Expanding the History of the Just War: The Ethics of War in Ancient Egypt

Johnson (1981, 1984, 1999, 2011) has long stressed the importance of a historical understanding of the just war tradition. An increasing body of work draws our attention to the pre-Christian origins of just war thought.¹ Nonetheless, scholars and politicians continue to overdraw the association between Christian political theology and the advent of just war thought. This reinforces the common misconception that just war is an exclusively Christian doctrine, and, in consequence, “curtails its appeal in parts of the world that historically have no affinity with Christianity” (O’Driscoll 2015, 1–2).

This article strengthens and expands the scope of the historical just war argument by demonstrating that complex considerations of the relationship between war and justice existed more than two thousand years prior to the advent of Christianity. In providing the first major exposition of the ancient Egyptian ethics of war, I offer further evidence that just war thought developed beyond the traditional boundaries of Europe. Moreover, I identify some compelling (albeit speculative) reasons to think that elements of Egyptian thought about war might have influenced the later Western tradition.²

Despite the chronological and cultural distance between them, rethinking modern assumptions in the light of ancient doctrines and practices can be illuminating. On the one hand, I highlight how absolutist or universalizing concepts of justice can generate potent ius ad bellum doctrines. On the other hand, I caution that prepotent ius ad bellum doctrines can make the resort to war more likely and, by hindering the development or application of ius in bello norms, more destructive. Indeed, I suggest that assumptions of universal justice continue to have a negative impact upon modern conflicts.

This article concentrates on Egyptian ideology and warfare during the three major periods of centralized monarchy: the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BCE), Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 BCE), and New Kingdom (1552–1069 BCE).³ During this time the Egyptians suffered and repulsed invasions while also pursuing imperialist policies of their own in Nubia (modern southern Egypt and northern Sudan), Libya, and Syria-Palestine.⁴ The Egyptian state engaged in warfare and diplomacy with a variety of states and peoples over the course of its long history. There existed no “international organizations, law codes or jurists” between the third and first millennia BCE, but we can detect “a recognizable international legal community” in the area from the Nile to the Tigris-Euphrates (Ziskind 1967, 202–3).⁵ Within this international legal community, Egypt developed its own distinctive ethics of war, yet scholars pay little attention to the emergence of Egyptian just war thought.⁶

The ethics of war in ancient Egypt was founded upon three tenets of Egyptian culture that displayed remarkable longevity and consistency: 1) the cosmological role of Egypt, 2) the divine office of the pharaoh, and 3) the superiority of the land of Egypt and its inhabitants over all other lands and peoples. These ideological foundations led the Egyptian political elite to develop an ethics of war that possessed elements analogous to later Western concepts of proper authority and just cause: so-called ius ad bellum criteria. The relationship between war and justice in Egyptian culture was so intimate that we can identify an ancient Egyptian just war doctrine. Egyptian pharaohs claimed exclusive possession of legitimate authority and just cause in warfare. In contrast, while the conduct of Egyptian warfare followed a small number of norms, the development of in bello restraints are invisible to the historian.⁷ Egyptian warfare was brutal, yet this lack of restraint was partly rooted in the conviction that the possession and defense of justice was integral to the wars in which Egypt engaged. As a consequence, the state had a free hand in prosecuting wars in whatever manner it saw fit.

The first part of this article analyzes Egyptian political theology and its creation of ius ad bellum concepts regarding legitimate authority and just cause. The second part reflects on Egyptian conduct in bello through examining the mechanisms of Egyptian warfare, including the conduct of war, the conceptualization and treatment of enemy persons and property, and the role of diplomacy. In the conclusion, I suggest that the ancient Egyptian concept of just war can be grouped with certain other just war doctrines that have emerged over time and across cultures, specifically those sharing claims to universal or absolute justice.

Ius ad bellum

Authority

Polities throughout the ancient Near East held that divine authority was mediated through the figure of the king. Egypt was somewhat anomalous in that, from the Early Dynastic period (c. 3100–2686 BCE), Egyptian kings assumed an even greater authority. They became not only agents of the gods but figures who fulfilled a divine office and attained a quasi-divine status.⁸ The divine aspects of the pharaoh’s office remained closely linked to his martial role. Senusret I (1965–1920 BCE) claimed that: “I was nursed to be a conqueror…his [Atum] son and his protector, he gave me to conquer what he conquered.”⁹

From the Middle Kingdom onward, Egyptian pharaohs increasingly associated themselves with the high god Amun-Re. As the “son” of Amun-Re, the pharaoh possessed an incontestable legitimacy to wage war, not only on behalf of Amun-Re—whose support was tacit—but also on his own authority as a quasi-divine being. This built on earlier royal ideology. During the Old Kingdom, the authority of the terrestrial “son of Horus” to act with impunity against Egypt’s neighbors was so axiomatic that “no king felt the need to justify such action” (Redford 1995, 165). Menu (2003, 53) interprets the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts as presenting war as self-legitimizing—“a way for the king to fulfill his obligations with regard to his subjects, and a validation of his functions, regarding his status as a god-king.”¹⁰

To reaffirm his relationship with the gods and to emphasize the divine sanction of military ventures, pharaohs visited cult centers—especially Karnak—prior to embarking on campaigns. Here the pharaoh would “receive” commands from the god(s).¹¹ For example, Pharaoh Kamose (1555–1550 BCE) stated: “I went north because I was strong (enough) to attack the Asiatics through the command of Amon, the just of counsels.”¹² Pharaoh Merneptah (1213–1203 BCE) stressed the divine protection enjoyed by Egypt: “None who attacks her people will succeed. The eye of every god is after her despoiler. It will make an end of all its foes.”¹³ The authority and interests of gods and pharaoh were essentially indivisible and, by the nature of their divine origin, in accord with justice. Thutmose III (1456–1427 BCE) erected a stela at the temple of Amun (Karnak) that provides an unequivocal statement of the pharaoh’s divine mandate to wage war on his enemies:

I [Amun] gave you valor and victory over all lands…

The princes of all lands are gathered in your grasp…

I fettered Nubia’s Bowmen by ten thousand thousands,

The northerners a hundred thousand captives.

