READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE FOUNDATION OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

THE last two centuries of the second millennium B.B. had witnessed in western Asia and the Levant ubiquitous disturbances which caused a new distribution of political power. The Egyptian empire had declined, the Hittite had collapsed. Troy had fallen, the days of Cnossus and of Mycenae were over. When things have settled down and the scene-shifting is complete, we find Assyria (which had relapsed into obscurity after a brief emergence) occupying thecentre of the stage. Phrygia, and Lydia, and Greek Ionia become the important powers in western Asia Minor. In European Greece the Achaeans have ceased to be the principal power; they have been replaced by the Dorians. In Syria and Palestine we meet with a number of minor peoples and states—Phoenicia, Damascus, Israel, Judah, Moab, Edom, and others.

The might of Assyria is the characteristic feature of the new period which opens after the Iron Age has fully set in. She is a military state with a strong will and a deliberate policy, expanding in all directions, and forming one of the most remarkable empires of antiquity. Her imperial aims were doubtless not uninspired by the traditions of her Babylonian, Egyptian and Hittite predecessors. She welded together smaller states into one more or less manageable whole. When she fell—and she fell with astonishing rapidity—Egyptians, Babylonians or Chaldaeans, and Persians would seek to wear her mantle.

Under the common overlordship of Assyria, the lesser and less ambitious states were brought into closer contact with one another. When we reach the close of the period which is covered in this volume, the lands and nations of the Near East from Mesopotamia to Greece will be closely interconnected by intercourse both political and commercial, as they had been in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries.

After the fall of the Assyrian empire, followed by a very brief renascence in Egypt and Babylonia, the old oriental powers will each have had their reign (Sumerian, Egyptian, Semitic); and this portion of the world will pass under Indo-European supremacy, which will last for twelve hundred years, throughout the remaining centuries of the history which we term Ancient. In the pages of this volume we shall have to tell not only the story of Assyria but also the events which led gradually to the rise of the power of the Persians, and the advance of the Greeks to power and influence from the Euxine to the Tyrrhenian Sea.

I.

THE RELAPSE OF ASSYRIA, 1100-900 B.C. THE ARAMAEAN PRESSURE

The successful campaigns of Tiglath Pileser I (1114-1076 BC) and his victorious advance to the shores of the Mediterranean were followed by defeat and disaster for Assyria. An obscure period follows. The Assyrian king-lists discovered in the ruins of the city of Ashur prove that the successor of Tiglath Pileser I was Ninurta (Asharid)-Apal Ekur II (1076-1074) , probably his son, who was succeeded in turn by Ashur Bel Kala (1074-1056), another son of Tiglath-Pileser. The ‘Synchronous History’ states that Ashur Bel Kala maintained friendly relations with the Babylonian king Marduk Shapik Zerti, (1082–1069 BC, the 7th king of the 2nd dynasty of Isin and 4th dynasty of Babylon ), and married the daughter of Adad Apal Iddin (1067-1046 BC, 8th king of the 2nd Dynasty of Isin), who became king of Babylon (fourth dynasty)  on the violent death of Marduk Shapik Zeri. An inscription of Ashur Bel Kala on the back of a mutilated statue of the naked goddess of Nineveh may be considered evidence that the capital of the kingdom in his reign was Nineveh, and the king-lists show that his reign was interrupted by the usurpation of Enlil Rabi. During this period Ashur Bel Kala took refuge at Sippar, and may have been restored to his throne by the help of Adad Apal Iddin. On his death the legitimate succession seems to have been interrupted, for at least one ruler (Eriba-Adad II, 1056/55-1054) intervened between Ashur Bel Kala and his brother, Shamshi Adad IV (1054/3–1050 BC), who restored the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh. It may be that the rather mysterious Eriba Adad, whose inscriptions are much broken, was the ruler who intervened. At all events, from the death of Tiglath Pileser to the accession of Ashur Nasir Pal I, his grandson, only about twenty years elapsed.

Ashur Nasir Pal I (1050—1031), Shulmanu Asharid (Shalmaneser II, 1031—1019) and Ashur Nirari IV (1019—1013) ruled Assyria in what were apparently times of great stress, and an interesting document from Kuyunjik, which contains a prayer of Ashur Nasir Pal I to Ishtar, referring to the sufferings of his country, may be here quoted as proof of this:

“Unto the queen of the gods, into whose hands are committed the behests of the great gods,

unto the Lady of Nineveh, the queen of the gods, the exalted one,

unto the daughter of the Moon-god, the twin-sister of the Sun-god,

unto her who ruleth all kingdoms,

unto the Goddess of the world who determineth decrees,

unto the Lady of heaven and earth who receiveth supplication,

unto the merciful Goddess who hearkeneth

unto entreaty, who receiveth prayer, who loveth righteousness,

I make my prayer unto Ishtar to whom all confusion is a cause of grief.

The sorrows which I see I lament before thee.

Incline thine ear unto my words of lamentation

and let thine heart be opened unto my sorrowful speech.

Turn thy face unto me, O Lady, so that by reason thereof

the heart of thy servant may be made strong!

I, Ashur-Nasir-Pal, the sorrowful one, am thine humble servant;

I, who am beloved by thee, make offerings unto thee and adore thy divinity....

I was born in the mountains which no man knoweth;

I was without understanding and I prayed not to thy majesty.

Moreover the people of Assyria did not recognize and did not accept thy divinity.

But thou, O Ishtar, thou mighty queen of the gods,

by the lifting up of thine eyes didst teach me, for thou didst desire my rule.

Thou didst take me from the mountains, and didst call me to shepherdhood

among the Peoples... and thou, O Ishtar, didst make great my name!...

As concerning that for which thou art wroth with me, grant me forgiveness.

Let thine anger be appeased,

and let thine heart be mercifully inclined towards me”.

From Ashur Rabi II to Ashur Nirari V the succession of Assyrian kings was probably unbroken, and so it is possible that Ashur Rabi II (1013 - 972) is to be regarded as the founder of this dynasty. Two facts are known concerning events in his reign, that he reached Mt Amanus and carved a relief of himself there, and that the Aramaeans took Pitru, the Pethor of the Old Testament.

Ashur Resh Ishi II (972 - 967 BC), Tiglath Pileser II (967-935) and Ashur Dan II (934-912) are little more than names.

These few records represent the history of two centuries, for Tiglath Pileser I (1114-1076 ), and from the accession of Adad Nirari II, 911—891 BC the course of historical events is again known.

By a curious chance the limmu-lists which were found at Ashur enable us to be far more certain about the chronology of the period than about its history. These lists are series of names of officials called limmu who celebrated the New Year Festival in the capital city, taking the part of the god in the religious mime then enacted. This duty in Assyria fell in rotation to the king and his provincial governors, the precedence of the latter indicating the order of their importance. Documents were dated by the name of the limmu; in other words, the office had much in common with that of the ‘archon eponymos’ at Athens. Lists of these limmu found at Kuyunjik settle the chronology of the period 892—667 BC; and the new lists from Ashur settle the chronology of the kings from Ashur Nasir Pal I onwards, with a possible error of perhaps ten years at most.

An appreciation of what happened in Assyria during this long period of two hundred years depends upon a comparison of the conditions known to exist under Tiglath Pileser I with those recorded in the annals of monarchs of the ninth century. The greatest change which had taken place was in the lands to the west of Assyria. From about the middle of the fourteenth century BC the country known to the Assyrians as Amurru-land and Hatti (Khatti)-land had been infested with wandering Semitic tribes known collectively as the Akhlamu and Sukhu, who roved bedouinfashion from the borders of Babylonia up to Carchemish and westward. But Tiglath Pileser I had already found it necessary to deal with a new phase in this great movement of peoples when he sacked the Aramaean settlements at the foot of Mt Bishri. The invading tribes in his time began to evince a desire to settle in the rich lands of the middle Euphrates. During the period 1100—1000 BC it is probable that fresh hordes followed the earlier nomads, and by force of arms and numbers established their position in the most favourable lands they could conquer. For the most part these tribes were akin to the Akhlamu (‘the companions’), that is, they were Aramaean, and were possessed of a common idiom, others were probably not, for inscriptions afford some material in the proper names for forming an opinion.

