The tales of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings which we present in
this chapter are of value because they are taken at first hand from
their own historical accounts of the great events which occurred during
their several reigns. On a first examination these tablets appear
dry and uninteresting, but when studied more closely and patiently
they will be found to contain matter as absorbing as that in the most
exciting annals of any country. Let us take for example the wonderful
inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser II (950 B.C.) which refer to his
various conquests, and which were discovered by George Smith at Nimrûd
in the temple of Nebo.
Tiglath commences with the usual Oriental flourish of trumpets. He
styles himself the powerful warrior who, in the service of Asshur, has
trampled upon his haters, swept over them like a flood, and reduced
them to shadows. He has marched, he says, from the sea to the land
of the rising sun, and from the sea of the setting sun to Egypt. He
enumerates the countless lands that he has conquered. The cities
Sarrapanu and Malilatu among others he took by storm and captured the
inhabitants to the number of 150,000 men, women, and children, all of
whom he sent to Assyria. Much tribute he received from the people of
the conquered lands--gold, silver, precious stones, rare woods, and
cattle. His custom seems to have been to make his successful generals
rulers of the cities he conquered, and it is noticeable that upon a
victory he invariably sacrificed to the gods. His methods appear to
have been drastic in the extreme. Irritated at the defiance of the
people of Sarrapanu he reduced it to a heap of earth, and crucified
King Nabu-Usabi in front of the gate of his city. Not content with
this vengeance, Tiglath carried off his wealth, his furniture, his
wife, his son, his daughters, and lastly his gods, so that no trace
of the wretched monarch's kingdom should remain. It is noticeable
that throughout these campaigns Tiglath invariably sent the prisoners
to Assyria, which shows at least that he considered human life as
relatively sacred. Probably these captive people were reduced to
slavery. The races of the neighbouring desert, too, came and prostrated
themselves before the Assyrian hero, kissing his feet and bringing him
tribute carried by sailors.
Tiglath then begins to boast about his gorgeous new residence with
all the vulgarity of a _nouveau riche_. He says that his house was
decorated like a Syrian palace for his glory. He built gates of
ivory with planks of cedar, and seems to have had his prisoners, the
conquered kings of Syria, on exhibition in the palace precincts. At
the gates were gigantic lions and bulls of clever workmanship which he
describes as "cunning, beautiful, valuable," and this place he called
'The Palaces of Rejoicing.'
[Illustration: Capture of Sarrapanu by Tiglath-Pileser II.--Evelyn Paul.]
In a fragment which relates the circumstances of his Eastern
expeditions he tells how he built a city called Humur, and how he
excavated the neighbouring river Patti, which had been filled up in
the past, and along its bed led refreshing waters into certain of the
cities he had conquered. He complains in one text that Sarduri, the
King of Ararat, revolted against him along with others, but Tiglath
captured his camp and Sarduri had perforce to escape upon a mare. Into
the rugged mountains he rode by night and sought safety on their
peaks. Later he took refuge with his warriors in the city of Turuspa.
After a siege Tiglath succeeded in reducing the place. Afterwards he
destroyed the land of Ararat, and made it a desert over an area of
about 450 miles. Tiglath dedicated Sarduri's couch to Ishtar, and
carried off his royal riding carriage, his seal, his necklace, his
royal chariot, his mace, and lastly a 'great ship,' though we are not
told how he accomplished this last feat.
Poet or Braggart?
It is strange to notice the inflated manner in which Tiglath speaks in
these descriptions. He talks about people, races, and rulers 'sinning'
against him as if he were a god, but it must be remembered that he,
like other Assyrian monarchs, regarded himself as the representative
of the gods upon earth. But though his language is at times boastful
and absurd, yet on other occasions it is extremely beautiful and even
poetic. In speaking of the tribute he received from various monarchs
he says that he obtained from them "clothing of wool and linen, violet
wool, royal treasures, the skins of sheep with fleece dyed in shining
purple, birds of the sky with feathers of shining violet, horses,
camels, and she-camels with their young ones."
