READING HALL

"THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY"

 

A HISTORY OF BABYLON FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE MONARCHY TO THE PERSIAN CONQUEST

CHAPTER VIII

THE LATER DYNASTIES AND THE ASSYRIAN DOMINATION

 

THE historian of ancient Babylonia has reason to be grateful to Shutruk-Nakhkhunte and his son for their raids into the Euphrates valley, since certain of the monuments they carried off as spoil have been preserved in the mounds of Susa, until the French expedition brought them again to light. Thanks to Babylon's misfortunes at this time, we have recovered some of her finest memorials, including the famous Stele of Naram-Sin, Hammurabi's Code of Laws, and an important series of the Kassite kudurrus, or boundary-stones, which, as we have seen, throw considerable light upon the economic condition of the country. These doubtless represent but a small proportion of the booty secured by Elam at this period, but they suffice to show the manner in which the great Babylonian cities were denuded of their treasures. Under the earlier kings of the Fourth Dynasty it would seem that Elam continued to be a menace, and it was not until the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I that the land was freed from further danger of Elamite invasion. We possess two interesting memorials of his successful campaigns, during which he not only regained his own territories, but carried the war into the enemy's country. One is a charter of privileges, which the king conferred upon Hitti-Marduk, the Captain of his chariots, for signal service against Elam. The text is engraved on a block of calcareous limestone, and on one side of it are a series of divine symbols, sculptured in high relief, in order to place the record under the protection of the gods, in accordance with the custom introduced during the Kassite period.

The campaign in Elam which furnished the occasion for the charter was undertaken, according to the text, with the object of "avenging Akkad", that is to say, in retaliation for the Elamite raids in Northern Babylonia. The campaign was conducted from the frontier city of Der, or Dur-ilu, and, as it was carried out in the summer, the Babylonian army suffered considerably on the march. The heat of the sun was so great that, in the words of the record, the axe burned like fire, the roads scorched like flame, and through the lack of drinking-water "the vigour of the great horses failed, and the legs of the strong man turned aside". Ritti-Marduk, as Captain of the chariots, encouraged the troops by his example, and eventually brought them to the Eukeus, where they gave battle to the Elamite confederation which had been summoned to oppose them.

The record describes the subsequent battle in vivid phraseology. "The kings took their stand round about and offered battle. Fire was kindled in their midst; by their dust was the face of the sun darkened. The hurricane sweeps along, the storm rages; in the storm of their battle the warrior in the chariot perceives not the companion at his side". Here again Ritti-Marduk did good service by leading the attack. "He turned evil against the King of Elam, so that destruction overtook him; King Nebuchadnezzar triumphed, he captured the land of Elam, he plundered its possessions". On his return from the campaign Nebuchadnezzar granted the charter to Ritti-Marduk, freeing the towns and villages of Bit-Karziabku, of which he was the head­man, from the jurisdiction of the neighbouring town of Namar. In addition to freedom from all taxation and the corvée, the privileges secured the inhabitants from liability to arrest by imperial soldiers stationed in the district, and forbade the billeting of such troops upon them. This portion of the text affords an interesting glimpse of the military organization of the kingdom.

The second memorial too has a bearing on this war, since it exhibits Nebuchadnezzar as a patron of Elamite refugees. It is a copy of a deed recording a grant of land and privileges to Shamua and his son Shamaia, priests of the Elamite god Ria, who, in fear of the Elamite king, fled from their own country and secured Nebuchadnezzar's protection. The text states that, when the king undertook an expedition on their behalf, they accompanied him and brought back the statue of the god Ria, whose cult Nebuchadnezzar inaugurated in the Babylonian city of Khussi, after he had introduced the foreign god into Babylon at the Feast of the New Year. The deed records the grant of five estates to the two Elamite priests and their god, and it exempts the land in future from all liability to taxation and forced labour.

