men from the cities of
Aziru against him, and had consequently defeated him, but if the Pharaoh
would send only four companies of troops to his rescue all would be
well.

Zimridi, however, was not behindhand in forwarding his version of events
to the Egyptian court, and assuring the king of his unswerving fidelity.
"Verily the king my lord knows," he says, "that the queen of the city of
Sidon is the handmaid of the king my lord, who has given her into my
hand, and that I have hearkened to the words of the king my lord that he
would send to his servant, and my heart rejoiced and my head was
exalted, and my eyes were enlightened, and my ears heard the words of
the king my lord.... And the king my lord knows that hostility is very
strong against me; all the [fortresses] which the king gave into [my
hand] had revolted" to the Beduin, but had been retaken by the commander
of the Egyptian forces. The letter throws a wholly different light on
the relations of the two rival parties in Phoenicia.

The assertions of Rib-Hadad, however, are supported by those of his
successor in the government of Gebal, El-rabi-Hor. Rib-Hadad himself
disappears from the scene. He may have died, for he complains that he is
old and sick; he may have been driven out of Gebal, for in one of his
despatches he states that the city was inclined to revolt, while in
another he tells us that even his own brother had turned against him and
gone over to the Amorite faction. Or he may have been displaced from his
post; at all events, we hear that the Pharaoh had written to him, saying
that Gebal was rebellious, and that there was a large amount of royal
property in it. We hear also that Rib-Hadad had sent his son to the
Egyptian court to plead his cause there, alleging age and infirmities as
a reason for not going himself. However it may have been, we find a new
governor in Gebal, who bears the hybrid name of El-rabi-Hor, "a great
god is Horus."

His first letter is to protest against Khu-n-Aten's mistrust of Gebal,
which he calls "thy city and the city of [thy] fathers," and to assert
roundly that "Aziru is in rebellion against the king my lord." Aziru had
made a league (?) with the kings of Ni, Arvad, and Ammiya (the Beni-Ammo
of Num. xxii. 5) (See above, p. 64.), and with the help of the Amorite
Palasa was destroying the cities of the Pharaoh. So El-rabi-Hor asks the
king not to heed anything the rebel may write about his seizure of Zemar
or his massacr