The invasion of Babylonia in this same period by the Chaldeans, and the establishment of Aramaean settlements on its eastern, northern and western borders caused a dislocation of power in that country, clearly shown in the dynastic lists. The pressure on Assyria’s western border must have been as great as on Babylon, and though it is possible that Ashur-Bel-Kala, Shamshi-Adad IV, and their successors contested every foot of ground, and admitted Aramaeans to settle in Assyria proper only as subjects, the important fact is clear that the caravan-route through the Khabur district was entirely in the hands of the tribesmen. Along the banks of the Euphrates to about the latitude of Aleppo, then westward and southward, the constant influx of Semites established a series of small states, mutually antagonistic, yet strong by reason of their constant reinforcement. Hanigalbat was reduced to a narrow strip of territory running east and south of Nisibis. Carchemish itself, strong enough to resist invasion, must still have suffered greatly. Aleppo and Damascus became Aramaean centres, and Phoenicia and Palestine were to experience the new pressure. Such an invasion, irresistible because unceasing for a long period, must always bring ruin and devastation in its course. That the old centres of civilization in Mesopotamia were exhausted may be deduced from the confusion prevalent in Babylonia throughout the period. Assyria at this time must have been fighting at bay, and its survival is to be attributed to an elastic national organization. None the less its might was greatly reduced, and may not have extended at the period of greatest depression beyond the city of Ashur and the Lower Zab to the south, and the river Tartar (Tharthar) to the west, for the Aramaean Utu’ate, Laki and Sukhu settled on these borders. The break in the legal succession shows that this distress led to civil upheavals.

Roughly, the second period, 1000—900 BC, represents a time during which direct invasion by incoming hordes had ceased; the tribes were engaged in settling down, and in prosecuting commerce or fighting one another. The boundaries of the various states became precise, and the map of western Asia on which the subsequent movements of armies can be traced down to the time of Ashurbanipal may be drawn. West of Assyria lay a series of independent states, some populous and wealthy cities, some tribes, the Laki, for example, possessing a loose federal organization extending over a considerable area, others consisting of unions of fortified towns such as Bit Khalupi, while remnants of older states still subsisted in less favoured districts. Though allied by race, these states were incapable of concerted action, and none was sufficiently strong to assert a complete supremacy over the rest. The position for Assyria was disastrous. The whole of the Euphrates valley, with the districts round the Khabur and Balikh, was now occupied by peoples who admitted no allegiance, probably not even allowing caravan rights across their territory; they themselves possessed a commercial instinct fully as keen as that of the Assyrians, and waxed rich on the proceeds of a trade with the west on which Assyria was dependent. From the third millennium onwards, the caravan trade through the Khabur district to the west and to the north had supported a large population in Assyria by a traffic in two essential products, metals and cloth stuffs. That trade was now stopped, and the suffering in such cities as Nineveh and Arbela must have been considerable. A continuance of such conditions would have reduced Assyria to a poverty and insignificance already experienced at the time when the kingdom of Mitanni flourished.

Conquering campaigns such as those of Shalmaneser and Tiglath Pileser would not have been sufficient to deal with the situation; for while these had only found the scattered resistance that the remnants of the Hittite empire could offer, or such as nomadic tribes were likely to give, each step towards the west now brought new and stronger opposition from young and vigorous kingdoms. The situation to the south and south-east must equally have affected the Assyrian trader, for Aramaean Utuate had settled on the banks of the Tigris near the mouth of the Adhem, and the march country about Dur-Kurigalzu (Akarkuf) was similarly held by incomers, while on the eastern banks of the Tigris to the south were now established the strong and prosperous communities of the Litau, Khindaru, Pukudu and Gambulu. In Karduniash itself the confusion caused by the Kaldu (Chaldeans) must have led to much damage and loss in the down-river trade. In the tenth century, then, Assyria was probably free from any great military danger; but, reduced in territory, insecure in trade, exhausted by a long fight for existence, the country needed rulers of great qualities to regain the dominant position it once held.

Some knowledge of the Aramaean communities which constituted the most urgent danger to Assyria may be gained from the antiquities excavated at Tell Khalaf, called by the Assyrians Guzana the biblical Gozan, a site on the Khabur. The stone reliefs, barbarous and inartistic compared with Hittite and Assyrian work, are considered early by the German excavators, but their date cannot be definitely fixed. The short cuneiform inscriptions on them give the name of Kapara, the son of Khadiani, presumably an independent ruler of the place, probably to be dated about 900 B.C. The small antiquities belong to various periods, but serve to show the general level of prosperity of these communities, and to explain how they were once able to do battle with Assyria on equal terms.

II.

THE RESTORATION OF ASSYRIA

The new dynasty founded by Ashur Rabi about 1012 BC probably dealt with conditions that slowly improved, and was able to succeed in its first efforts to restore the country. About 967—935 BC Tiglath Pileser II ruled so effectively that a successor calls him shar-kishshati, a title reserved for mighty monarchs. A sign of the improved fortune of the country is the fact that Ashur Dan II began extensive architectural work on the ‘gate of the metal-workers’ at the city of Ashur. This was the main gate for western traffic, and a renewal of that traffic is to be assumed from Ashur Dan’s work upon it. From inscriptions of his son, Adad Nirari II (911—891), it is clear that great works of reconstruction were undertaken at the close of the tenth century. The means for these beneficent works was obtained in the only way possible, by the assertion of the reviving energy of Assyria by force of arms, and the consequent plundering of wealthy cities. The annals of Adad Nirari tell the story of campaigns which for the first time in two hundred years faintly recalled the almost forgotten exploits of Tukulti Ninurta I and Tiglath Pileser I; they also serve to show to what narrow limits Assyria itself had been restricted.

The first campaign was directed to the south-east, across the lands south of the lower Zab and along the northern border of the modern province of Fars. In this region the state of affairs remained the same as in the time of Tukulti Ninurta I (1243–1207 BC), and Adad Nirari was able to traverse the country as victoriously as he. He even penetrated farther, for he reached the salt desert of modern Persia, and conquered the land of Bazu, probably Ardistan, never reached again till the time of Esarhaddon. The next year, 910, was occupied by an inconsiderable campaign against the province of Kutmukh, which stretched from the Judi Dagh to the west bank of the Tigris. This particular district at all times caused trouble, for Sennacherib was obliged to send a punitive expedition there; yet the fact that Adad Nirari speaks of its annexation implies that the Assyrian border to the north was along the Tigris. In 909 it was necessary to deal with Babylonia. Shamash Mudammik, a king of the Eighth Dynasty of Babylon, was trying to establish his authority over the tribes just south of the Jebel Hamrin. Adad Nirari met and defeated him by that great range of hills, and drove his army southwards down the bank of the Euphrates as far as Der. The most fruitful result of this campaign was the annexation of Arrapkha (modern Karkuk) and of Lubda, which had come to be regarded as Babylonian fortresses.

The greatest need of Assyria was to regain control of the country’s old provinces west of the Tigris, up to Nisibis. These were occupied by a people the annalist calls the Temannai. The district itself was known to the Assyrians as Hanigalbat. This land had been reduced to extremity by the Aramaean invasion of the Euphrates and Khabur valleys, and was now confined to a narrow strip of country which comprised only the north-eastern corner of its previous domains. The Temannai themselves must have been driven from the south-west by the Aramaeans, had seized on the Nisibis area, and were now ruled by kings to whom the annalist gives Semitic names. Such a people, in such a position, were likely to offer the stoutest resistance, and it was essential that they should not be supported by others if the Assyrians were to conquer. A typical example of Assyrian strategy is afforded by Adad Nirari’s campaign of 908, aimed at isolating Hanigalbat. A hasty expedition through the southern spurs of the northern hills, skirting the southern border of Shupria as far as Alzi, won back for Assyria two long lost forts, which drove a wedge between the Temannai and the hill people. To the south, a punitive expedition against the Akhlamu and Sukhu, who lay about the mouth of the Khabur, exacted tribute from them and from Aramaean tribes, and rendered their interference unlikely for a few years. Finally Apku, a fortress to the west of the Tigris which had been sacked by some enemy, was refortified to serve as a base for future expeditions.

For five years, 907—3, the Assyrian army was now engaged in the task of reducing Hanigalbat. Steadily the army of the Temannai was pushed back from the Kashiari hills to Nisibis, from Nisibis to Khuzirina, and from there to the borders of the Aramaean states on the Khabur. Each year a fresh king of the Temannai took charge of the defence, but nothing could save the kingdom, while such assistance as certain Aramaean cities could offer did not avail; by 903 the remnants of the Temannai were carried off to Assyria, and were thereafter settled in the district south of Kalakh, to appear in subsequent history as Temenu. Adad Nirari had successfully regained the home provinces west of the Tigris, and had instilled a very salutary fear in the Aramaean tribesmen and townsfolk.