DIVINE EMBLEMS ON A CHARTER OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR I

Though Nebuchadnezzar restored the fortunes of his country, he was not the founder of his dynasty. Of his three predecessors, the name of one may now be restored as Marduk-shapik-zerim. His name has been read on a kudurru-fragment in the Yale Collection, which is dated in the eighth year of Marduk-nadin-akhe, and refers to the twelfth year of Marduk-shapik-zerim. That he cannot be identified with Marduk- shapik-zer-mati is certain, since we know from the "Synchronistic History" that the latter succeeded Marduk-nadin-akhe upon the throne of Babylon, the one being the contemporary of Tiglath-pileser I, the other of his son Ashur-bel-kala. The close sequence of the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar I, Enlil-nadin-apli, and Marduk-nadin-akhe has long been recognized from the occurrence of the same officials on legal documents of the period. We must therefore place the newly recovered ruler in the gap before Nebuchadnezzar I; he must be one of the first three kings of the dynasty, possibly its founder, whose name in the Kings' List begins with the divine title Marduk, and who ruled for seventeen years according to the same authority. Another of these missing rulers may perhaps be restored as Ea-nadin-[. . . .], if the royal name in the broken inscription of Nebuchadnezzar I, to which reference has already been made, is to be read in that way and not identified as that of the last member of the Kassite Dynasty. During the earlier years of the Dynasty of Isin Babylonia must have been subject to further Elamite aggression, and portions of the country may for a time have acknowledged, the suze­rainty of her rulers.

Nebuchadnezzar's successes against Elam and the neighbouring district of Lulubu no doubt enabled him to offer a more vigorous defence of his northern frontier; and, when Ashur-resh-ishi attempted an invasion of Babylonian territory, he not only drove the Assyrians back, but followed them up and laid siege to the frontier fortress of Zanki. But Ashur-resh-ishi forced him to raise the siege and burn his siege-train; and, on Nebuchadnezzar's return with reinforcements, the Babylonian army suffered a further defeat, losing its fortified camp together with Karashtu, the general in command of the army, who was taken to Assyria as a prisoner of war. Babylon thus proved that, though strong enough to recover and maintain her independence, she was incapable of a vigorous offensive on a large scale. It is true that Nebuchadnezzar claimed among his titles that of "Conqueror of Amurru", but it is doubtful whether we should regard the term as implying more than a raid into the region of the middle Euphrates.

That within her own borders Babylon maintained an effective administration is clear from a boundary-stone of the period of Nebuchadnezzar's successor, Enlil- nadin-apli, recording a grant of land in the district of Edina in Southern Babylonia by E-anna-shum-iddina, a governor of the Sea-Country, who administered that district under the Babylonian king and owed his appointment to him. But in the reign of Marduk-nadin-akhe, she was to suffer her second great defeat at the hands of Assyria. She fought two campaigns with Tiglath-pileser I, in the latter part of his reign, after his successes in the North and West. In the first she met with some success, but on the second occasion Tiglath-pileser completely reversed its result, and followed up his victory by the capture of Babylon itself with other of the great northern cities, Dur-Kurigalzu, Sippar of Shamash, Sippar of Anunitum, and Opis. But Assyria did not then attempt a permanent occupation, for we find Tiglath-pileser's son, Ashur-bel-kala, on friendly terms with Marduk-shapik-zer-mati; and when the latter, after a prosperous reign, lost his throne to the Aramean usurper Adad-aplu-iddina, he further strengthened the alliance by contracting a marriage with the new king's daughter.

Thus closed the first phase of Babylon's relations with the growing Assyrian power. A state of alternate conflict and temporary truce had been maintained between them for some three centuries, and now for more than half a century the internal condition of both countries was such as to put an end to any policy of aggression. The cause of Babylon's decline was the overrunning of the country by the Sutu, semi-nomad Semitic tribes from beyond the Euphrates, who made their first descent during Adad-aplu-iddina's later years, and, according to a Neo-Babylonian chronicle, carried off with them the spoil of Sumer and Akkad. This was probably the first of many raids, and we may see evidence of the unsettled condition of the country in the ephemeral Babylonian dynasties, which followed one another in quick succession.

The later ruler, Nabn-aplu-iddina, when recording his rebuilding of the great temple of the Sun-god at Sippar, has left us some details of this troubled time; and the facts he relates of one of the great cities of Akkad may be regarded as typical of the general condition of the country. The temple had been wrecked by the Sutu, doubtless at the time of Adad-aplu-iddina, and it was not until the reign of Simmash-Shipak, who came from the Country of the Sea and founded the Fifth Dynasty, that any attempt was made to re­establish the interrupted service of the deity. His successor, Ea-mukin-zer, did not retain the throne for more than five months, and in the reign of Kashshu- nadin-akhi, with whom the dynasty closed, the country suffered further misfortunes, the general distress, occasioned by raids and civil disturbance, being increased by famine. Thus the service of the temple again suffered, until under E-ulmash-shakin-shum of Bit-Bazi, who founded the Sixth Dynasty, a partial re-endowment of the temple took place. But its half ruinous condition continued to attest the poverty of the country and of its rulers, until the more prosperous times of Nabu-aplu-iddina. E-ulmash-shakin-shum was succeeded by two members of his own house, Ninib-kudur-usur and Shilanum-Shukamuna; but they reigned between them less than four years, and the throne then passed for six years to an Elamite, whose rule is regarded by the later chroniclers as having constituted in itself the Seventh Babylonian Dynasty.