I made your enemies succumb beneath your soles,

So that you crushed the rebels and the traitors.

For I bestowed on you the earth, its length and breadth,

Westerners and easterners are under your command.¹⁴

According to Thutmose III’s political theology, the authority to wage war was founded upon a divine grant of universal sovereignty over all lands and peoples. Black (2009, 24) observes that this is “the earliest record of nationalist imperialism and divinely mandated universal empire.” Consequently, the Egyptian monarchy interpreted any challenge or threat as an act of rebellion. Egyptian conceptualization of universal authority, which rendered all enemies—internal or external—rebels, served to delegitimize the military actions of enemy peoples while at the same time legitimizing the martial actions of the state. As we shall see, it justified any offensive war as a defensive act to restore the natural political order, as understood by Egypt (Shaw 1991, 7). This concept of divine sovereignty and jurisdiction was repeated throughout Egyptian texts and iconography. It highlights the crucial link in Egyptian culture between authority and legitimate warfare.

The authority of the pharaoh to wage war stemmed not only from his divine office but also from the unique cosmological status of his kingdom. Egypt was regarded as the terrestrial embodiment of the universal politico-theological principle of order and justice: Ma’at. This pivotal attribute made Egypt and Egyptians superior to all other lands and peoples.¹⁵Ma’at—personified as a female deity—appears as a principle of right action early in Egyptian history.¹⁶ But the creative harmony of Ma’at was perpetually threatened by the destructive forces of chaos (Isfet), which the Egyptians identified terrestrially as foreign peoples beyond their realm as well as criminal and rebellious elements within it. This fundamental duality of justice and order versus injustice and chaos was naturally translated into the dichotomy of peace and war. Ancient Egyptian literature expresses a deep-seated hostility toward “barbaric” foreigners and the threat they posed to civilized society. This hostility is especially vivid in prophetic “lament” poetry, probably originating in the Middle Kingdom but surviving only in New Kingdom copies:

Destroyed indeed are those things of happiness…the land is laid low with pain, by those feeding Syrians who go throughout the land. Enemies have arisen in the East! Asiatics have come down to Egypt; a secure stronghold is lacking…I shall show you the land in catastrophe, what should not happen, happening: arms of war will be taken up, and the land will live by uproar.¹⁷

Only the return of a true king could restore Ma’at: “Asiatics will fall to his slaughtering, and Libyans will fall to his flame. Rebels belong to his rage, and malcontents to his awesomeness…And the Walls of the Ruler will be built. There will be no letting Asiatics come down to Egypt…Truth will return to its proper place, with Chaos driven outside.”¹⁸

Just Cause

The defense of Ma’at was central to the ancient Egyptian concept of just cause. Within the broader conception of justice, the principles of reciprocity and retribution were of fundamental importance. Retributive justice pervaded all levels of Egyptian society. In royal ideology, criminal law, or private religion, Egyptians subscribed to a basic moral causality, which held that good actions brought positive consequences while evil actions brought negative consequences.¹⁹ This was central to ideas of good government, with violence and avarice being commonly recognized as key expressions of injustice.²⁰ This understanding of justice stipulated that it was morally right that enemies of Egypt—cast as violators of order and justice (Ma’at)—should bear the evil consequences of punitive war and defeat. Such enemies were, by definition, evil, and all actions against them were justified as part of a natural system of reciprocity and retribution. Of course, this conception of justice was entirely stacked in favor of the Egyptians. Ma’at resided in Egypt, and the pharaoh was the sole guardian and absolute judge of matters pertaining to Ma’at. Therefore, any assault upon Egypt or Egyptian interests was ipso facto unjust.

Self-defense against barbarians was the quintessential casus belli. Gnirs (1999, 73) observes that “war was conceived of as the inevitable answer to enemy provocation.” In this, Egyptian attitudes bear comparison to later classical Greek ideas about the natural animosity that existed between Greeks and barbarians (non-Hellenes).²¹

A laudatory hymn to Senusret III (1874–1855 BCE) expresses a clear sense of repelling injury and defending the innocent against external threats: “He came and fought [on] his frontier: He rescued him who had been robbed!”²² Pharaoh Kamose justified his wars against the Hyksos invaders on the basis that “No man can settle down, being despoiled by the imposts of the Asiatics. I will grapple with him, that I may cut open his belly! My wish is to save Egypt and to smite the Asiatics!”²³ The protective and punitive functions of the pharaoh were central to his obligations to his people, his land, and his gods. Violence against enemies was a just retributive response to injuries (actual or potential) suffered by Egypt.²⁴ Pharaohs frequently expanded this concept of self-defense to include aggressive wars waged beyond the borders of Egypt.²⁵ In a very concrete sense, the cosmological conception of Egypt as the sole residence of order and justice meant that all Egyptian wars were defensive, as foes were representative of chaos and constantly threatened peace and security.

