carry ing out many of his onerous duties, which evidently did not take every moment of his time, for there is a spirited scene of a party at the vizier’s home, with wine flowing freely and the guests enjoying its effect. Since his accession to the vizierate was the high point of Rekhmire’s life, it is natural that his formal investiture in office should be the subject of another scene.
Here we see Thutmose III enthroned. Before him stands the new vizier, attentive to the exhortation that the king delivers. It is a sobering speech, which must have had the same import as a solemn oath of office. “Look to the office of the vizier,” Thutmose begins, “and be vigilant over everything that is done in it. Lo, it is the mooring post of the entire land; lo, it is not pleasant at all—no, it is bitter as gall.” Foremost among the responsibilities of the vizier is justice. “The abomination of the god is partiality. So this is the instruction: look upon him whom you know like him whom you do not know, upon him who has access to your person like him who is distant from your house.”
If Rekhmire took his responsibilities seriously, his position as judge must have been the most sobering of all his duties. He was by proxy the dispenser of that justice which is higher than human. The tomb walls show him to us in this awesome task, seated in the hall of justice; before him are forty leather whips, which were the symbols of the discipline he could wield if he chose. For a long time these forty pictured objects were believed to be leather rolls containing a law code that governed the vizier’s decisions; and how Egyptological mouths watered at the prospect of one day finding such rolls! Peculiarly enough, the Egyptians had no such written code of laws. The other peoples of the Near East did; the Code of Hammurabi is the most famous, but there are earlier examples from the same area. Perhaps it was not strange that to the best of our knowledge the Egyptians never developed formal codified law, since the judgment of the god-king and his proxies was, by definition, straight from heaven.
Rekhmire implies that Thutmose kept a close check on the activities of his subordinates; if so, he was satisfied with what he found, for he left Egypt to their administrations half of each year while he carried out his military objectives. Most of the king’s remaining nine campaigns were tours of inspection, gentle reminders to the dynasts in Syria that though they might be far from Egypt geo graphically, they were only days removed from the all-seeing eye and all-powerful arm of the king.
The tenth campaign had to deal with a more serious problem—a resurgence of the king of Naharin and his allies. The battles Thutmose fought on this occasion daunted the proud princes of northern Syria for a good many years. Even on the relatively peaceful inspection tours, Thutmose maintained high standards of efficiency. Harbors were kept permanently supplied and garrisons were trained. “Tribute” continued to pour in, filling the treasuries of king and gods.
Thutmose had outlived Hatshepsut, subdued Mitanni, and conquered an empire; but there was one shadow out of his past which had never been exorcized. Once again, and for the final time, the prince of Kadesh reappears, out of the mists which had shrouded his activities for so long, to stand against the fighting hawk of Egypt. We have not heard of him since the battle of Kadesh, ten years before, when he mysteriously vanished from