After two campaigns devoted to securing the Assyrian fortress of Kummu on the south-east border against certain rival town­ships, Adad Nirari in 900 marched through Hanigalbat to the Khabur, and then proceeded from Sakanu, the modern Ras el-Ain, down the bank of that river, forcing towns and tribes to pay tribute. In the important city of Katni he actually installed a nominee of his own as governor. Thence by way of the junction of the rivers he reached the right bank of the Euphrates, and secured tribute from the great Aramaean federations, the Laki and Khindanu.

Only one other exploit in this reign is recorded. In some year after 899 Adad Nirari met and defeated Nabu Shum Ishkun, the king of Babylon who succeeded Shamash Mudammik, and afterwards drew up a treaty with him settling the southern border; the Babylonians were forced to regard a line south of Dur Kurigalzu (Akarkuf) and Sippar (Abu Habbah) as their northern limit. So the achievement of Adad Nirari was rounded off: he had restored the natural boundaries of Assyria, and once again enabled his country to rank as an important military power. Even so, Assyria remained a small, though compact power; the task of restoring the supremacy once exercised north, south, east and west, still remained. Adad Nirari’s boast that he had brought Urartu (the annalist calls it Uratri) to his feet can have had no foundation but that of a single victory over Urartian troops on ground naturally Assyrian. It is probable, though not yet certain, that the well-known ‘Broken Obelisk’ (now in the British Museum) should be attributed to Adad Nirari II. If this be so, two interesting deductions may be drawn: (a) The long inscription is devoted to an account of one of his predecessors, either Tukulti Ninurta I or Tiglath Pileser I, and probably was intended to serve a political object—to rouse the Assyrians to a sense of their past glories. Further, it would show that the successes of Adad Nirari II enabled him to undertake very important works of restoration in and near the city of Ashur.

On the accession of Tukulti Ninurta II, 889—884 BC, Assyria, restored by the activity of his immediate predecessors, was powerful enough to send out armies to reconquer its ancient territories. The course of the almost yearly campaigns can be traced for over sixty years, and their importance is great; for in them is to be found the proof of a definite intention to establish permanent rule over the northern marches of Assyria and the western lands as far as the Mediterranean, and to exercise suzerainty over the kingdoms adjacent to the new borders; in other words the establishment of an Assyrian empire became the aim of royal policy. This policy was faithfully executed by a succession of monarchs, not always with immediate success, but with a persistence remarkable in the history of western Asia. The security of Assyria demanded the reduction of the eastern and northern hill-folk to a state of impotence by periodical invasion, and, where possible, by the establishment of garrisons at favourable points of vantage on the borders. Equally necessary for the prosperity of Assyria was the complete control of the route across the regions of the Khabur and Balikh, northwards up to the Taurus and into Cappadocia, westwards to the sea. The experience of centuries had shown that such control could not be secured unless the country were systematically conquered, occupied and guarded by the Assyrians, and that in considerable force. The whole territory as far west as Carchemish must become an integral part of Assyria. This further entailed the imposition of a suzerainty over kingdoms on the new borders. The policy, then, led to direct annexation and government of subject-peoples, and not merely the imposition of tribute and allegiance, though that was in most cases an inevitable preliminary. The gradual extension of conquest during the reigns of Tukulti Ninurta II, Ashur Nasir Pal II and Shalmaneser III points to that assimilation of conquered peoples and steady increase of power on which previous Assyrian conquerors had been unwilling to wait. Indeed no previous power seems to have aimed at such an empire in western Asia; certainly none had pursued such an aim with perseverance and energy over a long course of years.

The first four years of Tukulti Ninurta were occupied by campaigns undertaken against the Nairi country, which lay south­west of Lake Van. In these campaigns the king generally set out from Nineveh, his capital. The summary account of these campaigns given in the royal inscription shows that in the fourth year the king marched up to the sources of the Tigris, over Mt Kashiari, broke the resistance of Amme-ba’ali, and then set him up as a tributary monarch, under the surveillance of Assyrian officers. The most important part of the tribute consisted in horses for Tukulti Ninurta’s body-guards, which is of some interest, since a force of light cavalry to be used with the chariotry seems first to have been introduced into the Assyrian army about this time. In the fall of the same year a punitive expedition was undertaken from the city of Ashur against Kirruri in the eastern hills, and from there Tukulti Ninurta claims to have marched over ground fresh to the Assyrians, plundering and burning the towns of Ladanu and Lullu. Among the mountains of Ishrun, ‘a place of devastation, the eagle of heaven in its flight therein (does not alight),’ he continued the pursuit down to the valley of the Lower Zab. The remnant of the pursued crossed the Lower Zab, apparently to take refuge in Elamite territory. Thus the Assyrian army marched down the eastern border of Assyria, driving before them brigands who had proved dangerous in the hills, and established Assyrian rule in the district lying between the Upper and the Lower Zab.

In the year 885 Tukulti-Ninurta undertook a triumphal march, the object of which was to make a demonstration on the southern and western borders, and to plunder the Aramaean tribes situated there. From the city of Ashur the king followed the course of the river Tartar, hunting by the way, then turned eastward to the Tigris, where he ravaged the villages of the Utu’ate, situated somewhere near the mouth of the Adhem. Thence by a trackless route he came to Dur Kurigalzu, crossed the Patti-Bel canal, and camped at ‘Sippar of Shamash’. The royal inscription continues to give an itinerary of the army’s progress as it turned north along the eastern bank of the Euphrates. At Anat (‘Anah), Ilu-Ibni, the governor of the Sukhi, and at Kailite Amme-Alaba of Khindanu paid tribute. Mudada and Khamatai (i.e. the Hamathite) of the Laki, Mudada of the Sirki, Kharanu of the Laki, who occupied the district up to the mouth of the Khabur, followed their example, as did the princelings along the Khabur, for the king marched along that river past the modern ‘Araban to Nisibis. Thence he turned to the north-west, and entered the territory of the Mushki, laying waste the country. The boast of the glorious might of Tukulti-Ninurta being established by his sun, the god Ashur, ‘from Shubari to Gilzan’, that is along the whole northern border, was amply justified.

The military efforts of Tukulti Ninurta were, then, of a twofold nature. The first aim was to subjugate the hill-folk of Nairi, the second to establish Assyrian prestige along the borders. In home affairs his policy was no less wise. By securing 2720 horses and a quantity of metal as tribute the king was not only obtaining supplies for his army but winning commercial prosperity for his country. Further than this, he built irrigation machines, cared for agriculture, and made the population of his land to multiply, presumably by forced settlements. Increased wealth enabled him to clear and rebuild a terrace-foundation which had not been touched since the time of Ashur Uballit. In the distant north, at the entrance to the grotto where the Subnat (Sufandere) has its source, now called Babil, he wrote his fame; ‘(The likeness of) Tukulti Ninurta... the great king, the mighty king,... the king of hosts, the king of Assyria, the Sun of all the peoples, the great one who proceedeth by the aid (of Ninurta and Nergal), the gods who are his support,... who has made captive the high hills from east to west... the valiant, the pitiless, who marcheth by difficult paths, and passeth over valleys (and hill-tops) as doth (the wild goat).’

During the reign of Tukulti Ninurta there was a notable advance in an art of which today but little remains. Many fragments of coloured and glazed bricks which have been found at Kalat Sherkat, the ancient Ashur, constitute the best known examples of Assyrian painting. Enough of these bricks remain to show that the great output of artistic work in Assyria in the early part of the ninth century commenced in the time of Tukulti Ninurta; the drawing of the figures, especially of the human figures, is extremely good, and the colour scheme, when it is remembered that the bricks formed the decoration of dimly-lighted rooms, must have been very effective.

III.

THE EXPANSION OF ASSYRIA UNDER ASHUR NASIR PAL II

During the short reign of Tukulti Ninurta the army had begun the work of conquest. To his son, Ashur Nasir Pal II (884—859 BC), fell the harder task of completing the conquest and assimilating into the organization of the kingdom the tribal districts which adjoined the Assyrian border east, west and north. The story of how this task was accomplished is told in the dull and brutally frank annals of this king. Only a careful study of the geography of the campaigns reveals the greatness of Ashur Nasir Pal’s accomplishment; and only a chance remark enlightens us as to the organizing ability which firmly based Assyrian power in lands where it continued, though subjected to the rudest shocks, for over two centuries.

