Organised Military Force
Egypt, with a substantially larger population than its surrounding communities, could operate so as to effect its will simply on threat of force.[687] Without the need to specialise, the pharaohs had created a masse de manoeuvre which, once called into play, could utterly overwhelm the undersized and unprofessional enemy forces of Palestine and Nubia.
Even with rudimentary equipment a pharaoh's forces were bound to win, simply by brute size.The earliest manifestation of the power inherent in size is the range of numina attending Horus, the king, known as the smsw-Hr, the ‘Followers of Horus'.[688] In triumphant procession they go before the sovereign, raised aloft on standards. They constitute the raw power - scorpion, lion, falcon, Seth- animal, jackal, bull - of the irresistible force contained within the physical presence of ‘Big-man'. They are present at the coronation of the king and at the sed festival, that thirty-year anniversary of the royal accession. Even when not in use the smsw-Hr standards lean against the royal dais in close proximity to the king.[689] While later, in the formulation of the King-list,[690] the smsw-Hr were included and treated as hypostasised kings of yore, the social setting out of which the concept arose was a real one. The ‘manor lord', the premier member of the local gentry, is often depicted in tomb art standing erect in a dignified pose which custom demanded. Look behind him, however, and one will see rows of smsw, ‘followers', sometimes armed with sticks. The manor lord has aptly been dubbed the ‘padrone';[691] the smsw are his ‘enforcers.'
With few technical skills required, the Old Kingdom expeditionary force strikes us moderns as basic. Sheer mass was what counted: ‘when His Majesty used force in the matter of the Asiatics who are beyond the sand, His Majesty made an army of many tens of thousands, from all of Upper Egypt, from Elephantine to Atfih and in Lower Egypt in the two administrative districts, in the “Fort” and in the environs of the fortresses'.
Then follow five Sudanese tribal districts from which recruits were raised, and the land of Temehu (Libya). Each contingent was commanded by the office holders of the districts in question: mayors, courtiers, provincial headmen, plantation managers, overseers of resident aliens, priests and district accountants.[692] The ease with which the same force could be mustered on five separate occasions for punitive activity in Palestine bespeaks a highly efficient organisation for recruitment. But it was considerations of manpower en masse that dominated the planning, for any purpose for which large numbers were required, civil construction or warfare: the word for ‘army', msc, was derived from a root meaning simply ‘to march'. As time went on, however, concentration on size did not exclude training for specific tasks, and we begin to hear of a variety of troops: for example hy-troops (meaning unknown), mnjjt (elite troops?). Scribes went along with expeditions to keep records of activity and a tally of booty.[693]In addition to punishing a recalcitrant foreign community by confiscating its property, resources and people, in the case of strategic opponents Egyptian raids sought to undercut the very economic life of the town. Fields were hacked up and destroyed, food stocks committed to the flames, fortresses demolished, orchards uprooted, houses torched (Urk. I, 103). Survivors were either executed or brought off as prisoners of war (literally, ‘living smitten ones'). Those destined for execution sometimes, but for unknown reasons, were ‘put on the stake', that is, impaled.
While sieges and investment methods are often depicted in military art, we know little of battlefield tactics. Weapons such as maces, battle-axes and bows suggest a combination of physical grappling with bombardment at a distance.[694] If later representations are a reliable guide, the foot soldiers may have been arranged in a phalanx of sorts.
During most of their history the Egyptians did not have viable siege machinery.[695] Archers peppered the defenders on the walls and sappers attacked the gates. Men protected by ‘blinds' manipulated long, spear-like probes to dislodge people on the walls; and eventually siege ladders went up.[696] But beyond this, an attacking force could only face the prospect of starving the enemy out.In anticipation of retaliatory violence perpetrated by foreigners along the frontiers, the Egyptians extended their frontier mentality to the boundaries of the nation. The same massive architecture used to provide camps for workers, menials, soldiers and so on in the period when the state was taking shape, was turned to providing fortresses along transit corridors and strategic entries.[697] In cases such as Nubia and the eastern frontier of the Delta, many miles of wilderness with sparse foreign populations to guard against, made fortress architecture with berms, glacis, moats and towers wholly unnecessary. Such elaborate defences were designed to counter siege towers and battering rams, not weak attempts by Nubian or Canaanite bedu. In fact, the motivation which produced such ‘unnecessary' monumentality was the same as that which produced the Fourth Dynasty pyramids: conspicuous waste. Here is what we are capable of; here is our cosmic statement!