be spared.

Rib-Hadad had been appointed to his post by Amenophis III., and in one
of his letters he looks back regretfully on "the good old times." When
his letters were written he was old and sick. Abimelech, the governor of
Tyre, was almost the only friend who remained to him. Not content with
fomenting rebellion in his district, and taking his cities from him, his
enemies accused him to the Pharaoh of disloyalty and misdoing. Those
accusations were in some cases founded on truth. He confesses to having
fled from his city, but he urges that it was to save his life. The
troops he had begged for had not been sent to him, and he could no
longer defend either his city or himself. He also alleges that the
excesses committed by some of his servants had been without his
knowledge. This seems to have been in answer to a despatch of Ammunira,
the prefect of Beyrout, in which he informed the king that he was
keeping the brother of the governor of Gebal as a hostage, and that the
latter had been intriguing against the government in the land of the
Amorites.

Chief among the adversaries of Rib-Hadad was Ebed-Asherah, a native of
the land of Barbarti, and the governor of the Amoritish territory.
Several of his sons are mentioned, but the ablest and most influential
of them was Aziru or Ezer, who possessed a considerable amount of power.
The whole family, while professing to be the obedient servants of the
Pharaoh, nevertheless acted with a good deal of independence, and sought
to aggrandise themselves at the expense of the neighbouring governors.
They had at their disposal a large body of "plunderers," or Beduin from
the eastern desert, and Rib-Hadad accuses them of forming secret
alliances with the kings of Babylonia, of Mitanni and of the Hittites.
The authority of Aziru extended to the northern frontier of the empire;