In the east, the task was twofold, to maintain the central authority in the provinces already established, and to exact some recognition of suzerainty from neighbouring tribes. To this end Ashur Nasir Pal immediately on his accession marched into the hills. Though the fighting did not necessitate large numbers of troops, the difficult nature of the ground entailed great hardships and military difficulties; but the Assyrian army, organized in troops according to the nature of their weapons, had achieved a mobility not equalled by any other nation. The lands of Numme and Kirkhi were ravaged, and the governor of Nishtun, who offered the most stubborn resistance, was flayed alive at Arbela—a treatment invariably meted out by Ashur Nasir Pal to any who caused him trouble. This ferocity had a salutary effect, for only one attempt at rebellion occurred during the reign, in 881, when Nur Adad, a prince of Dagara, incited the people of Zamua to throw off the yoke of the Assyrian. The position was serious, for the rebels fortified the pass of Babite, the modern Derbend-i-Bazian, and actually contemplated an invasion of Assyria. Four short campaigns, conducted by different columns, subdued Zamua, and the rebel princes were pursued far into the hills in 880. The eastern tribes hastened to pay tribute to the king while he was occupied in reorganizing the province of Zamua. The city Atlila, which had once been a fortress of the Babylonian king Sibir, was rebuilt and made the provincial capital, where men of strange speech, like the men of Sipirmena, ‘who chirp like women,’ were in future to render homage and pay taxes. The tribute exacted from Zamua shows the industrial prosperity of the country, and it is interesting to note that workmen from there were imported to Kalakh, obviously to help in the work of rebuilding that magnificent city.

The northernmost conquests of Shalmaneser I, Tukulti Ninurta I and Tiglath Pileser I had long fallen away from Assyria; even colonists, such as those planted at the fortress Lukha (also called Elukhat) refused to recognize the local governor in the provincial city of Damdamusa, probably placed there by Adad Nirari II. The districts outside the towns were in the hands of the Aramaeans, who joined the rebel colonists in 882 in an attack on Damdamusa. Ashur Nasir Pal promptly marched north, only staying on the road to have a relief depicting himself carved on the rock beside those of Tiglath Pileser I and Tukulti Ninurta II at the source of the Subnat. The fortress of Kinabu, in which the rebels concentrated, was taken by storm; ‘three thousand captives I burned with fire, I left not a single one among them alive to serve as a hostage’. Other parts of Nairi were ravaged, and the king organized a new administration of the district from the city Tushkhan, the modern Karkh, where the Assyrian colonists were settled. Representatives from all Nairi and from the Aramaeans were received there, including Amme-ba’ali, the old opponent of Tukulti Ninurta, henceforth a loyal tributary of Assyria. The march back was a triumphal progress; for while the king was receiving tribute and homage from Hanigalbat, in Nisibis, the land of Zalli (also called Azalli and Izalla) in the north-west, a province of the old Hittite empire, sent tribute.

The people of the northern hills, always opposed to the central authority, required yet another severe lesson in 879. Certain parts of the Kashiari hills, not yet visited by the Assyrian army, did not recognize the provincial governor who had been installed at Tushkhan; and the subjects of Amme-ba’ali, under anti­Assyrian influences (which possibly sprang from Urartu), rebelled and slew their prince. Amme-ba’ali was very thoroughly revenged, and the disturbed parts of the province completely desolated—a task in which the pioneers were called upon to accomplish some very difficult work for the transport of the army; some sort of peace thereafter ruled in this restless land for nine years, when a punitive campaign was again necessary.

The greatest expansion of the kingdom took place in the west, where the steady assimilation of new provinces was at once most necessary and easiest. The Aramaean peoples made little attempt at combined resistance, and the northern powers at first hailed the reappearance of Assyrian armies in the west, since they relieved the pressure on their southern borders. Thus, when Ashur Nasir Pal commenced his first western campaign from Kutmukh in 884—3, the distant Mushki sent him gifts, and so indicated their friendly disposition. The immediate pretext for the campaign was a good one; Khamatai, the governor of Suru, an Assyrian tributary, had been murdered by the anti-Assyrian party, and the whole district of Bit Khalupi, along the Khabur river, was in revolt. The incitement to rebellion came from farther west, from the powerful state of Bit Adini, and a pretender from there became the leader of the rebellion. Immediate action on the part of Ashur Nasir Pal prevented serious consequences; he marched straight to Suru, which immediately capitulated, and the peoples on the western bank of the Euphrates, the Laki and Khindani, paid tribute. The new methods in the matter of collecting tribute were different from those of previous kings; tribal sheikhs no longer withheld their taxes until an Assyrian army appeared in the field, for in 883 the governor of Sukhi, the land which formed the north-western boundary of Babylonia, ‘brought silver and gold as his tribute into my presence at Nineveh, although in the time of the kings my fathers no governor of Sukhi had come to Assyria.’ So strict a regime must have been very unwelcome to the heads of the great tribes, and the Sukhu engaged in an intrigue with Nabu Apal Iddin, king of Babylon, to whom they might naturally turn, since previously they had always looked to the Babylonian kings as their overlords.

Nabu Apal Iddin, not strong enough to attack Assyria openly, nor to contest the treaty imposed on his predecessor by Adad Nirari II, sent a force of 3000 Kassite soldiery under his brother, Sabdanu, to assist Sukhi in an overt rebellion in 878. The whole force of the rebels then moved against Suru. The main Assyrian army executed a forced march from Kutmukh, along the Kharmis and the Khabur, thence down the Euphrates past Anat (‘Anah), and engaged the enemy in an important battle which lasted two days. The Aramaean forces were completely routed, and Sabdanu with his Kassites fell into Ashur Nasir Pal’s hands, even the soothsayer ‘who marched in front of their soldiers’ being captured. The rebellion was made an occasion for imposing even harsher terms upon the Aramaeans than before, though the king expressed a different view of the matter when he set up his inscription in Suru: ‘Ashur Nasir Pal, the king whose glory and might are enduring, whose countenance is set towards the desert, whose heart desireth to extend his protection.’ So unwelcome was the protection that in the very next year (877) the Sukhu were joined by the Laki and Khindani in a last attempt to secure independence. Given timely warning by his intelligence officers, the king had no difficulty in reasserting his authority, and reducing the tribes to complete submission. The brutality of the methods employed to secure future obedience left the Aramaeans incapable of any further resistance; and the risk of any attempt to secure an alliance with Bit Adini, the great Aramaean power farther north-west, was obviated by a demonstration against the border fort of that state, and the construction of two Assyrian forts just above the junction of the Khabur with the Euphrates. Akhuni of Bit Adini, and Khabini of Til-Abna, willing to secure immunity from attack for the time being, paid tribute, thus acknowledging Ashur Nasir Pal’s suzerainty.

In seven years Ashur Nasir Pal had established himself very effectively as complete master of the Khabur and of the middle Tigris and Euphrates. A single demonstration proved sufficient to secure Assyrian prestige in the west. In a remarkable expedition to the Mediterranean in 876 the army marched through unconquered territories unopposed. Great as may have been the divisions in Syria, violent as jealousy between princelings of kindred race with restricted dominions always is, it is difficult to understand why Ashur Nasir Pal was able without a blow to imitate so exactly the exploits of Tiglath Pileser in the west unless there was an Assyrian party working in his favour. In later times there is evidence that in certain districts Assyrian policy was satisfied to keep a native Assyrian party in power, and we know that in Bit Zamani in the north Amme-ba’ali lost his life in the Assyrian cause. It is not fanciful then to compare Ashur Nasir Pal’s relations with Syria to those of Philip of Macedon with Greece. Setting out from Kalakh in the month Elul, the king marched to Carchemish, levying troops from Bit Bakhiani and Azalli on the way. Akhuni and Khabini again paid tribute, and a contingent was levied from Bit Adini. The Hittite Sangara, prince of Carchemish, paid a very heavy tribute, and again a contingent was levied. The route to the Lebanon led through the lands of Dib Barna (or Lubarna), king of Khattina, who offered a heavy tribute and paid homage as a subject. His forces once more increased, Ashurnasirpal next crossed the Orontes, and went to the extreme south-west of Khattina, into Dibbarna’s royal city Aribua, and foraged in the western land of Lukhuti, laying that country waste. At last he reached the Mediterranean, and the great Phoenician cities, Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, Tripolis and Arpad, sent gifts. At Mt Amanus the Assyrian king copied his forbears by setting up a memorial and cutting timber to roof his buildings.