Kudurru of Nabu-mukin-apli

A stable government was once more established in Babylonia by Nabu-mukin-apli, the founder of the Eighth Dynasty, though even in his reign Aramean tribes continued to give trouble, holding the Euphrates in the neighborhood of Babylon and Borsippa, cutting communications, and raiding the country-side. On one occasion they captured the Ferry-Gate of Kar-bel-matati and prevented the king from holding the New Year's Festival, as the statue of the god Nabu could not be transported across the river to Babylon. A rude portrait of this monarch is preserved on a boundary-stone of his reign, on which he is represented giving the royal sanction to the transfer of an estate in the district of Sha-mamitu; and it may be added that considerable friction subsequently took place, with regard to the validity of the title, between the original owner Arad- Sibitti and his son-in-law, a jewel-worker named Burusha. The coarse style of the engraving is probably to be explained by the fact of its provincial origin, though there can be little doubt that the standard of Babylonian art had been adversely affected by the internal condition of the country during the preceding period.

It was at the time of the Eighth Dynasty that the renaissance of Assyria took place, which culminated in the victories of that ruthless conqueror Ashur-nasir-pal and of his son Shalmaneser III. Its effect was first felt in Babylon in the reign of Shamash-mudammik, who suffered a serious defeat in the neighborhood of Mt. Ialman at the hands of Adad-nirari III, Ashur-nasir-pal's grandfather. Against Nabu-shum-ishkun I, the murderer and successor of Shamash-mudammik, Adad-nirari secured another victory, several Babylonian cities with much spoil falling into his hands. But we subsequently find him on friendly terms with Babylon, and allying himself with Nabu-shum-ishkun, or possibly with his successor, each monarch marrying the other's daughter. His son Tukulti-Ninib II of Assyria, profiting by the renewed sense of security from attack upon his southern border, began to make tentative efforts at expanding westwards into Mesopotamia. But it was reserved for Ashur-nasir-pal, his son, to cross the Euphrates and lead Assyrian armies once more into Syrian territory. After securing his frontier to the east and north of Assyria, Ashur-nasir-pal turned his attention to the west. The Aramean states of Bit-Khadippi and Bit-Adini, both on the left bank of the Euphrates, fell before his onslaught. Then crossing the Euphrates on rafts of skins, he received the submission of Sangar of Carchemish, and marched in triumph through Syria to the coast.

Babylon naturally viewed this encroachment on the Euphrates route to the west as a danger to her commercial connexions, and it is not surprising that Nabu-aplu-iddina should have attempted to oppose Ashur-nasir-pal's advance by allying himself with Shadudu of Sukhi. But the armed forces he sent to support the people of Sukhi in their resistance were quite unable to withstand the Assyrian onslaught, and his brother Sabdanu and Bel-aplu-iddin, the Babylonian leader, fell into Ashur-nasir-pal's hands. In recording his victory the Assyrian king refers to the Babylonians as the Kassites, a striking tribute to the fame of the foreign dynasty which had ended more than three centuries before. Nabu-aplu-iddina evidently realized the futility of attempting further opposition to Assyrian aims, and he was glad to establish relations of a friendly character, which he continued in the reign of Shalmaneser. He attempted to forget the failure of his military expedition by repairing the damage inflicted during the numerous Aramean raids upon the ancient cult - centres of Babylonia.

 

the sun god tablet Nabu-aplu-iddina being led by the priest Nabu-nadin-shum and the goddess Aa into the presence of the Sun-god

He is the king who restored and re-endowed so richly the temple of Shamash at Sippar, digging in the ruins of former structures till he found the ancient image of the god. He redecorated the shrine, and with much ceremony re-established the ritual and offerings for the god, placing them under the control of Nabu-nadin-shum, a descendant of the former priest E-kur-shum-ushabshi, whom Simmash-Shipak had installed at Sippar. The sculptured scene on the stone memorial-tablet, which records the re-endowment of the temple, represents Nabu-aplu-iddina being led by the priest Nabu-nadin-shum and the goddess Aia into the presence of the Sun-god, who is seated in his temple E-babbar. Before the god is the solar disk resting upon an altar supported by attendant deities, whose bodies spring from the roof of the shrine.