The imperialistic New Kingdom witnessed a concerted policy of extending the borders of Egypt. The legitimacy of this expansionist policy derived from the royal ideology of divine sanction and universal jurisdiction, enjoyed by pharaohs since at least the Middle Kingdom. The empire reached its territorial apogee under Thutmose III (1456–1427 BCE), stretching from the Euphrates in the northeast, to beyond the Fourth Cataract of the Nile in the south (central Sudan). Thutmose III left extensive written records of his campaigns in the form of stelae and Annals inscribed on temple walls. We are told that the pharaoh departed on campaign “in valor, might, and right, to overthrow that wretched enemy, to extend the borders of Egypt, his father, mighty and victorious Amun, having commanded that he conquer.”²⁶ The universal sovereignty of the Egyptian monarch sanctioned the violent subjugation of “barbarian” lands:

Celebrating martial deeds against injustice was essential in promoting the valor of the pharaoh. Seti I (1294–1279 BCE) boasted that he “exults at undertaking combat…his heart is satisfied at the sight of blood. He cuts off the heads of the perverse of heart.”²⁸ The act of war became an aspect of the pharaoh’s perpetual struggle against the forces of chaos (Spalinger 2005, 78). Owing to the supernatural origins and superhuman strength of the pharaoh, his victory is depicted in the sources as inevitable. The contest is intrinsically asymmetric, and there is no sense that it is or should be a fair fight.²⁹ From the reign of Amenhotep II (1427–1400 BCE), reaching a climax under Ramses II (1279–1213 BCE), the valor of the pharaoh was exaggerated to such an extent that the deeds of the Egyptian soldiery were frequently ignored or even explicitly denigrated in order to magnify the heroism of the monarch.³⁰

Concepts of Rebellion

Ma’at was thought to be a divine principle that all humans should respect and follow. Identifying enemies (internal and external) as traitors against Ma’at enabled essentially aggressive wars to be couched in terms of punitive violence against rebellion. The punishment for such “rebellion” was equally harsh for native Egyptians and foreigners alike.³¹ While no ancient Egyptian law codes proper have survived, a reconstruction of criminal law from a range of texts evinces that those who violated Ma’at faced a variety of corporal and capital punishments. These included flogging, mutilation (such as cutting off noses and ears), impalement, and burning. Crimes against the king (treason) or the gods (misappropriation of temple property, tomb robbery) were archetypal capital offenses.³² The Middle Kingdom ruler, Senusret I, justified horrific acts of violence against those implicated in civil war on the basis that they were legitimate punishments for rebellion and for the destruction of religious property within Egypt:

[A]s for them that had transgressed against this house (the temple at Tod). My Majesty made [a great slaughter among them…] both men and women, the valleys being filled with rows (?) (of cadavers), the mountains bearing sheaves (of corpses); the enemy from the “Terraces” were placed on the brazier—it was death by fire because of what they had done against it…the young were sawn up, the children of the enemy were like sacrificial victims.³³

In this case there was clearly a judgment of corporate guilt, with women and children suffering the same gruesome fate as the men.

As Egyptian imperial power matured, it exported the punishment of rebellion beyond its traditional frontiers. Rebellion features prominently in the records of military campaigns as a cause for war. Thutmose I (1504–1492 BCE) invaded Nubia “to crush rebellion throughout the lands,” while Thutmose III’s expedition to Megiddo (in Syria-Palestine) was intended “to kill the treacherous ones who were in it and to give things to those who were loyal to him.”³⁴ The campaigns of Amenhotep II were framed in similar terms: “He surrounded everyone rebellious to him and killed them, like those who have never existed, put on (their) side, upside down.”³⁵ Even the Hittite protagonists at Ramses II’s great battle at Kadesh (1274 BCE) were described as rebels.³⁶ This claim had no basis in political reality, only in the justification for punitive warfare contained within Egyptian political theology.

In bello norms

Preparing for War

The opening of hostilities between Egypt and an enemy was probably marked by some sort of declaration of war; the time and site of battle might also have been prearranged.³⁷ While there is little direct evidence for either practice, the negative stereotype of the “miserable Asiatic” was confirmed by their failure to declare war: “He does not announce the day of combat, Like a thief who darts about a group.”³⁸ A later example records how the Kushite pharaoh Piye (736–712 BCE, Third Intermediate Period) commanded his generals to make overt declarations of war, even allowing the enemy time to gather his full host:

Do not attack by night…fight when one can see. Challenge him to battle from afar. If he proposes to await the infantry and chariotry of another town, then sit still until his troops come. Fight when he proposes…let them be challenged to battle in advance, saying: “You whose name we do not know…form your battle line, and know that Amun is the god who sent us!”³⁹

The order forbidding night attacks suggests that such operations were somehow dishonorable, and is reminiscent of the condemnation of Asiatics as thieves who do not declare war (above). However, Piye’s decision to allow his enemy time to gather troops was more likely strategic—to force a decisive battle—than “chivalric” (Chevereau 1999). The order forbidding night attacks and to “fight when one can see” might have been motivated simply by operational practicality, or by Piye’s desire that his subjects should be able to witness his victory. The stela inscription is a piece of propaganda intended to magnify the pharaoh’s martial prowess. Moreover, Egyptian preparations for war included practices that were intended to produce an asymmetric advantage. Magical operations attempted to harness occult powers prior to campaigns in order to curse enemies through sympathetic magic and even human sacrifice. The ritual cursing and destruction of symbolic objects and victims was intended to precipitate the destruction of the enemy before any military operations had even begun; clearly this excluded any sense of equity.⁴⁰

Weapons and Tactics

Once hostilities had begun, there were very few restraints on Egyptian military conduct. In ancient Greece and medieval Europe, for example, some minimal efforts were made to restrict the usage of missile weapons.⁴¹ No such restrictions existed within Egyptian martial culture. Archery had been utilized in Near Eastern warfare since circa 12,000–9000 BCE. The discovery of bows and arrows in elite Egyptian tombs, as well as numerous images depicting pharaohs using bows to fell their enemies, confirms the high social status of these weapons.⁴² There appear to have been few or no accords governing military operations once foes met in the field: espionage, ambush, and deceit were all acceptable.⁴³ A Dynasty XIX manuscript (c. 1300 BCE) tells of how Thutmose III seized the city of Joppa by hiding two hundred soldiers inside baskets that were then smuggled into the city (Pritchard 1969, 23).⁴⁴

Treatment of the Enemy

The vast majority of evidence surviving from ancient Egypt creates the strong impression that Egyptians regarded foreigners and enemies with contempt. Egyptians considered the “vile Asiatic” to be “the pain of the place where he is.”⁴⁵ Typical of this attitude is Senusret III’s description of Nubian enemies: “They are not people one respects, They are wretches, craven-hearted.”⁴⁶ But, Egyptians dismissed such “barbarians” as cowardly and as a constant blight to “civilized” society.