Only one further campaign of Ashur Nasir Pal is recorded, and that after an interval of ten years, when the distant north was visited by a punitive expedition. Marching through Kumukh (Commagene) to Adani, the northernmost point the Assyrian reached was the land Mallanu, where an outpost station was established; turning east and then south, through the ranges of Arkania and Amadani, he fell on Damdamusa, now in enemy hands, and slaughtered 600 men in storming the city, afterwards crucifying 3000 in Amedi (Amid). Southward in the hills of Mt Kashiari Ashur Nasir Pal trod ground fresh to the Assyrians, taking with great slaughter Allabra the fortress of Lapturi, a former tributary. This campaign secured the king control over the Upper Euphrates.

Ashur Nasir Pal at the beginning of his reign decided to move his capital from Nineveh to Kalakh, and accordingly rebuilt the ruined city which had been the capital of Shalmaneser I. He appears to have taken up residence there in 880—879, so at the greater part of his building at Kalakh belongs to the first five years of his reign. The chief works he constructed there were a canal, partly subterranean, from the Upper Zab, the city wall, and his palace, built of brick faced with stone. It is from the palace that the important series of reliefs depicting religious ceremonies, battle and hunting-scenes, were obtained. These low reliefs were originally coloured, and their whole design is pictorial; they form the earliest series of examples of Assyrian art extant.

Much of the technique of the masons is the same as that found on the earliest monuments of Babylonia; the heavy garments with fringes envelop the body so that the lines of the human figure are not shown, and there is the same inability to render the hand in a natural manner. The human figure is, in fact, a kind of marionette, in different positions it is true, but always the same figure. The general impression made by these Assyrian pictures, however, is very different from that given by Sumerian or Akkadian work, and they are the outcome of an independent development of art. It must be remembered that these reliefs represent the average work of the master-masons of the period, and that the skill shown in the minute details of ornament is considerable. The composition of the relief from the temple of Ninurta which depicts the conflict of a god with Tiamat is admirable. A glazed tile found in the palace shows that artistic decoration of other kinds beautified the king’s residence. Further, the Assyrian masons were extremely successful in fashioning composite figures, part human, part animal, part bird, which represented for them the spirit-world, and the colossi which flanked the doors of the palace, with all their obvious absurdities, really manifest ideal qualities which impress even the modern beholder when seen in their original position. Especially successful, owing to its faithfulness to nature, is the lion from the temple of Ninurta, sculptured in high relief, snarling at the passer-by. The statue of Ashur Nasir Pal betrays all the artistic timidity common in early periods, but the figure conveys an impression of force and dignity appropriate to the man Ashurnasirpal. It is important to notice that many small objects in ivory and bronze of very different workmanship were found at Kalakh, some representing Egyptian scenes, some, the work of Phoenician artists, belonging to a later period; those which are undoubtedly Assyrian in design probably belong to this reign, though they are also attributed by some to the time of Sargon II. The taste and culture of this remarkable monarch seem to have been distinguished, and his wealth enabled him to set up works of art in many parts of his dominions. It is in keeping with the high estimation in which writing was held, and the constant desire of eastern monarchs to perpetuate their names, that he ordered his triumphal inscription to be cut across reliefs and statues without regard for their appearance.

In an estimation of the character and achievements of Ashur Nasir Pal certain significant details must be allowed full weight. During the last fifteen years of his reign only one campaign was undertaken by the king personally, and yet the Assyrian army was a disciplined and powerful force when his son ascended the throne. Only a strong administration could have kept the conquered districts so thoroughly in check; only an able handling of troops could have preserved their efficiency under peaceful conditions. It has sometimes been stated that Assyria was a predatory state which devastated conquered territories by fire and sword, and took tribute without attempting to govern them. The construction of ‘royal cities’ at various points of the dominions and this period of comparative peace lead to an exactly opposite conclusion for his time. Unfortunately no material in the shape of official correspondence is available to give information as to the conduct of his administration. That he was quick to suppress rebellion or disorder in the territory of subject princes is proved by the incidents in Bit Zamani. Another interesting fact is that the Aramaeans, on whom his ferocity was especially exercised, seem to have been designedly chosen for deportation to Kalakh. This shows sound judgment. The Aramaean people, whom industry and commercial activity made valuable subjects, could readily be absorbed by the Assyrian nation, while the king had hostages in his hands who might answer for the good behaviour of their native towns. Finally, no ambitious enterprise which was unlikely to be brought to a successful conclusion was undertaken in his reign. In the triumphal march to the Mediterranean, only those states seem to have been visited which would not offer resistance; Damascus, a strong and hostile power, was carefully avoided. Thus Ashur Nasir Pal showed prudence in his undertakings, judgment in so extending his dominions as to form a compact power, and firmness in the exercise of his authority, once established. There can be no doubt that he was an efficient, if unamiable, ‘shepherd’ of his people.

  Alabaster Stela of the Asirian King Ashurnasirpal II (884-859 BC)-British_Museum

IV.

THE WORK OF SHALMANESER III

Shalmaneser III (859-824 BC), in following his father’s policy of extension northward and westward, and of annexation of lands immediately adjoining Assyria on the trade routes, was faced by a series of problems. The first lay in Bit Adini, for Akhuni was still sovereign in his own dominions, though tributary. Assyrian commercial progress demanded the complete subjugation and annexation of Bit Adini, in order that the whole valley of the Euphrates thence as far as Babylonia might be administered by the central authority. Further, an ambitious and warlike prince, Adad Idri of Damascus would interfere with Assyrian designs in the rich lands of the west, and Shalmaneser’s prestige demanded that he should be defeated and if possible subdued. To this end a number of consecutive campaigns in the west might have served; but for such campaigns the national levy was required, and no Assyrian king was able to secure that regularly over a number of years, for it would have entailed the impoverishment of the home country. Moreover, the peoples of Nairi and the lands east of the Tigris could not at this time safely be left unwatched for long. Also, the powerful kings of Urartu were pursuing a very active policy among the tribes bordering on Assyria, with the object of themselves controlling those hill­passes which the Assyrians rightly regarded as a military necessity for their own safety.

The central point of the Urartian power was the ancient hill city on the eastern shore of Lake Van on the site of which the modern Van stands. As to the extent of the dominion of these kings no exact information is available, but the Assyrians came into contact with their armies towards the northern shore of Lake Van from the west and in the hills between Lakes Van and Urmia from the south. The Urartian people are first mentioned by Shalmaneser I, who conducted a campaign against them in the first year of his reign. He misnames the country Uruatri, as does also Adad Nirari II. Whence they came is not certainly known, but some features of their civilization are most easily accounted for by supposing that they migrated from a district of Asia Minor to the west of their new home. Their native language belongs to the group commonly called ‘Caucasian’, and is believed by some to be akin to the tongue of the Mitanni people who disappeared from history in the thirteenth century BC. Long before they migrated, the Urartians were familiar with the use of iron, and it was with iron tools that they fashioned their dwellings in the live rock of Urartu, the biblical Ararat. This type of house was as common in ancient times in Asia Minor as it is today, and was not unknown in Greece. In almost every other respect the remains of Urartian civilization as revealed by the excavations at Toprak Kaleh show very clearly the influence of the superior civilizations with which they came into contact. Among their gods, called ‘Khaldi’ gods—a term associated by some scholars with the Kaldi who lived on the Pontus—was Teisbas, the Hittite Teshub, and it is scarcely to be doubted that his cult was borrowed from the more ancient people. Similarly, the fine metal work represented by a gold plaque with a relief, and the silver box woven over with silver threads, may aptly be compared with the fine and minute gold work found at Carchemish.

Naturally the principal cultural influence in Urartu was that of Assyria. The Assyrian form of cuneiform script was adopted, and Urartian kings recounted their exploits in the Assyrian as well as in the native language; and though few tablets have been found, their existence is sufficient proof of Assyrian influence. The huge jars, the lips of which were decorated with animal heads, resemble the huge pots which have been found in southern Babylonia; while the vases with a red slip which recall Cretan ware are interesting since Assyrian pottery also seems to have been under western influences during the Tell el-Amarna period. The borrowing was not all on the one side; the Assyrians themselves were influenced, especially perhaps in the matter of armour, by the Urartians, whose plumed helmet, recalling that of the Carians, was finally adopted for his army by Ashurbanipal. The new kingdom of Urartu, first mentioned by Ashurnasirpal, became a formidable power in the time of Shalmaneser and completely altered the character of the opposition to be met in the north. There now commenced a struggle which lasted over a hundred years; during that period strong forces were always required on the northern border.

In addition to dealing with Damascus in the west and Urartu in the north, Shalmaneser found it necessary to quell the disorder caused by the Kaldu in Babylon. The variety of his aims is traceable in his campaigns, in which now one object, now another, is pursued. He had, in fact, to deal with greater difficulties than any previous monarch.