The skill of the Babylonian craftsmen at this period is also attested by a cylinder of lapis lazuli, engraved in low relief with a figure of Marduk and his dragon, which was dedicated in E-sagila at Babylon by Marduk-zakir-shum, the son and successor of Nabu- aplu-iddina. It was originally coated with gold, and the design and execution of the figure may be compared with those of the Sun-god Tablet, as an additional example of the decorative character of Babylonian stone-engraving in the ninth century.

It was in Marduk-zakir-shum's reign that Assyria capped her conquests of this period by becoming the suzerain of Babylon. Under Ashur-nasir-pal and Shalmaneser the military organization of the country had been renewed, and both made effective use of their extraordinarily efficient armies. Ashur-nasir-pal's policy was one of annihilation, and the speed with which he struck ensured his success. Thus when he crossed the Euphrates after taking Carchemish, the king of Damascus, the most powerful and important state in Syria, made no attempt to oppose him or to organize a defence. He had evidently been taken by surprise.

But Syria then learned her lesson, and at the battle of Karkar in 854 B.C. Shalmaneser found himself opposed by a confederation of the northern kings, and, though he eventually succeeded in ravaging the territory of Damascus, the city itself held out. In fact, the stubborn resistance of Damascus prevented any further attempt on Assyria's part at this period to penetrate further into Southern Syria and Palestine. So Shalmaneser had to content himself with marching northwards across Mt. Amanus, subjugating Cilicia and exacting tribute from districts north of the Taurus. He also conducted a successful campaign in Armenia, from which quarter one of Assyria's most powerful enemies was about to arise. But it was in Babylonia that he secured his principal political success. He has left us a pictorial record of his campaigns on the bronze sheathing of two cedar-wood doors of his palace; and, as one of the bands commemorates his triumphal march through Chaldea in 851 B.C., it gives us some indication of the condition of the country at this time.

the Gates of Shalmaneser (detail)

The occasion for Shalmaneser's intervention in Babylonian affairs was furnished by internal dissension. When Marduk-bel-usate, the brother of Marduk-zakir-shum, revolted, and divided the country into two armed camps, Shalmaneser readily responded to the latter's appeal for help, and marching southwards succeeded in defeating the rebels and in ravaging the districts under their con­trol. On a second expedition in the following year he completed his work by slaying Marduk-bel-usate in battle, and he was then acknowledged by Marduk-zakir-shum as his suzerain. In this capacity he toured through the principal cities of Akkad, offering sacrifices in the famous temples of Cuthah, Babylon, and Borsippa. He also led his army into Chaldea, and, after storming its frontier fortress of Bakani, received the submission of its ruler, Adini, and heavy tribute from him and from Iakin, the Chaldean king of the Sea-Country further to the south. In his representation of the campaign Shalmaneser is portrayed marching through the country, and receiving tribute from the Chaldeans which they carry from their cities and ferry across streams to deposit in the presence of the king and his officials.

But Babylon did not long endure the position of a vassal state, and Shalmaneser's son and successor, Shamshi-Adad IV, attempted her reconquest, plundering many cities before he met with serious opposition. Marduk-balatsu-ikbi, the Babylonian king, had meanwhile collected his forces, which included armed levies from Elam, Chaldea, and other districts. The two armies met near the city of Dur-Papsukal, the Babylonians were totally defeated, and a rich booty fell to their conqueror. During a subsequent interregnum Erba-Marduk, the son of Marduk-shakin-shum, secured the throne, owing his election to his success in driving Aramean raiders from the cultivated fields of Babylon and Borsippa. But he did not reign for long, and when Babylon continued to give trouble to Assyria, Adad-nirari IV, the successor of Shamshi-Adad, again subjugated a considerable portion of the country, carrying away Bau-akhi-iddina, the Babylonian king, as a captive to Assyria, together with the treasures of his palace.

