interpolations in verses 35 and 38. It is impossible to
establish the chronology of this period with any certainty,
so entirely do the Hebrew accounts of it differ from the
Assyrian. The latter mention Ahab as alive at the time of
the battle of Qarqar in 854 B.C. and Jehu on the throne in
842 B.C. We must, therefore, place in the intervening twelve
years, first, the end of Ahabs reign; secondly, the two
years of Ahaziah; thirdly, the twelve years of Joram;
fourthly, the beginning of the reign of Jehu--in all,
possibly fourteen years. The reign of Joram has been
prolonged beyond reason by the Hebrew annalists, and it
alone lends itself to be curtailed. Admitting that the siege
of Samaria preceded the battle of Qarqar, we may surmise
that the three years which elapsed, according to the
tradition (1 Kings xxii. 1), between the triumph of Ahab and
his death, fall into two unequal periods, two previous to
Qarqar, and one after it, in such a manner that the revolt
of Israel would have been the result of the defeat of the
Damascenes; Ahab must have died in 835 B.C., as most modern
historians agree. On the other hand, it is scarcely probable
that Jehu ascended the throne at the very moment that
Shalmaneser was defeating Hazael in 842 B.C.; we can only
carry back his accession to the preceding year, possibly
843. The duration of two years for the reign of Ahaziah can
only be reduced by a few months, if indeed as much as that,
as it allows of a full year, and part of a second year (cf.
1 Kings xxii. 51, where it is said that Ahaziah ascended the
throne in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, and 2 Kings iii. 1,
where it states that Joram of Israel succeeded Ahaziah in
the 18th year of the same Jehoshaphat).; in placing these
two years between 853 and 851, there will remain for the
reign of Joram the period comprised between 851 and 843,
namely, eight years, instead of the twelve attributed to him
by biblical tradition.
Ahaziah survived his father two years, and was succeeded by his brother
Joram.* When Shalmaneser, in 849 B.C., reappeared in the valley of the
Orontes, Joram sent out against him his prescribed contingent, and the
conquered Israelites once more fought for their conqueror.
* The Hebrew documents merely make mention of Ahaziahs
accession, length of reign, and death (1 Kings xxii. 40, 51-
53, and 2 Kings i. 2-17). The Assyrian texts do not mention
his name, but they state that in 849 the twelve kings
fought against Shalmaneser, and, as we have already seen,
one of the twelve was King of Israel, here, therefore
necessarily Ahaziah, whose successor was Joram.
The Assyrians had, as usual, maltreated the Khâti. After having pillaged
the towns of Carchemish and Agusi, they advanced on the Amanos, held
to ransom the territory of the Patina enclosed within the bend of the
Orontes, and descending upon Hamath by way of the districts of Iaraku
and Ashta-maku, they came into conflict with the army of the twelve
kings, though on this occasion the contest was so bloody that they were
forced to withdraw immediately after their success. They had to content
themselves with sacking Apparazu, one of the citadels of Aramê, and
with collecting the tribute of Garparuda of the Patina; which done, they
skirted the Amanos and provided themselves with beams from its
cedars. The two following years were spent in harrying the people of
Paqarakhbuni, on the right bank of the Euphrates, in the dependencies
of the ancient kingdom of Adini (848 B.C.), and in plundering the
inhabitants of Ishtaratê in the country of Iaîti, near the sources of
the Tigris (847 B.C.), till in 846 they returned to try their fortune
again in Syria. They transported 120,000 men across the Euphrates,
hoping perhaps, by the mere mass of such a force, to crush their enemy
in a single battle; but Ben-hadad was supported by his vassals, and
their combined army must have been as formidable numerically as that of
the Assyrians. As usual, after the engagement, Shalmaneser claimed
the victory, but he did not succeed in intimidating the allies or in
wresting from them a single rood of territory.*
* The care which the king takes to specify that with
120,000 men he crossed the Euphrates in flood-time very
probably shows that this number was for him in some respects
an unusual one.