A campaign at the commencement of the accession year, 859, was directed against the tribes on the north-eastern border. After taking Khubushkia, the capital city of Kakia, who is reckoned as a king of Nairi, Shalmaneser took and sacked the city of Sugunia, a fortress of Arame, the Urartian, then marched to Lake Van and celebrated the rite of ‘washing the weapons’. On the return journey tribute was received from Gilzan, some ‘two-humped camels’ being taken as curiosities to Nineveh.

For three years the king devoted himself to the conquest of Bit Adini. In 858 the cities of Lalate and Burmarana were sacked, and after a pitched battle, Akhuni was temporarily confined to a single city. Khabini of Til-Abna, Gauni of Sarugi and Katazili of Kumukh paid tribute, and the Assyrians then crossed the Euphrates, plundering as they went, and slaughtering 1300 fighting men of Bit Adini. Shalmaneser advanced into Gurgum, where he received tribute, and then turned towards the valley of the river Saluara, where he had to meet the combined forces of Khaianu of Sam’al, Sapalulme of Khattina, Akhuni of Bit Adini and Sangara of Carchemish. A complete victory over the united forces of northern Syria led to an attack on the fortresses of Khattina, and another encounter with a mixed force in which the lands of Kue and Khilakku (Cilicia) were represented, as well as Samal, Bit Adini and Yasbuku. Upper Syria was ravaged, the usual timber-cutting was carried out in Mt Amanus, and on the return journey the cities on the Orontes were seized. In the next campaign, in 857, six fortresses of Akhuni were taken and 200 towns destroyed, Sangara of Carchemish was punished by the siege and capture of his wealthy city, and Khaianu of Khattina and other kings had a yearly tribute laid upon them. Shalmaneser had, however, been unable to take Til-Barsip (the modern Tell Ahmar), where Akhuni still held out. In the next year, 856, Akhuni did not await a siege in Til-Barsip, but retreated across the Euphrates with the large army which still followed him. The Assyrians took complete control of Bit Adini, colonizing and resettling the country, and thus restored their power in a district lost to them since the time of Ashur Rabi II.

Leaving Bit Adini the army had to march north before finishing its work. Passing through Bit Zamani, and ravaging the districts about the river Arzania, it met Arame of Urartu in Mt Adduri and inflicted a defeat on him, and pushed farther north. Shalmaneser afterwards returned by way of Lake Van, Gilzan, Khubushkia and Kirruri.

In the year 855 occurred the last incident in the war with Akhuni. Shalmaneser besieged him in the mountain retreat of Shitamrat, hitherto unknown to the Assyrians. A sally made by Akhuni led to his final defeat and capture, and he and all with him, numbering 17,500, were deported to the city of Ashur, and settled there. The last desperate resistance of the Aramaeans of Naharain had failed. In the same year an expedition to Zamua quelled the hill folk of Nikdime and Nikdiera.

Only a small punitive expedition was undertaken in the next year, which must have been occupied with preparations for a great campaign in the west. The events in northern Syria had led to an alliance between Irkhuleni of Hamath and Adad Idri of Damascus, for neither of these princes could view with equanimity the loss already suffered in their northern trade nor the advance of Assyrian armies to their borders. The two kings were able to call upon twelve subject monarchs for contingents, from Kue in the north to Israel and Ammon in the south, and so to face Shalmaneser with the most considerable force that the rising power of Assyria had ever met. Their composition on Shalmaneser’s Monolith, is: 1200 chariots, 1200 cavalry, 20,000 infantry of Adad Idri of Damascus; 700 chariots, 700 cavalry, 10,000 infantry of Irkhuleni of Hamath; 2000 chariots, 10,000 infantry of Ahab of Israel; 500 infantry from Kue; 1000 infantry from Musri; 10 chariots, 10,000 infantry from Irkanata; 200 infantry of Matinuba’ali of Arvad; 200 infantry of Usanati; 30 chariots, 10,000 infantry of Adunu Bali of Shiana, 1000 camels of the Arab Gindibu’, 1000 infantry of Basa, son of Rukhubi, of the Amanus (or, of Ammon?)

Setting out from Nineveh in 853, the Assyrian army found no opposition to its march on Hamath; indeed the pro-Assyrian party induced the people about the Balikh to murder their sheikh and surrender without resistance, and all the subject lands paid tribute. Aleppo offered submission, and Shalmaneser proceeded to take three of Irkhuleni’s cities; but after sacking Karkar he had to meet the allied forces, in round numbers about 63,000 infantry, 2000 light cavalry, 4000 chariots and 1000 camels. He inflicted a loss of 14,000 men on them, according to the most probable account. That the Assyrian losses were also heavy is shown by the fact that the campaign was abandoned, and that in the next year Shalmaneser was satisfied with a mere demonstration, during which Til-Abna was destroyed, in consonance with the policy of annihilating the Aramaean states on the Euphrates; and the source of the Tigris was visited. The question of suppressing Damascus was temporarily put aside, in order to deal with disorders in Babylonia which affected Assyrian interests.

At the beginning of Shalmaneser’s reign Nabu Apal Iddin had concluded a treaty of peace with him, but Nabu Apal Iddin’s death was followed by civil war. Marduk Bel Usate, the youngest son, rebelled against the rightful heir, Marduk Zakir Shum, who appealed to Shalmaneser in 851 for help. The king of Assyria seems to have conducted a small force down the east bank of the Tigris, and, after defeating an attempt to repel him, to have contented himself with desolating the neighbourhood of Gannanate, to which city Marduk Bel Usate was confined. In 850 he again marched down the eastern bank, captured Gannanate and killed Marduk Bel Usate in battle. He then received a great welcome in Babylon, and performed the rites due to Marduk and Nabu. The cause of Marduk Zakir Shum was finally established by a punitive expedition to the marshes at the head of the Persian Gulf, in which were the Chaldean strongholds.

The war with Hamath and Damascus was again resumed. In 849 Carchemish suffered the fate of Til-Abna, so that the last tributary state which commanded the Euphrates was reduced to an Assyrian colony. The Assyrian army then marched northwards to the territory of Arame of Urartu, but Irkhuleni and Adad Idri created a diversion in Shalmaneser’s rear. They were defeated but not pursued. Events followed much the same course in 848, the small towns which had been Sangara’s dependents and 100 towns of Arame being sacked before an inconclusive battle was fought against the full force of the allies of Hamath and Damascus at Ashtamaku. It is reasonable to suppose that there was an understanding between Arame and Adad Idri to prevent the execution of any one definite object. The Assyrian therefore decided on a great effort. For two years only punitive enterprises in Syria are mentioned, and then in 845 Shalmaneser crossed the Euphrates with a force of 120,000 men. He did not, however, succeed in crushing his enemies. The allies, though they gave ground, were not routed, and it was impossible to keep so large an army in the field. This was a serious check to Assyrian arms, and for a time the west was left in peace.

It was due to the efficiency of Shalmaneser’s officers that he had so long been able to neglect the task of intimidating the people on the northern and eastern borders. In the three years’ interval he found it necessary to let pass before again calling up the national levy, he marched to the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates in 844, and in Namri on the eastern border in 843 he drove out the king Marduk Mudammik, perhaps a Babylonian adventurer, and set up a native ruler.

Meanwhile the alliance which had offered such determined opposition had broken up. Hamath had borne the brunt of previous campaigns, and seems to have been exhausted. Adad Idri was dead, and Ahab of Israel also. Hazael was now ruling Damascus in place of his murdered master, and, without an ally, faced Shalmaneser in Mt Saniru (Hermon) in 841. Defeated in a pitched battle, in which he lost 16,000 men, Hazael held out in Damascus while the Assyrians sacked the towns around. The power of the Syrian prince, though not broken, was so weakened that Jehu of Israel and the kings of Tyre and Sidon came to pay tribute to Shalmaneser while he was having his relief cut in the rocks by the Nahr el-Kelb. Probably at this time also Egypt, always interested in Syrian affairs, sent two-humped dromedaries, a hippopotamus and other animals unknown in Assyria as a present to the conqueror. Although Shalmaneser had not destroyed the power of Damascus, his main object, the establishment of Assyrian authority up to the Mediterranean, was achieved, as is shown by the summary accounts of his subsequent campaigns.