He appears, too, to have been in conflict with a Queen of Sheba or
Saba, one Samsi, whom he sent as a prisoner to Syria with her gods and
all her possessions.
The Autobiography of Assur-bani-pal
In a former chapter we outlined the mythical history of Assur-bani-pal
or Sardanapalus, and in this place may briefly review the story of
his life as told in his inscriptions. He commences by stating that he
is the child of Asshur and Beltis, but he evidently intends to convey
that he is their son in a spiritual sense only, for he hastens to tell
us that he is the "son of the great King of Riduti" (Esar-haddon). He
proceeds to tell of his triumphal progress throughout Egypt, whose
kings he made tributary to him. "Then," he remarks in a hurt manner,
"the good I did to them they despised and their hearts devised evil.
Seditious words they spoke and took evil counsel among themselves."
In short, the kings of Egypt had entered into an alliance to free
themselves from the yoke of Assur-bani-pal, but his generals heard
of the plot and captured several of the ringleaders in the midst of
their work. They seized the royal conspirators and bound them in
fetters of iron. The Assyrian generals then fell upon the populations
of the revolting cities and cut off their inhabitants to a man, but
they brought the rulers of Egypt to Nineveh into the presence of
Assur-bani-pal. To do him justice that monarch treated Necho, who is
described as 'King of Memphis and Sars,' with the utmost consideration,
granting him a new covenant and placing upon him costly garments and
ornaments of gold, bracelets of gold, a steel sword with a sheath of
gold; with chariots, mules, and horses.
Dream of Gyges
Continuing, Assur-bani-pal recounts how Gyges, King of Lydia, a remote
place of which his fathers had not heard the name, was granted a
dream concerning the kingdom of Assyria by the god Asshur. Gyges was
greatly impressed by the dream and sent to Assur-bani-pal to request
his friendship, but having once sent an envoy to the Assyrian court
Assur-bani-pal seemed to think that he should continue to do so
regularly, and when he failed in this attention the Assyrian king
prayed to Asshur to compass his discomfiture. Shortly afterwards
the unhappy Gyges was overthrown by the Cimmerians, against whom
Assur-bani-pal had often assisted him.
Assur-bani-pal then plaintively recounts how Saulmugina, his younger
brother, conspired against him. This brother he had made King of
Babylon, and after occupying the throne of that country for some time
he set on foot a conspiracy to throw off the Assyrian yoke. A seer
told Assur-bani-pal that he had had a dream in which the god Sin spoke
to him, saying that he would overthrow and destroy Saulmugina and
his fellow-conspirators. Assur-bani-pal marched against his brother,
whom he overthrew. The people of Babylon, overtaken by famine, were
forced to devour their own children, and in their agony they attacked
Saulmugina and burned him to death with his goods, his treasures, and
his wives. As we have before pointed out, this tale strangely enough
closely resembles the legend concerning Assur-bani-pal himself. Swift
was the vengeance of the Assyrian king upon those who remained. He cut
out the tongues of some, while others were thrown into pits to be eaten
by dogs, bears, and eagles. Then after fixing a tribute and setting
governors over them he returned to Assyria. It is noticeable that
Assur-bani-pal distinctly states that he 'fixed upon' the Babylonians
the gods of Assyria, and this seems to show that Assyrian deities
existed in contradistinction to those of Babylonia.
In one expedition into the land of Elam, Assur-bani-pal had a dream
sent by Ishtar to assure him that the crossing of the river Itite,
which was in high flood, could be accomplished by his army in perfect
safety. The warriors easily negotiated the crossing and inflicted
great losses upon the enemy. Among other things they dragged the idol
of Susinay from its sacred grove, and he remarks that it had never
been beheld by any man in Elam. This with other idols he carried off
to Assyria. He broke the winged lions which flanked the gates of the
temple, dried up the drinking wells, and for a month and a day swept
Elam to its utmost extent, so that neither man nor oxen nor trees
could be found in it--nothing but the wild ass, the serpent, and the
beast of the desert. The King goes on to say that the goddess Nanâ,
who had dwelt in Elam for over 1600 years, had been desecrated by so
doing. "That country," he declares, "was a place not suited to her.