This contempt for alien peoples was reflected in the deeply asymmetric status of Egyptian soldiers in relation to enemy combatants and non-combatants.⁴⁷ Brutal treatment of the enemy during and after military engagements was normative. The killing of enemy soldiers, the enslavement of defeated combatants and non-combatants, and the destruction of non-combatant property were taken for granted. The Autobiography of Ahmose Son of Abana records jubilantly that during a campaign in Nubia, “a slaughter was made among them; their dependents were carried off as living captives…and that wretched Nubian Bowman head downward at the bow of his majesty’s ship ‘Falcon.’”⁴⁸ Two generations later, in a war against the Naharin, Thutmose III boasted that “I desolated his towns and his tribes and set fire to them. I captured all their people, carried off as living prisoners…and their goods as well. I took away the very sources of life.”⁴⁹ Clearly these campaign records adopt standard literary conventions, yet they also demonstrate an assumption that the mass slaughter and enslavement of the enemy was a good thing—something to extol and to boast about.⁵⁰ Recurring Egyptian battle motifs characterized the enemy as physically and morally inferior to Egyptians, especially to the pharaoh (O’Connor 2003, 156–57; David 2011). Amenhotep II even described enemy kingdoms as women whom he had raped.⁵¹

Mutilation of the Dead

The preservation and return of enemy corpses—informed and enforced by religious duty—appears to have been a strong norm in late archaic and classical Greek warfare.⁵² In contrast, some of the earliest artefacts from ancient Egypt provide evidence of the deliberate mutilation of enemy corpses. The Narmer Palette (c. 3100 BCE, Figure 1) shows the triumphant pharaoh inspecting rows of decapitated corpses.⁵³ It was standard practice for the enemy dead to be counted by the number of hands, ears, or phalli collected after battle. In return for presenting these trophies to the military commander, warriors were awarded the “Gold of Valor” or “Gold of Favor.”⁵⁴ This practice is attested in the Biography of Amenemheb: “I made captives in the king’s presence; I took a hand there, and he gave me the Gold of Favor” (Pritchard 1969, 241). Ahmose son of Abana boasted that he had “been rewarded with gold seven times” in return for presenting hands to the pharaoh.⁵⁵ An inscription at Karnak from Merneptah’s reign records: “asses…laden with the uncircumcised phalli of the land of Libya, together with the severed hands of [every?] country which was with them.”⁵⁶ Given the importance that Egyptians attached to the preservation of the flesh for burial (McDermott 2004, 17), the mutilation of enemy corpses—even for mundane purposes such as tallying the dead—must have been understood by Egyptians as a deliberate act of violation. This derogatory act conveyed a message of humiliation, retribution, and warning to existing and potential enemies.

Figure 1.

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The Narmer palette (c. 3100 BCE), depicting the execution of prisoners of war (left) and decapitated enemy corpses (top right)⁶⁵

Prisoners of War

All prisoners of war were the de iure property of the pharaoh. Soldiers were required to present their captives to the central administration, which then decided on redistribution.⁵⁷ Many prisoners of war were gifted to the temples—especially the Temple of Amun at Karnak—because slaves were understood to constitute part of the gods’ rightful booty in helping bring about victory.

After capture, prisoners enjoyed no immunities or rights. This applied across the social spectrum, with high-ranking prisoners arguably at greater risk than anyone else.⁵⁸ The status and treatment of Egyptian prisoners of war was hardly unique in the ancient world. It very much mirrors later Greek convention, whereby the “victor had the option of killing the enemy soldiers on the spot, enslaving them, or exchanging them for ransom” (Lanni 2008, 480).

A gruesome piece of political theater performed by Amenhotep II illustrates the mortal danger that captured enemy leaders faced:

His majesty returned in joy of heart to this father Amon, when he had slain with his own mace the seven princes…who had been put upside down at the prow of his majesty’s falcon-boat…Then six men of these enemies were hanged on the face of the wall of Thebes, and the hands as well. Then the other foe was taken upstream to the land of Nubia and hanged to the wall of Napata, to show his majesty’s victories forever and ever in all lands and all countries…⁵⁹

On a separate occasion, Amenhotep II presided over a mass holocaust of enemy prisoners of both sexes and all ages, demonstrating that the risk of summary execution extended to non-elite prisoners as well.⁶⁰ Amenhotep II was not alone in perpetrating humiliating brutalities upon his enemies. During Merneptah’s reign, Libyan captives were “impaled to the south of Memphis, destroyed…carried off to Egypt and fire was hurled against their multitude in the presence of their relatives (?). (As to) the remainder, their hands were cut off because of their crimes, and others had eyes and ears removed.”⁶¹ Nubian prisoners of war were also impaled during Akhenaton’s reign, suggesting that “it was a regular feature of the punishments meted out to Egypt’s defeated enemies” (Schulman 1988, 92). Significantly, these spectacles of triumph were intended primarily for a domestic audience. Captives were usually brought back to Egypt to be executed, providing a public display of victory, royal power, and justice.⁶² Clearly, the torture and execution of enemies was in no way considered legally or morally problematic by Egyptian society. The inextricable connection between military victory and the restoration of Ma’at necessitated that the triumphal ritual demonstrated “the total abnegation of the opponent, not merely his submission but as well his destruction” (Spalinger 2013, 117).