In 839 the army went north into the territory of Kue, with the object of securing the caravan route. In 837 four cities of Hazael were seized, and tribute received from Tyre, Sidon and Byblus. The kings of Tabal (Tubal) submitted in 836, and Shalmaneser visited the mines of Cappadocia. Marching up the Euphrates in 835 he attacked a city of Lalla, king of Milid. In 834 he drove the ruler of Namri, east of the Tigris, out of his cities, and passing through Parsua eastward he devastated enemy­country, captured this fugitive prince, and brought him back to Assyria. In 833 and 832 Kue was again the object of attack, and was reduced to a tributary state, Tarsus opening its gates to the conqueror. So fell the first of the allies who had fought with Adad Idri and Irkhuleni. This, the last conquest of Shalmaneser in the west, was the logical conclusion of the military efforts of the Assyrians for sixty years. The whole caravan route from Cappadocia to the city of Ashur was in their hands; and the Mediterranean sea-coast from Byblus to Tarsus recognized their supremacy. Shalmaneser’s administration of the newly-won dominions was no less firm than that of Ashurnasirpal in his more restricted territories; for when Dibbarna of Khattina, long a faithful vassal of Assyria, was slain by rebellious subjects in 830, Daian Ashur, the turtan or commander-in-chief, was despatched to punish the offenders. In the end the people of Khattina surrendered the chiefs of the rebels, and an Assyrian nominee was made king over them.

The last campaigns of the king were devoted to the north. That of 831 was conducted by Daian Ashur against Sarduris I of Urartu, and was unsuccessful, though the Assyrians claimed a victory. In 829 the country of Kirkhi, south of Zamua, was ravaged. Advancing through Khubushkia in 828, the general pillaged the country of the Mannai to the south of Lake Urmia; and in 827 the subjection of Musasir was followed by an invasion of Parsua.

The close of the now aged king’s reign was disturbed by rebellion and civil war in the centre of Assyria. Ashur Danin Apal, a son of Shalmaneser, secured an important following in an attempt to obtain the succession, and raised a rebellion in 827; and Shalmaneser seems to have died while the important cities of Nineveh, Ashur, Arbela, and old and new provinces such as Amid in the north, Hamath and Til-Abna in the west, the Khindanu in the south, and Zaban in the east, were united against the heir of his choice, Shamshi Adad. These last days did not, however, obscure the glory of this vigorous monarch in the eyes of his successors; and his achievements must still be considered the basis of Assyrian imperial power. In the south he had established order in Babylonia; in the west he had reduced to absolute subjection the whole of northern Syria; in the east he had deposed and set up kings in such a manner as to establish an Assyrian sphere of influence. In the north he had perceived that Assyrian control of the pass districts could not be secured until Urartu had been attacked and defeated; and though his campaigns in the southern districts of Urartu did not achieve this object, it is clear that trouble among the hill tribes was much less to be feared in his time than in that of his immediate predecessors. Though in his dealings with Aramaean peoples he displayed the same ferocity as his father, it is pleasing to note that the treatment accorded to his bravest enemy, Akhuni of Bit Adini, was more lenient than that Akhuni would have received at the hands of Ashurnasirpal or of such a king as Ashurbanipal.

Of Shalmaneser’s buildings only those in the city of Ashur are as yet known, but the remains of these are important, for they disclose a method of fortification apparently new to Mesopotamia, but always followed in later times. Along the line of the city moat a very thick wall with towers at intervals of 100 feet was built; at the metal-workers’ gate, decorated with enamelled bricks, the wall was so constructed that the gate formed a strong point for defence. At a distance of 65 feet an inner wall, 23 feet thick, with towers, probably commanded the outer wall. The ancient shrine of Anu and Adad, situated near the wall, was rebuilt in a different style, and Andrae’s restoration of this temple must be the basis of any judgment of Assyrian architecture.

Two of the finest Assyrian works of art extant belong to the time of Shalmaneser, the ‘Black Obelisk’ and the bronze bands which were found at Balawat. The bronze bands belong to four gates, and on them, in repoussé work, are scenes from Shalmaneser’s principal campaigns. In spite of an inevitable appearance of monotony in the treatment, there is much real variety of detail obtained by the attempt to depict local scenery, as in the curious picture of the sources of the Tigris, and by a careful rendering of national peculiarities, as in the feathered head-dress of the warriors of Urartu, or in the demonstrative despair of the captives from Hamath. The dromedaries and cattle brought to the king as tribute from Gilzan are well rendered. The metal-workers of this period in Assyria produced a highly-finished work of art, and it may justly be inferred that they had been trained in a rigorous school. The twenty small reliefs on the Black Obelisk are very similar in character to the bronze reliefs, but there is a general stiffness in both human and animal figures, due possibly to the mason working on an unusually small surface.

V.

THE STRUGGLE WITH URARTU

Shamshi Adad V succeeded to the throne in 824, but he had represented his father before that year in the struggle with the twenty-seven cities which supported the cause of the rebel Ashur Danin Apal. That struggle lasted till 822, and in the third year after his accession, in 821, Shamshi Adad appears to have secured a final victory, owing, apparently, to assistance obtained from Marduk Nadin Shum, the Babylonian king, whose overlordship Shamshi Adad was compelled to admit in a formal treaty. In the campaigns he subsequently directed to the north, east and south there is proof of a remarkable change of policy; the districts bordering the Mediterranean were only twice visited, and then only at the beginning and at the end of campaigns. The Assyrian colonists and garrisons seem to have secured the newly-won dominions, so that there was no need for the presence of the army.

The first expedition of the king marks the objects he had in view. ‘I overwhelmed the land of Nairi as with a net,’ he says, and then recounts his march to the Euphrates, opposite Carchemish, and thence down the river to Sukhi where he crossed to the east bank of the Tigris and advanced to the borders of Akkad. The second expedition, led by the officer called Rab Shake, who first marched to the Mediterranean, was directed against the fortresses of Nairi. Shamshi Adad himself commanded in the third campaign, when he marched up the east bank of the Tigris to Nairi, and overthrew the chiefs of the tribes about Lake Urmia. In Media he destroyed 1200 towns, and received tribute from many princelings of lands otherwise unknown to us. He concluded the campaign by marching to the Mediterranean.

In 818 Shamshi Adad began a war with Marduk Balatsu Ikbi king of Babylon, which lasted intermittently for eight years. It is possible that the cause of dispute was the territory of Gannanate, for the Assyrians followed the eastern bank of the Tigris to the neighbourhood of this city, taking Me-Turnat, Dibina, Date Ebir, and Isduya by assault. The inhabitants of the district took refuge in a fortress which withstood only a short siege. Shamshi Adad fell upon Dur-Papsukal, an island city which was defended by Bau Akh Iddin. The capture of this city brought immense loot, but Marduk Balatsu Ikbi had gathered considerable forces to face the invader, and had been joined by contingents from Chaldaea, Elam and Namri, as well as by the Aramaean tribes on the east bank of the Tigris. A battle was fought beneath the walls of Dur-Papsukal, and resulted in the rout of the Babylonian forces with a loss of 5000 killed and 2000 prisoners. Of the campaigns conducted in 812 and 811 the notices in the Eponym Canon, ‘against Chaldea’ and ‘against Babylon,’ supply the only record, but it is to be presumed that Shamshi Adad entered the enemy’s capital in the latter year, for the ‘Synchronous History’ speaks of his offering sacrifices in Babylon, Cuthah and Borsippa.

The extension, then, of the Assyrian borders continued during the thirteen years of Shamshi-Adad’s reign, to the east and south­east; it is clear that Adad Nirari I succeeded in 811 to an authority unimpaired by the civil strife which had marked the last years of Shalmaneser. The government of Assyria from 811 to 808 was actually conducted by the queen-mother, Sammu Ramat, and inscriptions show that she occupied an exceptional position in history. On a stele found in a corner of the wall of the city of Ashur, where stood two rows of slabs recording the names of monarchs and royal officials, her name is recorded as the wife of Shamshi Adad, the mother of Adad Nirari, the daughter-in-law of Shalmaneser. In the ruins of the temple of Ninurta at Kalakh two statues of the god Nabu were discovered in a mutilated condition; but the inscriptions on them show that they were dedicated by the city-governor, Bel Tarsi Iluma, with a petition for the preservation of the king Adad-Nirari, the queen Sammu Ramat, and himself, and a later inscription of Adad Nirari shows that the first three years were not reckoned part of his reign. It is, with reason, believed that the name Sammu Ramat is the original of the Semiramis of Greek legend, and in the exaggerated accounts of the achievements of Semiramis and Ninus there may be an echo of the times of the regency of SammuRamat and of the reign of her son.