The return of her divinity she had trusted to me. 'Assur-bani-pal,'
she said, 'bring me out from the midst of wicked Elam and cause me
to enter the temple of Anna.'" The goddess then took the road to the
temple of Anna at Erech, where the King raised to her an enduring
sanctuary. Those chiefs who had trusted the Elamites now felt afflicted
at heart and began to despair, and one of them, like Saul, begged his
own armour-bearer to slay him, master and man killing each other.
Assur-bani-pal refused to give his corpse burial, and cutting off its
head hung it round the neck of Nabu-Quati-Zabat, one of the followers
of Saulmugina, his rebellious brother. In another text Assur-bani-pal
recounts in grandiloquent language how he built the temples of Asshur
and Merodach.
"The great gods in their assembly my glorious renown have heard, and
over the kings who dwell in palaces, the glory of my name they have
raised and have exalted my kingdom.
Assur-bani-pal as Architect
"The temples of Assyria and Babylonia which Esar-haddon, King of
Assyria, had begun, their foundations he had built, but had not
finished their tops; anew I built them: I finished their tops.
"Sadi-rabu-matati (the great mountain of the earth), the temple of
the god Assur my lord, completely I finished. Its chamber walls I
adorned with gold and silver, great columns in it I fixed, and in its
gate the productions of land and sea I placed. The god Assur into
Sadi-rabu-matati I brought, and I raised him an everlasting sanctuary.
"Saggal, the temple of Merodach, lord of the gods, I built, I completed
its decorations; Bel and Beltis, the divinities of Babylon and Ea, the
divine judge from the temple of ... I brought out, and placed them in
the city of Babylon. Its noble sanctuary a great ... with fifty talents
of ... its brickwork I finished, and raised over it. I caused to make
a ceiling of sycamore, durable wood, beautiful as the stars of heaven,
adorned with beaten gold. Over Merodach the great lord I rejoiced in
heart, I did his will. A noble chariot, the carriage of Merodach, ruler
of the gods, lord of lords, in gold, silver, and precious stones, I
finished its workmanship. To Merodach, king of the whole of heaven and
earth, destroyer of my enemies, as a gift I gave it.
"A couch of sycamore wood, for the sanctuary, covered with precious
stones as ornaments, as the resting couch of Bel and Beltis, givers of
favour, makers of friendship, skilfully I constructed. In the gate ...
the seat of Zirat-banit, which adorned the wall, I placed.
"Four bulls of silver, powerful, guarding my royal threshold, in the
gate of the rising sun, in the greatest gate, in the gate of the temple
Sidda, which is in the midst of Borsippa, I set up."[1]
[Illustration: The Fatal Eclipse (June 15, 763 B.C.)--M. Dovaston,
R.B.A.--By permission of Messrs Hutchinson and Co.]
A 'Likeable' Monarch
Esar-haddon, the father of Assur-bani-pal, has been called "the
most likeable" of the Assyrian kings. He did not press his military
conquests for the mere sake of glory, but in general for the
maintenance of his own territory. He is notable as the restorer
of Babu and the reviver of its culture. He showed much clemency
to political offenders, and his court was the centre of literary
activity. Assur-bani-pal, his son, speaks warmly of the sound education
he received at his father's court, and to that education and its
enlightening influences we now owe the priceless series of cylinders
and inscriptions found in his library. He does not seem to have been
able to control his rather turbulent neighbours, and he was actually
weak enough (from the Assyrian point of view) to return the gods of the
kingdom of Aribi after he had led them captive to Assyria. He seems to
have been good-natured, enlightened, and easy-going, and if he did not
boast so loudly as his son he had probably greater reason to do so.