Discouraged, doubtless, by so many fruitless attempts, he decided to
suspend hostilities, at all events for the present. In 845 B.C. he
visited Naîri, and caused an image of his royal Majesty to be carved
at the source of the Tigris close to the very spot where the stream
first rises. Pushing forward through the defiles of Tunibuni, he
next invaded Urartu, and devastated it as far as the sources of the
Euphrates; on reaching these he purified his arms in the virgin spring,
and offered a sacrifice to the gods. On his return to the frontier,
the chief of Dayaini embraced his feet, and presented him with some
thoroughbred horses. In 844 B.C. he crossed the Lower Zab and plunged
into the heart of Namri; this country had long been under Babylonian
influence, and its princes bore Semitic names. Mardukmudammiq, who was
then its ruler, betook himself to the mountains to preserve his life;
but his treasures, idols, and troops were carried off to Assyria, and
he was superseded on the throne by Ianzu, the son of Khambân, a noble
of Cossæan origin. As might be expected after such severe exertions,
Shalmaneser apparently felt that he deserved a time of repose, for his
chroniclers merely note the date of 843 B.C. as that of an inspection,
terminating in a felling of cedars in the Amanos. As a fact, there was
nothing stirring on the frontier. Chaldæa itself looked upon him as a
benefactor, almost as a suzerain, and by its position between Elam and
Assyria, protected the latter from any quarrel with Susa. The nations
on the east continued to pay their tribute without coercion, and Namri,
which alone entertained pretensions to independence, had just received
a severe lesson. Urartu had not acknowledged the supremacy of Assur,
but it had suffered in the last invasion, and Aramê had shown no
further sign of hostility. The tribes of the Upper Tigris--Kummukh and
Adini--accepted their position as subjects, and any trouble arising
in that quarter was treated as merely an ebullition of local
dissatisfaction, and was promptly crushed. The Khâti were exhausted by
the systematic destruction of their towns and their harvests. Lastly,
of the principalities of the Amanos, Gurgum, Samalla, and the Patina, if
some had occasionally taken part in the struggles for independence, the
others had always remained faithful in the performance of their duties
as vassals. Damascus alone held out, and the valour with which she had
endured all the attacks made on her showed no signs of abatement; unless
any internal disturbance arose to diminish her strength, she was likely
to be able to resist the growing power of Assyria for a long time to
come. It was at the very time when her supremacy appeared to be thus
firmly established that a revolution broke out, the effects of
which soon undid the work of the preceding two or three generations.
Ben-hadad, disembarrassed of Shalmaneser, desired to profit by the
respite thus gained to make a final reckoning with the Israelites. It
would appear that their fortune had been on the wane ever since the
heroic death of Ahab. Immediately after the disaster at Eamoth, the
Moabites had risen against Ahaziah,* and their king, Mesha, son of
Kamoshgad, had seized the territory north of the Arnon which belonged
to the tribe of Gad; he had either killed or carried away the Jewish
population in order to colonise the district with Moabites, and he had
then fortified most of the towns, beginning with Dhibon, his capital.
Owing to the shortness of his reign, Ahaziah had been unable to take
measures to hinder him; but Joram, as soon as he was firmly seated on
the throne, made every effort to regain possession of his province, and
claimed the help of his ally or vassal Jehoshaphat.**
* 2 Kings iii. 5. The text does not name Ahaziah, and it
might be concluded that the revolt took place under Joram;
the expression employed by the Hebrew writer, however,
when Ahab was dead... the King of Moab rebelled against the
King of Israel, does not permit of it being placed
otherwise than at the opening of Ahaziahs reign.
** 2 Kings iii. 6, 7, where Jehoshaphat replies to Joram in
the same terms which he had used to Ahab. The chronological
difficulties induced Ed. Meyer to replace the name of
Jehoshaphat in this passage by that of his son Jehoram. As
Stade has remarked, the presence of two kings both bearing
the name of Jehoram in the same campaign against Moab would
have been one of those facts which strike the popular
imagination, and would not have been forgotten; if the
Hebrew author has connected the Moabite war with the name of
Jehoshaphat, it is because his sources of information
furnished him with that kings name.