During the following half-century our knowledge of Babylonian affairs is a blank, and we have not as yet recovered even the names of the last members of the Eighth Dynasty. This epoch corresponds to a period of weakness and inaction in the northern kingdom, such as more than once before had followed a forward movement on her part. The expansion of Assyria, in fact, took place in a series of successive waves, and when one had spent itself, a recoil preceded the next advance. The principal cause of her contraction, after the brilliant reigns of Shalmaneser III and his father, may undoubtedly be traced to the rise of a new power in the mountains of Armenia. From their capital on the shore of Lake Van, the Urartians marched southward and menaced the northern frontier of Assyria itself. Her kings could no longer dream of further adventures in the West, which would leave their home territory at the mercy of this new foe. Urartu became now the principal drag on Assyria's ambitions, a part which was afterwards so effectively played by Elam in alliance with Babylon.

It is to this period we may probably assign an interesting provincial monument, discovered in Babylon,which illustrates the independent position enjoyed by the rulers of local districts at a time when the central control of either kingdom, and particularly of Assyria, was relaxed. The monument commemorates the principal achievements of Shamash-resh-usur, governor of the lands of Sukhi and Mari on the middle Euphrates. He may have owed his appointment to Assyria, but he speaks like a reigning monarch and dates the record in his thirteenth year. On it he records his suppression of a revolt of the Tu'manu tribe, who threatened his capital Ribanish, while he was holding festival in the neighbouring town of Baka. But he attacked the with the people who were with him, slew three hundred and fifty of them, and the rest submitted. He also records how he dug out the Sukhi Canal, when it had silted up, and how he planted palm-trees in his palace at Ribanish. But his most notable act, according to his own account, was the introduction of bees into Sukhi, which his improved irrigation of the district doubtless rendered possible. " Bees which collect honey," he tells us. "which no man had seen since the time of my fathers and forefathers, nor had brought to the land of Sukhi, I brought down from the mountains of the Khabkha-tribe and I put them in the garden of Gabbari-ibni." The text closes with an interesting little note upon the bees: " They collect honey and wax. The preparing of honey and wax I understand, and the gardeners understand it." And he adds that in days to come a ruler will ask the elders of his land," Is it true that Shamash-resh-usur, governor of Sukhi, brought honey-bees into the land of Sukhi ?" The monument may well have been carried to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II., when he incorporated the district within his empire.

The subsequent period shows a gradual tightening of Assyria's grasp upon the southern kingdom, varied by comparatively ineffective struggles and revolts on Babylon's part to avoid her loss of independence. The temporary decline of Assyrian power enabled Babylon for a time to regain something of her former position under Nabu-shum-ishkun II, an early king of the Ninth Dynasty, and his successor Nabonassar. But the military revolt in Assyria, which in 745 b.c. placed Tiglath-pileser IV upon the throne, put a speedy end to Babylon's hopes of any permanent recovery of power. His accession marks the beginning of the last period of Assyrian expansion, and the administrative policy he inaugurated justifies us in ascribing the term "empire" to the area conquered by him, and his successors, in the last half of the eighth and the first half of the seventh centuries b.c. But it was an empire which carried in itself from the outset the seeds of decay. It was based on a policy of deportation, Assyria's final answer to her pressing problem of how to administer the wide areas she annexed. Former Assyrian kings had carried away the conquered into slavery, but Tiglath-pileser IV inaugurated a regular transference of nations. The policy certainly effected its immediate object: it kept the subject provinces quiet. But as a permanent method of administration it was bound to be a failure. While destroying patriotism and love of country, it put an end at the same time to all incentives to labour. The subject country's accumulated wealth had already been drained for the benefit of Assyrian coffers; and in the hands of its half-starved colonists it was not likely to prove a permanent source of strength, or of wealth, to its suzerain.

Tiglath-pileser's first object, before launching his armies to the north and west, was to secure his southern frontier, and this he effected by invading Babylonia and forcing from Nabonassar an acknowledgment of Assyrian control. During the campaign he overran the northern districts, and applied his policy of deportation by carrying away many of their inhabitants. The distress in the country, due to the Assyrian inroads, was aggravated by internal dissension. Sippar repudiated Nabonassar's authority, and the revolt was subdued only after a siege of the city. The Ninth Dynasty ended with the country in confusion; for Nabu-nadin-zer, Nabopolassar's son, after a reign of only two years, was slain in a revolt by Nabu-shum-ukin, the governor of a province. The dynasty soon came to an end after the latter's accession. He had not enjoyed his position for more than a month, when the kingdom again changed hands, and Nabu-mukin-zer secured the throne.