One of the descendants of Assur-bani-pal, Bel-zakir-iskun, speaks
of his restoration of certain temples, especially that of Nebo, and
plaintively adds: "In after days, in the time of the kings my sons
... When this house decays and becomes old who repairs its ruin and
restores its decay? May he who does so see my name written on this
inscription. May he enclose it in a receptacle, pour out a libation,
and write my name with his own; but whoever defaces the writing of my
name may the gods not establish him. May they curse and destroy his
seed from the land." This is the last royal inscription of any length
written in Assyria, and its almost prophetic terms seem to suggest that
he who framed them must have foreseen the downfall of the civilization
he represented. Does not the inscription almost foreshadow Shelley's
wondrous sonnet on 'Ozymandias'?
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
The Fatal Eclipse
The reign of Assur-Dan III (773-764 B.C.) supplies us with a
picturesque incident. This Assyrian monarch had marched several times
into Syria, and had fought the Chaldeans in Babylonia. Numerous were
his tributary states and widespread his power. But disaster crept
slowly upon him, and although he made repeated efforts to stave it
off, these were quite in vain. Insurrection followed insurrection, and
it would seem that the priests of Babylon, considering themselves
slighted, joined the malcontent party and assisted to foment discord.
At the critical juncture of the fortunes of Assur-Dan there happened
an eclipse of the sun, and as the black shadow crept over Nineveh and
the King lay upon his couch and watched the gradual blotting out of
the sunlight, he felt that his doom was upon him. After this direful
portent he appears to have resisted no longer, but to have resigned
himself to his fate. Within the year he was slain, and his rebel son,
Adad-Narari IV, sat upon his murdered father's throne. But Nemesis
followed upon the parricide's footsteps, for he in turn found a rebel
in his son, and the land was smitten with a terrible pestilence.
[Illustration: Shalmaneser pouring out the Dust of a Conquered City.
--Ambrose Dudley.--By permission of Messrs. Hutchinson and Co.]
Shalmaneser I (_c._ 1270) was cast in a martial and heroic mould, and
an epic might arise from the legends of his conquests and military
exploits. In his time Assyria possessed a superabundant population
which required an outlet, and this the monarch deemed it his duty to
supply. After conquering the provinces of Mitani to the west of the
Euphrates, he attacked Babylonia, and so fiercely did he deal with
his southern neighbours that we find him actually gathering the dust
of their conquered cities and casting it to the four winds of heaven.
Surely a more extreme manner of dealing summarily with a conquered
enemy has never been recorded!
Although the life of the Babylonian or Assyrian king was lived in the
full glare of publicity, he had not to encounter the same criticism as
regards his actions that present-day monarchs must face, for the moral
code of the peoples of Mesopotamia was fundamentally different from
that which obtains at the present time. As the monarch was regarded as
the vicegerent of the gods upon earth, it therefore followed that he
could do no wrong. Submission to his will was complete. In the hands
of a race of men who wielded this power unwisely it could have been
nothing else but disastrous to both prince and people. But on the whole
it may be said that the kings of this race bore themselves worthily
according to their lights. If their sense of dignity at times amounted
to bombast, that was because they were so full of their sense of
delegated duty from above. There is every reason to believe that before
entering upon their kingly state they had to undergo a most rigorous
education, consisting of instruction upon religious subjects, some
history, and the inculcation of moral precepts. On the other hand they
were by no means mere puppets, for we find them initiating campaigns,
presiding over courts of law, and framing the laws themselves and
generally guiding the trend of the national policy. As a whole they
were a strong and determined race, wise as well as warlike, and by no
means unmindful of the requirements of their people. But with them the
gods were first, and their reading of the initial duty of a king seems
to have been the building of temples and the celebration of religious
ceremonies of which a gorgeous and prolonged ritual was the especial
feature.
A Royal 'Day'
A sketch of a day in the life of an Assyrian or Babylonian king may
assist the reader to visualize the habits of royalty in a distant era.