The vulnerability of prisoners of war was underlined by the fact that they ceased to possess juridical status. Slightly different terminology described captives from independent territories and captives considered as domestic rebels, but both terms can be translated as meaning “like one who had never existed.”⁶³ Enslavement brought humiliation and forced labor, as well as possibly torture and ritual execution. The binding, branding, and recording of prisoners of war was supervised by the “herald of captures” (Ziskind 1967, 151). The description of captives as dehumanized chattels is nowhere more striking than in a papyrus from the reign of Ramses IV (1153–1147 BCE). This text records that prisoners were “branded and made into slaves, they being stamped by my name, their women and children being dealt with likewise. I brought their herds to the House of Amun, they being made for him as cattle forever.”⁶⁴

The enslavement of prisoners of war has largely been eliminated from the practice of modern warfare. Nonetheless, the current refusal to grant juridical status to non-state enemy combatants is perhaps not as far removed from Egyptian practice as one might wish. The abuse of detainees at Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib prison, and the various torture techniques employed against them, evinces a degradation of human rights based on a refusal to grant juridical status to captured enemies.⁶⁵⁶⁶Yoo and Ho (2003, 209–22) argue that interstate terrorism should be classified as proper war under international law, yet insist that terrorists remain illegal combatants and thus enjoy none of the protections provided under the Geneva Conventions.⁶⁷ Like prisoners-of-war taken by the ancient Egyptians, non-state combatants in the twenty-first century find themselves in a legal vacuum. Arguably, prisoners who are stripped of juridical status are also dispossessed of part of their individual human identity. It is hardly surprising that such prisoners should also experience a degradation of their humanity.⁶⁸

Of all the motifs of Egyptian art depicting violence, the image of the pharaoh executing prisoners of war—“smiting his enemies”—was both the oldest and the most enduring. It was used from Predynastic times all the way up to the late Roman period: a span of over 3,500 years.⁶⁹ The earliest discernible smiting scene is a painting from a Predynastic Tomb at Hierakonpolis (c. 3400 BCE), showing three bound prisoners kneeling before a chief/king who wields a mace raised in his right hand.⁷⁰ A much more developed image is rendered on the famous Narmer Palette (Figure 1). King Narmer is depicted in what would become the stereotypical smiting pose: right arm raised and wielding a mace—ready to deliver the death blow—as his left hand grasps a kneeling prisoner by the hair. The intimate link between these scenes of ritual slaughter and the concept of justice was reinforced by the prominence of representations of Ma’at as a recurring feature of the iconography.⁷¹ The smiting scene was intended to represent the physical and symbolic defense of Ma’at and the defeat of Isfet (chaos). It was the quintessential act of justice.

Egyptian queens are occasionally depicted accompanying the pharaoh during the smiting ritual (Schoske 1982, 84–171), but in general women and children feature very rarely in the smiting scenes.⁷² This was a product of the patriarchal nature of Egyptian warfare and iconographic conventions rather than a recognition of non-combatant immunity. Depicting the pharaoh triumphing over women and children did little to enhance the king’s martial status. Equally, in representing the victory of good (pharaoh) over evil (enemy soldiers), women and children were superfluous to the needs of the scene.⁷³ Nonetheless, female captives were a valuable element of military booty and were forced to endure the usual sexual exploitation suffered by women caught up in wars over the centuries. The Israelite Deuteronomic code may have attempted to bestow a very small measure of protection for female captives (Dt. 21:10–14), but there is no evidence for any equivalent rule in Egypt.⁷⁴

There remains disagreement among Egyptologists whether the smiting scenes depict real or fictive violence.⁷⁵ I believe that the sheer frequency and longevity of the smiting motif suggests that the ritual execution of prisoners was far more than artistic symbolism, and that executions were not abandoned in later periods. Political imagery must remain more closely aligned to reality than other types of imagery, exactly because it serves as a projection of power and intends to be convincing. Images can quickly lose their potency if unsupported by concrete power and action, as witnessed in the vandalism and destruction of political statuary in former Soviet states after 1989, or in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. Arguably, ritual execution must have survived in Egypt as a royal practice (at least an occasional one) in order for the images to have retained any meaningful relevance and authority over several millennia.

That a civilization capable of incredible cultural and technological achievements should indulge in ritual murder undoubtedly creates an uncomfortable paradox for modern sensibilities. Of course, such paradoxes are commonplace in the histories of complex societies. In ancient Rome, the execution of prisoners of war was a feature of military triumphs, although its frequency is contested.⁷⁶ In Mesoamerica, very large numbers of prisoners of war—male and female—were sacrificed in both Mayan and Aztec societies; the evisceration and decapitation of the victim played a central ritualistic and theological role.⁷⁷ The Nuremberg executions of high-ranking Nazis in 1946, or the widely publicized use of beheading by Islamic extremists in Iraq since 2003 and by Islamic State since 2014, share a number of characteristics with the killing of military captives in ancient Egypt, Rome, or Mesoamerica. While the specific religious, cultural, and legal dimensions of this act vary considerably, it often goes hand-in-hand with absolutist views regarding enemy culpability. Furthermore, the essential purpose was, and is, consistent. Executing prisoners of war communicates a message of power, justice (however conceived), and retribution to a supportive audience (human or divine). At the same time, it communicates a threat of power, vengeance, and humiliation to the enemy. Seen in this broader chronological and geographical perspective, the execution of prisoners of war should be recognized as a normative feature of the historical practice and ethics of warfare.