The latter had done his best to repair the losses caused by the war with
Syria. Being Lord of Edom, he had been tempted to follow the example
of Solomon, and the deputy who commanded in his name had constructed a
vessel * at Ezion-geber to go to Ophir for gold; but the vessel was
wrecked before quitting the port, and the disaster was regarded by the
king as a punishment from Jahveh, for when Ahaziah suggested that the
enterprise should be renewed at their joint expense, he refused the
offer.** But the sudden insurrection of Moab threatened him as much as
it did Joram, and he gladly acceded to the latters appeal for help.
* [Both in the Hebrew and the Septuagint the ships are in
the plural number in 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49.--Tr.]
** 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49, where the Hebrew writer calls the
vessel constructed by Jehoshaphat a ship of Tarshish;
that is, a vessel built to make long voyages. The author of
the Chronicles thought that the Jewish expedition to Ezion-
geber on the Red Sea was destined to go to Tarshish in
Spain. He has, moreover, transformed the vessel into a
fleet, and has associated Ahaziah in the enterprise,
contrary to the testimony of the Book of Kings; finally, he
has introduced into the account a prophet named Eliezer, who
represents the disaster as a chastisement for the alliance
with Ahaziah (2 Ghron. xx. 35-37).
Apparently the simplest way of approaching the enemy would have been
from the north, choosing Gilead as a base of operations; but the line of
fortresses constructed by Mesha at this vulnerable point of his frontier
was so formidable, that the allies resolved to attack from the south
after passing the lower extremity of the Dead Sea. They marched for
seven days in an arid desert, digging wells as they proceeded for the
necessary supply of water. Mesha awaited them with his hastily assembled
troops on the confines of the cultivated land; the allies routed him
and blockaded him within his city of Kir-hareseth.* Closely beset, and
despairing of any help from man, he had recourse to the last resource
which religion provided for his salvation; taking his firstborn son, he
offered him to Chemosh, and burnt him on the city wall in sight of the
besiegers. The Israelites knew what obligations this sacrifice entailed
upon the Moabite god, and the succour which he would be constrained to
give to his devotees in consequence. They therefore raised the siege and
disbanded in all directions.** Mesha, delivered at the very moment that
his cause seemed hopeless, dedicated a stele in the temple of Dhibôn, on
which he recorded his victories and related what measures he had taken
to protect his people.***
* Kir-Hareseth or Kir-Moab is the present Kcrak, the Krak of
mediaeval times.
** The account of the campaign (2 Kings iii. 8-27) belongs
to the prophetic cycle of Elisha, and seems to give merely a
popular version of the event. A king of Edom is mentioned
(9-10, 12-13), while elsewhere, under Jehoshaphat, it is
stated there was no king in Edom (1 Kings xxii. 47); the
geography also of the route taken by the expedition is
somewhat confused. Finally, the account of the siege of Kir-
hareseth is mutilated, and the compiler has abridged the
episode of the human sacrifice, as being too conducive to
the honour of Chemosh and to the dishonour of Jahveh. The
main facts of the account are correct, but the details are
not clear, and do not all bear the stamp of veracity.
*** This is the famous Moabite Stone or stele of Dhibôn,
discovered by Clermont-Ganneau in 1868, and now preserved in
the Louvre.
[Illustration: 123.jpg THE MOABITE STONE OF STELE OF MESHA]
From a photograph by Faucher-Gudin, retouched by Massias
from the original in the Louvre. The fainter parts of the
stele are the portions restored in the original.
He still feared a repetition of the invasion, but this misfortune was
spared him; Jehoshaphat was gathered to his fathers,* and his Edomite
subjects revolted on receiving the news of his death. Jeho--his son and
successor, at once took up arms to bring them to a sense of their duty;
but they surrounded his camp, and it was with difficulty that he cut his
way through their ranks and escaped during the night.
