Thutmose III (Part 1): The Battle of Megiddo.

(1473 BCE) Not long after taking sole power, Thutmose III experienced a dangerous challenge to his rule. Enemies in Canaan had gathered: the King must destroy them, or risk losing his empire. Battle, audacity, and Monty Python ensues!

Listeners note: the original edit of this episode mistakenly referred to the name Har-Megiddo as a Greek term, rather than the correct Hebrew. This error has been fixed.

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Bibliography

  • Hans Goedicke, The Battle of Megiddo, 2000.
  • Toby Wilkinson, Writings from Ancient Egypt, 2016.
  • Richard A. Gabriel, Thutmose III: A Military Biography, 2009.
  • Donald Redford, The Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thutmose III, 2003.
  • Eric Cline & David O’Connor (eds), Thutmose III: A New Biography, 2006.
Show 4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Michael Hoffmann
    November 11, 2016,

    Hello Dominic, for some reason episode 67 showed up twice on my iDevice, one from Wednesday, the other Thursday – it looks like each with slightly varying description text (as far as I can tell on a caffeine-deprived early morning). The file size seems the same, however.

    A minor glitch?

    • DominicPerry
      November 11, 2016,

      Hi Michael,

      Not a glitch! There were a couple minor blips in the original upload, so I edited the original mp3. Unfortunately this required re-uploading it.
      Delete the *older* version from your device – keep the newer one (it’s better).

      Apologies for any confusion!

  2. Ivonna Nowicka
    April 16, 2021,

    Pronounciation of Julius Caesar’s famous saying can be found e.g. here:

  3. Christine Pizan
    April 5, 2022,

    I find myself wondering how much practical control Egypt exerted over lands north of Kadesh, into Syria, during the late reign of Thutmose I and in the reign of Hatshepsut,

    Did they really continue to send tribute after Thutmose’s lightning campaign to the Euphrates? Or did they just revert to the Mitanni sphere of influence as soon as he left?

    Regarding the battle itself, I find myself confused by ‘Napoleon’s’ tactics. Napoleon always emphasised defeating the enemy in detail when it had split its forces across an area, and it seems an excellent tactical opportunity to do just that had been offered by the enemy.

    Thutmose could have brought his whole military to bear on the split apart ‘batallions’ that guarded the north and south, those places would be isolated from each other, allowing the enemy army to be picked off in small pieces. Instead he took a flashy approach filled with un-necessary risk that ultimately allowed the enemy to bring their whole force against him on the fields outside Megiddo and gained him nothing?

    Or have I misunderstood some part of the battle

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