In Urartu, about this time, Menuas, at first associated with his father Ishpuinis on the throne, conducted plundering campaigns in Musasir, Gilzan and Kirruri, territories south of Urmia, and reached the upper valley of the Lower Zab. To the west he crossed the Nairi country, and exacted tribute from Milid (Malatiah). Among the Mannai he followed the Assyrian policy of planting colonies. His power extended far to the north, for his monuments have been discovered near Erzerum. His conquests must be approximately dated within the times of Adad Nirari, and reveal the great danger which called the Assyrian king so constantly to the north-east. The main struggle took place in Media, where no less than eight campaigns were fought between 810 and 787, while six were devoted by Adad Nirari to Khubushkia, and two were directed against the Mannai. The issue of this arduous war is not clear. Perhaps the passes in the hill-country were alternately held by Urartu and Assyria, and the power which Adad-Nirari exercised over the lands ‘up to the sea of the rising of the sun,’ that is, the Caspian, was temporary. Certainly Urartu was not invariably successful on the north and north-eastern borders, but its undisputed gains in the north-west were a serious loss to Assyria, for from Milid Urartu would shortly advance to the south.

In Syria, Bar Hadad, son of Hazael of Damascus, had been recognized for a time, towards the end of his days, as king of Aram. He had also secured allies who had previously fought under Adad Idri, in a new confederacy which aimed at restoring Aramaean power in the west. The Bar Agusi, the people of ‘Amk or Unki, Kue, Gurgum and Samal joined in an attack on Hamath, which opposed the new movement. This resistance of Hamath must have been due to a powerful pro-Assyrian party in that city, and throws some light on the effects of Shalmaneser’s policy. Zakir of Hamath could not, however, have withstood the superior forces of Damascus had not the Assyrians supported him, and it is possible that the campaigns recorded in the years 805—802 were conducted with this object. In 805 and 804 Adad Nirari’s attacks on Arpad, a state which seems to have sprung into prominence after the fall of Bit Adini, and on Khazaz (‘Azaz), once a city of Khattina, must have served to cut communications between Damascus and the northern allies, and in 802 the Assyrians marched against Damascus. The death of Bar Hadad about this time left his son Mari to defend the strong city which had always resisted attack, but that prince surrendered. Adad Nirari entered Damascus in triumph to receive a tribute befitting the richest city in Syria. The subjection of Tyre, Sidon, Omri-land (Israel), Edom and Philistia, which Adad Nirari claimed to have accomplished, need only imply that representatives of those states paid him homage in Damascus as their new over-lord; but by this great success in the west he carried the Assyrian arms farther south than any Assyrian king had previously done. Only once again was it necessary to visit the west, in 796, when the expedition was directed against Mansuate, a town in the Orontes valley.

Adad Nirari concluded a treaty with Babylon which fixed the boundaries between the two states, and the document known as the ‘Synchronous History’ is the text of an agreement which settled a dispute of old standing along historical lines. The boundaries once named are now missing on the tablet, but it may justly be inferred from the language used of Adad Nirari’s actions that he also, like Shalmaneser, considered himself as a protector rather than as a conqueror of Babylon. The new arrangement must have given the Assyrians complete control of the march lands as arranged by Adad Nirari II, for the years 790, 783 and 782 were passed in the land of the Itu’a or Utuate on the western bank of the Tigris opposite the mouth of the Adhem. Doubtless this people were harried and transported in the usual manner as a preliminary to a resettling of the country. Adad Nirari had a special pride in his power over Babylonia, for his bricks are inscribed ‘Adad Nirari, Bel’s governor, the king of Assyria, son of Shalmaneser, Bel’s governor’. Nabu is accorded the greatest honour in the inscriptions on the statues previously mentioned, future generations being urged to ‘trust in Nabu, trust in no other god’; and that this honour was paid to the god of Borsippa by the king’s wish is evident from the fact that he himself built at Kalakh a replica of the god’s temple Ezida at Borsippa. Adad Nirari was, then, not only one of the great generals in a dynasty which produced many such, but also the promoter of religion and culture in his own land by the introduction of those Babylonian influences on which the scribes and priests of Assyria were afterwards dependent.

When Shalmaneser IV (782—772) succeeded his father, a new and vigorous ruler in Urartu, Argistis I, who had already conducted victorious expeditions in the north of his kingdom, at once engaged in a great struggle for the districts immediately to the west and south of his borders. From 781 to 774 the Assyrian campaigns were directed against Urartu, with respites in the years 777 and 775, when the land of the Itu’a and the Amanus were visited. Shalmaneser’s attempt to drive the Urartians out of Milid (Malatiah) definitely failed, and Argistis was able to boast that the armies and cities of Assyria had been presented to him by the gods of the Khaldi. Malatiah was always a region difficult of access to the Assyrian kings; but Argistis proceeded to drive them from the mountain passes on the southern border of the Nairi country, and then, turning to the east of Lake Urmia, subdued Parsua and the districts of Mannai not previously held by Urartu. Shalmaneser’s last campaign against Urartu was fought in 774 on the borders of Namri, and was as unsuccessful as the rest. Assyria had lost many points of vantage in the territories most necessary to her military security. There were, however, still Assyrian governors of such important places as Zamua to the south-east and Tushkhan to the north, and of the district of Kirruri to the east, who had been able to hold out against the storm, though the open country was in the hands of Argistis. The foundations of Assyrian power had indeed been well laid by Ashurnasirpal, since hold on these provinces was not entirely lost.

The Assyrian defeats in the north were naturally followed by fresh trouble in the west; and in 773 and 772 Khatarika in northern Syria (the Hadrach of the Old Testament), and Damascus were subjected to punitive campaigns. Ashurdan III (772—754), whose long reign was a series of disasters, attacked Khatarika in 765 and 755, and Arpad in 754. These states during this period seem to have become adherents of Urartu. In the time of Sarduris II, the successor of Argistis, Kue, Gurgum, Samal, Unki and Carchemish became subject to Urartu, which thus controlled the traffic in metal. Assyria was once again menaced with the ruin which was the invariable result of the closing of communications with the west and with Cappadocia. The consequent misery of the industrial population very probably led to the revolts in the cities of Ashur (763—762), Arbakha (Arrapkha) (761—760), and Guzana (the biblical Gozan) (759), which Ashurdan was unable to subdue until 758. The king was unable to maintain order even on his southern border after the earlier years of his reign, when he twice conducted campaigns against Gannanate (771, 767) and once against Itu’a (769). A vain effort was indeed made in Media in 766 to withstand the chief enemy, Urartu; but Ashurdan left Assyria an impoverished and disordered land with borders almost as restricted as in the time of Ashur-Rabi. Ashur Nirari V (754-746), the last of a long line, was reduced to impotence. Mati’-Ilu of Bit Agusi concluded a treaty with him only to renounce it almost immediately. Two campaigns in Namri seem to have reflected little credit on his arms, for in 746 even the capital city, Kalakh, rose in revolt, and Ashur Nirari himself perished, perhaps with every member of the royal family.

The weakness of Assyria during the years 782 to 746 should properly be attributed to the increasing debility of the representatives of the royal house rather than to a collapse of the military power. Great defeats had been inflicted by three successive kings of Urartu, namely Menuas, Argistis I and Sarduris II; but these kings found it difficult to control the hill-folk about Lake Urmia, and the lands of Asia Minor required a series of expeditions on their part of which abler Assyrian kings would have known well how to take advantage. The loss of control in Syria, the great disaster of the period, is a symptom of the inability of Adad-Nirari and Ashur Nirari to deal with the situation, for Urartu could not defend the west against a well-planned attack. The conquests of Ashurnasirpal and his successors were, however, not all in vain, for the Assyrian colonies they had planted, and the administration they had introduced, remained in the lands they had definitely annexed to Assyria, and an able ruler would have no insuperable difficulty in driving back the armies of Urartu.

Meanwhile, the Assyrian governors seem to have devoted themselves with considerable energy to securing the prosperity of the lands under their control, and to have assumed an inde pendence justified by the passivity of their sovereign. Thus Shamash Resh Usur, the governor of Mari and the land of Sukhi, suppressed the Tumanu tribe, which attacked his capital Ribanish, and he set up a monument to record his exploits. It is notable that he dates the record by the year of his own reign, as if he were an independent monarch. He speaks with pride of the introduction of bee-culture into his province—‘They (the bees) collect honey and wax. I understand the preparation of honey and wax, and the gardeners understand it.’

CHAPTER II.-

THE SUPREMACY OF ASSYRIA