From the fall of the Ninth Dynasty, until the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Babylonia was completely overshadowed by the power of Assyria. She became merely a subject province of the empire, and her Tenth Dynasty is mainly composed of Assyrian rulers or their nominees. Nabu-mukin-zer had reigned only three years when Tiglath-pileser again invaded Babylonia, took him captive, and ascended the throne of Babylon, where he ruled under his name of Pulu. On his death, which occurred two years later, he was succeeded by Shalmaneser V, who, as suzerain of Babylon, adopted the name of Ululai. But Babylonia soon demonstrated her power of hindering Assyrian plans, for, after the close of Shalmaneser's reign, when Sargon's army had secured the capture of Samaria, he was obliged to recall his forces from the West by the menace of his southern province. Merodach-baladan, a Chaldean chief of Bit-Iakin at the head of the Persian Gulf, now laid claim to the throne of Babylon. By himself he would not have been formidable to Assyria, but he was backed by an unexpected and dangerous ally. Elam had not meddled in Babylonian affairs for centuries, but she had gradually become alarmed at the growth of Assyrian power. So Khumbanigash, the Elamite king, allying himself with Merodach-baladan, invaded Babylonia, laid siege to the frontier fortress of Der or Dur-ilu on the Lower Tigris, and defeated Sargon and the Assyrian army before its walls. Merodach-baladan was acknowledged by the Babylonians as their king, and he continued to be a thorn in the side of Assyria.

After the defeat of Shabaka and the Egyptians at Raphia, Sargon was occupied with the final subjugation of Urartu in the north, which had for so long been a danger to Assyria. But Urartu had to fight, not only the Assyrians, but also a new enemy, the Cimmerians, who now made their appearance from the north and east. In fact, Sargon's conquest of Urartu resulted in the destruction of that people as a buffer state, and laid Assyria open to the direct attack of the barbarian invaders, though it was not until the reign of Esarhaddon that their activity began to be formidable. Meanwhile, having subjugated his other foes. Sargon was able to turn his attention once more to Babylon, from which he expelled Merodach-baladan. His appearance was welcomed by the priestly party, and, entering the city in state, he assumed the title of Governor and for the last seven years of his life he ruled in Babylon virtually as king. A memorial of his occupation survives today in the quay-wall, which he constructed along the north front of the SouthernCitadel.

On Sargon's death in 705 B.C. the subject provinces of the empire rebelled. The revolt was led by Babylon, where Merodach-baladan reappears with Elamite support, while Hezekiah of Judah headed a confederation of the states of Southern Syria. Sennacherib was first occupied with Babylon, where he had little difficulty in defeating Merodach-baladan and his allies. He was then free to deal with Syria and Palestine; and at Eltekeh, near Ekron, he routed the Egyptian army, which had come to the support of the rebel states. He then received the submission of Ekron, and took Lachish after a siege, though Tyre resisted. After his expulsion from Babylon Merodach-baladan had sought safety by hiding himself in the Babylonian swamps, where he allied himself with the Chaldean prince Mushezib-Marduk; and Babylon had been left in charge of Bel-ibni, a young native Babylonian, who had been brought up at the Assyrian court. A rising, headed by Mushezib-Marduk, brought Sennacherib again into the country, who, after defeating the rebels, carried off Bel-ibni and his nobles to Assyria, leaving his own son Ashur-nadin-shum upon the throne.

The country was in a state of continual disaffection, and after a few years a fresh revolt was headed by a Babylonian, Nergal-ushezib. But he ruled for little more than a year, being defeated by Sennacherib and sent in chains to Nineveh. This took place after the return of the Assyrian army from Nagitu, whither it had been conveyed by Sennacherib, across the head of the Persian Gulf, against the Chaldeans whom Merodach-baladan had settled there. Sennacherib then turned his forces against Elam, and, after plundering a considerable portion of the country, he was stopped in his advance into the interior by the setting in of winter. In his absence the Chaldean Mushezib-Marduk seized the throne of Babylon, and allied himself with Elam. But the combined armies were defeated at Khalule, and after the death of Umman-menanu, the Elamite king, in 689, Sennacherib seized Babylon. Exasperated at her disaffection, he attempted to put an end for all time to her constant menace by destroying the city. He succeeded in doing an enormous amount of damage, and, by deflecting the course of the Euphrates, wiped out large areas and turned them into swamps. For the last eight years of Sennacherib's reign the country was given over to a state of anarchy.