The ceremonies of robing and ablution upon rising would necessitate the
attendance of numerous special officials, and, the morning repast over,
a private religious ceremony would follow. The business of the court
would supervene. Perhaps an embassy from Elam or Egypt would occupy the
early hours of the morning, failing which the dictation of letters to
the governors of provinces and cities or to distant potentates would
be overtaken. As a scholar himself the King would probably carefully
scrutinize these productions. A visit might then be paid to a temple
in course of construction, where the architect would describe the
progress of the building operations, and the King would watch the slow
rising of shrine and tower; or, perhaps, the afternoon would be set
apart for the pleasures of the chase. Leashes of great dogs, not unlike
those of the Danish boarhound breed, would be gathered at a certain
point, and setting out in a light but strong chariot, the King would
soon arrive at that point where the beaters had assured themselves of
the presence of gazelles, wild asses, or even lions. Matters would,
of course, be so arranged that the chief glories of the day should be
left with royalty. It is not clear whether the King was accompanied
by his courtiers in the chase, as was the case in the Middle Ages,
or if he was merely attended by professional huntsmen. Be that as it
may, when the ceremony of pouring libations over the dead game came
to be celebrated, we find no one except the King, the harpers, and
professional huntsmen present, for the kings of this virile and warlike
race did not disdain to face the lion unattended and armed with nothing
but bow and arrows and a short falchion. Unless the inscriptions which
they have left on record are altogether mendacious we must believe that
many an Assyrian king risked his life in close combat with lions. Great
risk attends lion-hunting when the sportsman is armed with modern
weapons of precision, but the risk attending a personal encounter with
these savage animals when the hunter is armed with the most rudimentary
weapons seems appalling, according to modern civilized ideas.
Or again the afternoon might be occupied by a great ceremonial
religious function, the laying of the foundation-stone of a temple,
the opening of a religious edifice, or the celebration of a festival.
The King, attended by a glittering retinue of courtiers and priests,
would be carried in a litter to the place of celebration where hymns
to the god in whose honour the function was held were sung to the
accompaniment of harps and other instruments, libations to the god
were poured out, sacrifices offered up, and prayers made for continued
protection.
[Illustration: The Marriage Market from the painting by Edwin Long,
R.A.--By permission of the Fine Art Society, Ltd.]
The private life of an Assyrian or Babylonian king was probably not
of a very comfortable order, surrounded as he was by sycophantic
officials, spies in the pay of his enemies, schemers and office-seekers
of all descriptions. As in most Oriental countries, the harem was
the centre of intrigue and political unrest. Its occupants were
usually princesses from foreign countries who had probably received
injunctions on leaving their native lands to gain as much ascendancy
over the monarch as possible for the purpose of swaying him in matters
political. Many of these alliances were supposed to be made in the
hope of maintaining peaceful relations between Mesopotamia and the
surrounding countries, but there is little doubt that the numerous
wives of a Mesopotamian king were only too often little better than
spies whose office it was to report periodically to their relatives the
condition of things in Babylon or Nineveh.
Slaves swarmed in the palaces, and these occupied a rather higher
status than in some other countries. A slave who possessed good
attainments and who was skilled in weaving, the making of unguents or
preserves, was regarded as an asset. The slaves were a caste, but the
laws regarding them were exact and not inhumane. They were usually sold
by auction in the market-places of the large towns. A strange custom,
too, is said by Herodotus to have obtained among the Babylonians in
connexion with marriage. Every marriageable woman obtained a husband
in the following manner: The most beautiful girls of marriageable age
were put up to auction, and the large sums realized by their sale were
given to the plainer young women as dowries, who, thus furnished with
plentiful means, readily found husbands. The life of a Mesopotamian
king was so hedged around by ceremonial as to leave little time for
private pleasures. These, as in the case of Assur-bani-pal, sometimes
took the form of literary or antiquarian amusements, but the more
general form of relaxation seems to have been feasts or banquets at
which the tables were well supplied with delicacies obtained from
distant as well as neighbouring regions. Dancing and music, both
furnished by a professional class, followed the repast, and during
the evening the King might consult his soothsayers or astrologers as
to some portent that had been related to him, or some dream he had
experienced.
The royal lines of Mesopotamia seem to have been composed of men grave,
sedate, and conscious of the authority which reposed in them. But few
weaklings sat upon the thrones of Babylonia or Assyria, and those who
did were not infrequently swept aside to make room for better men.
[1] George Smith's translation. See his _Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 355
ff.