Destruction of Property

The pharaoh’s de iure right to preserve or destroy enemy captives was extended to enemy property. During campaigns, the Egyptian army either consumed or looted movable property. Immovable property was prone to destruction, and campaign records testify to the deliberate targeting of agricultural resources, both cereal and arboreal.⁷⁸ Egyptian armies had employed ravaging since at least Dynasty VI (c. 2345–2181 BCE), as described in the Autobiography of Weni:

This army returned in safety [henceforth refrain],

 It had ravaged the sand-dwellers’ land [Syria-Palestine].

[refrain]

 It had flattened the sand-dwellers’ land.

[refrain]

 It had sacked its strongholds.

[refrain]

 It had cut down its figs, its vines.

[refrain]

 It had thrown fire in all its (mansions).

[refrain]

 It had slain its troops by many ten thousands.

[refrain]

 (It had carried) off many (troops) as captives.⁷⁹

This inscription from a private tomb tells us a number of things about how Egyptian commanders (and their descendants) assessed military success. The safe return of the army is entwined with the devastation inflicted upon the enemy’s territory. This destruction (certainly exaggerated here) was obviously intrinsic to the campaign’s success. Weni and his family were clearly proud of his achievements, so much so that they sought to preserve them for eternity in his tomb. Weni’s actions also gained the approval of his superiors: “His majesty praised me for it beyond anything. His majesty sent me to lead this army five times.”⁸⁰ In short, there is no sense that discrimination or proportionality was required, and ruthlessness was rewarded with praise and additional military commands. From the campaigns of Weni to the English chevauchées of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), or General Sherman’s infamous “March to the Sea” (1864), the objectives of these ravaging operations are comparable. Their purpose was to terrorize foes into submission, to destabilize the political authority of the opponent, to cripple an enemy’s economy in order to reduce military capability, and to acquire booty for the army.

Diplomacy

Neither universal nor particular immunities existed in Egyptian warfare. The concept of sanctuary or inviolable sacred space also seems to have been largely absent. This disregard for the enemy’s sacred space or objects probably resulted from notions of Egyptian religious superiority and the link between state gods and state wars. As it was believed that gods sanctioned the wars of political communities, gods (or rather, their temples) shared in the rewards of success but also the losses of defeat (Ziskind 1967, 143).

On the periphery of war, foreign envoys enjoyed guarantees for their safety and played a crucial role in negotiating formal international treaties. Evidence for such treaties originates in Egypt from at least the second millennium BCE but probably existed earlier. It includes defensive and offensive treaties as well as neutrality agreements.⁸¹ The gods acted as witnesses to treaties, and oaths were an essential component of the treaty-making process. To break one’s treaty oath was understood as both a political betrayal and a violation of the sacred. In consequence, “the aggrieved country and its pantheon were…entitled to utilize any means at their disposal to punish the offending country. This punishment included permitting or delegating the human ruler of the aggrieved country to make war” (Ziskind 1967, 126).

The best surviving example of an Egyptian peace treaty is that made between Ramses II and the Hittite king Hattusilis in 1280 BCE. Fortuitously, both the Egyptian and Hittite versions of the treaty have survived.⁸² The monarchs agreed upon a riksu (parity) treaty that was essentially a non-aggression pact as well as a defensive and offensive alliance between the two states. The rulers pledged “that good peace and brotherhood occur between us forever,” and this pledge was also incumbent upon their subjects.⁸³

The Great Prince of Hatti shall not trespass against the land of Egypt forever, to take anything from it…the great ruler of Egypt, shall not trespass against the land (of Hatti, to take) from it forever…If another enemy come against the lands of User-maat-Re [Ramses II]…the Great Prince of Hatti shall (come to him and) the Great Prince of Hatti shall slay his enemy…But (if) another enemy (come) against the Great Prince (of Hatti), [Ramses II]…(shall) come to him as reinforcement to slay his enemy.⁸⁴

The agreement to lend mutual military aid also encompassed military actions against rebellion in each country. Remarkably, the treaty specified that Egypt should send military aid to Hattusilis’s successors in the event of a royal succession crisis.⁸⁵ This is perhaps the earliest example of formal conditions being agreed for an international military intervention. Finally, the treaty was witnessed by “a thousand gods of the male gods and of the female gods of them of the land of Hatti, together with a thousand gods of the male gods and of the female gods of them of the land of Egypt.” If either side violated the sacred contract, the gods of Hatti and Egypt would “destroy his house, his land, and his servants.”⁸⁶

What this treaty shows is that ancient Egyptians conceived of war and peace as existing within a framework of divine and mundane international relations and law. Egyptians generally viewed hostile relations between states as less felicitous than peaceful relations, but war was an ethically and legally acceptable instrument of retribution, aggrandizement, and political control. Moreover, it was evidently a normal feature of New Kingdom international relations that future military ventures were subject to the obligations of treaties such as that between Ramses II and Hattusilis. Allies of Egypt could achieve a degree of legal symmetry, although the wording of the Egyptian version clearly portrays the Hittite king as inferior to the pharaoh.⁸⁷ This treaty also shows that the Egyptian ethics of war, while distinctive, was not entirely sui generis. There were evidently a sufficient number of shared assumptions regarding the ethics and legalism of war that made this international treaty possible in the first place.

Conclusion

Taken as a whole, ancient Egyptian warfare operated within a well-established system of ethics; considerations of justice were fundamental to the Egyptian concept of righteous war. On the other hand, enemy “rights” were entirely absent from the Egyptian lexicon and prosecution of war. We have seen that it was normative to treat enemies with extreme brutality. Death on the battlefield as a combatant—or afterward as a prisoner of war—was to be expected, with rank offering little protection in this regard. Mutilation of enemy corpses was standard practice, fulfilling both monitory and administrative purposes. I find no evidence for limitations on weapons or tactics. All enemy property was a legitimate target, to be seized as booty or destroyed as part of a politico-military strategy to reduce enemy resources and inflict shock-and-awe intimidation. No meaningful distinctions were made between combatants and non-combatants in regard to property or persons. Women and children enjoyed no immunity. They, along with other enemy combatants and non-combatants, were enslaved on a grand scale. In sum, there appears to be almost nothing that could be identified as part of an ancient Egyptian ius in bello tradition. However, the absence of a ius in bello tradition was the direct consequence of the development of a prepotent ius ad bellum tradition.