In 681 Sennacherib was murdered by his sons, and, after a struggle for the succession, Esarhaddon secured the throne. His first thought was to reverse completely his father's Babylonian policy, and by rebuilding the city and restoring its ancient privileges to placate the priestly party, whose support his grandfather, Sargon, had secured the statue of Marduk was restored to its shrine, and Esarhaddon's son, Shamash-shum-ukin, was proclaimed King of Babylon. At the same time Esarhaddon sought to reconcile the military and aggressive party in his own capital by crowning Ashur-bani-pal, his eldest son, as king in Assyria. Babylon was still taught to look upon Assyria as hen suzerain, and the spirit of disaffection was only driven for the moment underground. Esarhaddon's aim had been to retain the territory already incorporated in the Assyrian empire, and, had he been able to confine his country's energies within these limits, its existence as a state might have been prolonged. But he was unable to curb the ambitions of his generals, and, in his effort to find employment for the army, he achieved the ultimate object of his father's western campaigns, the conquest of Egypt.

It was soon apparent that Esarhaddon's occupation of that country had been merely nominal, and it thus fell to his son Ashur-bani-pal to continue the Egyptian war, and to complete the work his father had left unfinished. And though he met with far greater success, he too in the end found the task of any permanent conquest beyond his power. For he soon had his hands full with troubles nearer home, in consequence of which his hold on Egypt gradually relaxed. Urtaku of Elam, who invaded Babylonia, does not appear to have followed up his success; and the subsequent invasion of the country by Teumman was only followed by that ruler's defeat and death in battle. But the strength of Elam was not broken by this reverse, and, when Shamash-shum-ukin revolted, he received active Elamite support.

Not only in Elam, but also throughout the territory controlled by Assyria, Shamash-shum-ukin found support in his rebellion, a fact significant of the detestation of Assyrian rule in the scattered provinces of the empire, which continued to be held together only by fear. But the force at Ashur-bani-pal's disposal was still powerful enough to stamp out the conflagration and head off disaster for a time. He marched into Babylonia, besieged and captured Babylon, and his brother Shamash-shum-ukin met his death in the flames of his palace in 648 b.c. The Assyrian king then invaded Elam, andMapturing its cities as he advanced, he laid the country under fire and sword. Susa was protected by its river, then in flood, but the Assyrian army effected a crossing, and the ancient capital lay at the mercy of the invaders. Having taken the city, Ashur-bani-pal determined to break its power for ever, after the manner Sennacherib had dealt with Babylon. He not only stripped the temples and carried off the treasures of the palace, but he even desecrated the royal tombs, and completed his work of destruction by fire. So Susa was plundered and destroyed, and in Babylon itself Ashur-bani-pal continued to be supreme until his death.

Babylonia had proved herself no match for the legions of Assyria at the height of the latter's power; but the industrial and commercial life of her cities, based ultimately on the rich return her soil yielded to her agricultural population, enabled her to survive blows which would have permanently disabled a country less favoured by nature. Moreover, she always regarded the Assyrians as an upstart people, who had borrowed her culture, and whose land had been a mere province of her kingdom at a time when her own political influence had extended from Elam to the borders of Syria. Even in her darkest hour she was buoyed up by the hope of recovering her ancient glory, and she let no opportunity slip of striking a blow at the northern kingdom. She was consequently always a drag on Assyria's advance to the Mediterranean, for, when the latter's armies marched westward, they left Babylon and Elam in their rear.

In her later dealings with Babylon Assyria had tried the alternative policies of intimidation and indulgence, but with equal want of success; and they reached their climax in the reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. It is quite possible that either of these policies, if consistently pursued, would have been equally futile in its aim of coercing or placating Babylonia. But their alternation was a far worse blunder, as it only succeeded in revealing to the Babylonians their own power, and in confirming them in their obstinate resistance. To this cause we may trace the long revolt >under Shamash-shum-ukin, when Babylon with Elam at her back struck a succession of blows which helped in a material degree to reduce the power of the Assyrian army, already weakened by the Egyptian campaigns. And in 625 when the Scythians had overrun the Assyrian empire, and her power was on the wane, we find Nabopolassar proclaiming himself king in Babylon and founding a new empire which for nearly seventy years was to survive the city of Nineveh itself.

 

 

CHAPTER IX

THE NEO-BABYLONIAN EMPIRE AND THE PERSIAN CONQUEST