Egypt’s vital cosmological role as a sanctuary and guardian of Ma’at amid a sea of chaos (Isfet) provided a powerful religious and political teleology upon which to establish an ethics of war. Wars that defended Egypt, a unique haven of order and truth, were intrinsically just. Egyptian royal ideology promoted the unequivocal authority of the quasi-divine pharaoh to wage war. Egyptian contempt for the “evil foreigner” endowed the state with an uncontested legitimacy to assert itself, reactively or proactively, against barbarism. Internal and external enemies were condemned as rebels and evildoers.

Reality, naturally, is infinitely more complex and fluid than images or texts can communicate. Ancient sources that were clearly intended to convey a variety of religious and political ideals pose numerous interpretative problems.⁸⁸ It is no coincidence that Egyptian just war ideology, which stressed unity and authority around the person of the king, was promoted most vigorously during the periods of centralized monarchy. Yet the three major kingdom periods that I have examined were separated by prolonged “intermediate” periods marked by civil war, foreign occupation, and a fracturing of the Egyptian state into a number of competing territorial units. The Egyptian ethics of war developed, therefore, in conjunction with attempts to reinforce waxing or waning royal authority. Consequently, it is perhaps more a projection of political ideals than a reflection of political reality.

The precise historicity of representations of brutality in ancient Egyptian sources need not overly concern us when considering the ethics of war. What matters is that, for thousands of years, Egyptian elites wished to promote such actions as intrinsically “good.” Images of slaughter or enslavement of the enemy expressed ideals of warlike action. But the actual prosecution of Egyptian warfare may not have matched these ideal types. Egyptian military conduct was likely less brutal than the Egyptian ethics of war permitted. Not every town could be razed, not every enemy could or would be slaughtered, and it was not always politically astute to execute enemy leaders. The pragmatics and profits of war and politics undoubtedly erred toward at least some degree of restraint.⁸⁹ The Egyptian-Hittite treaty demonstrates that Egyptian diplomacy and foreign policy was more sophisticated than mere brute force. Nonetheless, Egypt unleashed unlimited violence when it suited its purpose. Indeed, the defining feature of the Egyptian ethics of war is that, rather than being restrictive, it was highly permissive.

This important feature of ancient Egyptian military doctrine is not unique in the history of just war thought. Highly permissive doctrines emerged in other cultures in which absolute claims to justice—combined with universalizing politico-theological teleologies—shaped the process of legitimizing unlimited “just” force. Though it is misleading to frame Egyptian warfare in terms of a “religious crusade,”⁹⁰ the medieval concept of holy war incorporated a comparable notion of universal justice (divine and natural) applying to all peoples (pagan and Christian). Prevailing doctrine rendered the defense of Christendom crucial to the salvation of humanity (Russell 1975, 112–26, 195–212). Christian holy war emerged initially as a justification for defending the Church against rebellion (that is, heresy), but by the mid-twelfth century Gratian could state uncontroversially that Christian prelates could exhort anyone to defend the faith against infidels.⁹¹ From the mid-thirteenth century, many canon lawyers insisted that Christians, infidels, and pagans were all under the universal jurisdiction of the pope (Brundage 1995a, 162–63). Thus, Christians and non-Christians alike were subject to the pope’s justice. However, canonists, theologians, and other medieval commentators placed very few limitations on the prosecution of wars in defense of the faith, resulting in warfare characterized by extreme brutality.⁹²

The religious character of the Egyptian state, and the sharp distinction made between Egypt (governed by Ma’at) and foreign lands (ruled by Isfet), encourages comparison to medieval Islamic distinctions between the Dar al-Islam (House of Islam, that is, peace) and the Dar al-Harb (House of War). Like the pharaoh’s duty to maintain Ma’at, it was the duty of the Muslim head of state to maintain Islam.⁹³ There are further parallels with radical interpretations of jihad that have emerged since the mid-twentieth century. Within Salafi jihadism, the focus on extreme claims to ius ad bellum has led to a complete abandonment of ius in bello limitations.⁹⁴ The 1998 declaration of jihad released by Bin Laden’s World Islamic Front specifically states that “to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim.”⁹⁵ This interpretation of jihad, based on a stark distinction between “good” and “evil,” stands in contrast to more nuanced classical jihadist literature or more moderate modern interpretations.⁹⁶

Perhaps the closest correlates to the Egyptian ethics of war appear in the ancient Roman concept of wars for survival (rather than for imperium or glory)⁹⁷ and the ancient Israelite concept of Milhemit mitzvah (obligatory wars). The universalism of natural justice in the case of Rome, and the absolutism of divine justice in the case of Israel, permitted unlimited warfare as a counter to existential threats to the political community. For the Israelites, this was linked to the eschatological significance of Israel comprising the territory gifted by Yahweh to his chosen people. The biblical “ban” (herem) against a number of specific enemy communities residing within the promised land obligated the Israelites to engage in the genocidal killing of “everything that breathed,” including livestock.⁹⁸ Egyptian doctrine differed from Israel and Rome in that all Egyptian wars could be conceived of in this extreme manner.

The aforementioned doctrines obviously differed significantly in content and detail. Yet we find marked similarities in their underlying assumptions. Whether rooted in cosmology, theology, or Stoic philosophy, each contains universalizing or absolutist notions of justice. These concepts of justice permitted military action against any and all deemed as transgressors against the law or threats to the community. Uniting all these doctrines was a definite sense of the enemy constituting a cultural “other”—often characterized as barbaric—against whom extreme violence was permissible.⁹⁹

The wars of ancient Egypt are far removed from modern conflict. However, assumptions of, or claims to, universal or absolute justice in war are not consigned to the distant past or to the modern extremist fringe. As Morkevičius (2015, 13, 16–20) highlights, states display a tendency to “conflate national and universal conceptions of the good”; moreover, both realism and just war theory are grounded in assumptions of universality, pertaining either to the essential rationality of the state system or to the existence of universal moral norms.

Rengger (2013, 1–2, 8–9, 31–35, 106, 158–79) critiques the modern amalgamation of the just war as a punitive instrument to combat injustice with concepts of the liberal democratic state as an “enterprise association united around a notion of the common good,” thereby embodying “enlightened government” and justice. This has resulted in a less restrictive use of force in international politics. “Where injustice is everywhere, the reasons to use force to oppose it are not hard to find” (Rengger 2013, 67).

The conviction that the liberal democratic state and its concept of justice must be defended is made all the more necessary by the vivification of the state as a moral person, fully endowed with a conception of the good. Eckert (2009, 162, 174) goes so far as to argue that “aggression against a state is akin to murder” and that this “grounds the right to national defense.” On the other hand, the post–World War II era has also witnessed a growing emphasis on individual human rights, international humanitarian law, and the duty of states to defend against human rights abuses (for example, UN 1948).¹⁰⁰ Since the end of the Cold War, the UN Security Council has been willing “to define ‘threats to the peace’ more broadly and flexibly” than simple violations of territorial sovereignty.¹⁰¹ This, in turn, increases the likelihood of military interventions on humanitarian grounds—often in violation of claims to state sovereignty. Stromseth, Wippman, and Brooks (2006, 5, 9) observe that this “new interventionism will probably be a feature of the global order for years to come,” and is usually justified on the basis of instating or reinstating the “rule of law.” They (2006, 1–17) also highlight that the humanitarian or security concerns motivating interventions have led to these operations being characterized as a form of “new imperialism” or “liberal imperialism.”

The authors (2006, 55) assert that “building the rule of law after intervention depends on strengthening cultural commitments to—and public confidence in—the very idea of law.” Yet the authors neglect the fact that Western liberal democratic states dominated the creation and promotion of a universal idea and rule of law through the United Nations. In consequence, the concept of international law broadly reflects Western liberal cultural values and requirements, while lacking full cognizance of cultural differences.¹⁰² Universally applicable “law” has become synonymous with Western liberal democratic principles of law. When the authors claim that interventions must strengthen the idea and rule of law, what they really mean is that interveners must establish Western liberal democratic law. Thus, the imposition of the “rule of law” through interventionism constitutes, in itself, a form of legal-cultural imperialism. These assumptions and objectives are, somewhat ironically, more than a little reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian attitude to universal justice and law.

Uncompromising interpretations of justice, combined with the veneration of a singular political order, can produce sophisticated and powerful just war doctrines. However, the conviction that justice and war are interrelated clearly offers no guarantee that the destructiveness of war will be reduced. Indeed, it may in fact make war more destructive. In this regard, ancient Egyptian thought on war prefigures some later developments in the West and Middle East.¹⁰³ This is also relevant to the relationship between justice and military necessity in contemporary conflicts; conceptions of justice directly impact upon the extent to which military necessity can exculpate collateral damage. The permissibility of abandoning rules of restraint—especially non-combatant immunity—in order to serve military necessity is alive in Walzer’s (2006, 251–68) well-known argument for “Supreme Emergency.”

More recently, Crawford (2003, 4–12, 160–75; 2013, 235–41, 245) forcefully demonstrated how the modern just war tradition, international law, and military practitioners have accommodated military necessity as a means to permit the moral and lawful harming of civilians. Collateral damage is excused as the “inevitable” unintended consequence of necessary and proportionate military actions. US military operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq rarely intentionally target civilians, but Crawford shows that not all cases of collateral damage are simply tragic accidents. Foreseeable civilian casualties have frequently been permitted as an acceptable cost for achieving military objectives or enhancing force protection. Military necessity therefore becomes “a synonym for military utility” (Crawford 2003, 175).

If governments and their publics are convinced of the justice of a particular war—without accepting the possibility of ambiguities over issues such as just cause or enemy culpability—then the success of military operations, regardless of the “unintended” costs to civilians, becomes an overriding priority. It is easy to imagine how an ever more expansive interpretation of military necessity would be directly proportional to the perceived importance of obtaining victory against an absolutely unjust enemy.

This article has demonstrated that complex thought about war and justice is not unique to the West or to Christianity. I argued that we must expand the history of the just war tradition to recognize the rich seam of just war thought that existed in ancient Egypt, well before the advent of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, or Islamic considerations of this topic. Furthermore, I have highlighted how ancient Egyptian just war thought shares certain characteristics with later classical, medieval, and even contemporary doctrines.

An understanding of the past should help inform the just war doctrine of the present. The ancient Egyptian ethics of war demonstrates that absolute judgments in the realms of morality or justice intensify the destructive nature of war in both its conceptualization and prosecution. The challenge for contemporary just war doctrine is to create an ethical and legal framework that is robust enough to permit and regulate military force under pressing and determinable circumstances, yet flexible enough to accommodate the reality that, in something as complex as war, there are very few absolute truths.

Supplementary Information

Supplemental Information is available at the International Studies Quarterly Data Archive.

Rory Cox is Lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of St. Andrews, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Associate Director of the Institute of Intellectual History, St. Andrews: http://www.intellectualhistory.net. His research focuses on the history of the just war tradition and military conduct, from antiquity to the present day.

References

Author notes