* The date of the death of Jehoshaphat may be fixed as 849
or 848 B.C. The biblical documents give us for the period of
the history of Judah following on the death of Ahab: First,
eight years of Jehoshaphat, from the 17th year of his reign
(1 Kings xxii. 51) to his 25th (and last) year (1 Kings
xxii. 42); secondly, eight years of Jehoram, son of
Jehoshaphat (2 Kings viii. 17); thirdly, one year of
Ahaziah, son of Jehoram (2 Kings viii. 26)--in all 17 years,
which must be reduced and condensed into the period between
853 B.C., the probable date of the battle of Ramoth, and
843, the equally probable date of the accession of Jehu. The
reigns of the two Ahaziahs are too short to be further
abridged; we must therefore place the campaign against Moab
at the earliest in 850, during the months which followed the
accession of Joram of Israel, and lengthen Johoshaphats
reign from 850 to 849. There will then be room between 849
and 844 for five years (instead of eight) for the reign of
Jehoram of Judah.
The defection of the old Canaanite city of Libnah followed quickly on
this reverse,* and Jehoram was powerless to avenge himself on it, the
Philistines and the Bedâwin having threatened the western part of his
territory and raided the country.** In the midst of these calamities
Judah had no leisure to take further measures against Mesha, and Israel
itself had suffered too severe a blow to attempt retaliation. The
advanced age of Ben-hadad, and the unsatisfactory result of the
campaigns against Shalmaneser, had furnished Joram with an occasion for
a rupture with Damascus. War dragged on for some time apparently, till
the tide of fortune turned against Joram, and, like his father Ahab in
similar circumstances, he shut himself within Samaria, where the false
alarm of an Egyptian or Hittite invasion produced a panic in the Syrian
camp, and restored the fortunes of the Israelitish king.***
* 2 Kings viii. 20-22; cf. 2 Ghron. xxi. 8-10.
** This war is mentioned only in 2 Ghron. xxi. 16, 17, where
it is represented as a chastisement from Jahveh; the
Philistines and the Arabs which are beside the Ethiopians
(Kush) seem to have taken Jerusalem, pillaged the palace,
and carried away the wives and children of the king into
captivity, so that there was never a son left him, save
Jehoahaz (Ahaziah), the youngest of his sons.
*** Kuenen has proposed to take the whole account of the
reign of Joram, son of Ahab, and transfer it to that of
Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, and this theory has been approved by
several recent critics and historians. On the other hand,
some have desired to connect it with the account of the
siege of Samaria in Ahabs reign. I fail to see any
reasonable argument which can be brought against the
authenticity of the main fact, whatever opinion may be held
with regard to the details of the biblical narrative.
Ben-hadad did not long survive the reverse he had experienced; he
returned sick and at the point of death to Damascus, where he was
assassinated by Hazael, one of his captains. Hebrew tradition points to
the influence of the prophets in all these events. The aged Elijah had
disappeared, so ran the story, caught up to heaven in a chariot of fire,
but his mantle had fallen on Elisha, and his power still survived in
his disciple. From far and near Elishas counsel was sought, alike by
Gentiles as by the followers of the true God; whether the suppliant was
the weeping Shunamite mourning for the loss of her only son, or Naaman
the captain of the Damascene chariotry, he granted their petitions, and
raised the child from its bed, and healed the soldier of his leprosy.
During the siege of Samaria, he had several times frustrated the enemys
designs, and had predicted to Joram not only the fact but the hour of
deliverance, and the circumstances which would accompany it. Ben-hadad
had sent Hazael to the prophet to ask him if he should recover, and
Elisha had wept on seeing the envoy--Because I know the evil that thou
wilt do unto the children of Israel; their strongholds wilt thou set on
fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash
in pieces their little ones, and rip up their women with child. And
Hazael said, But what is thy servant which is but a dog, that he should
do this great thing? And Elisha answered, The Lord hath showed me that
thou shalt be king over Syria. On returning to Damascus Hazael gave the
results of his mission in a reassuring manner to Ben-hadad, but on the
morrow... he took the coverlet and dipped it in water, and spread it on
his face, so that he died.
The deed which deprived it of its king^ seriously affected Damascus
itself. It was to Ben-hadad that it owed most of its prosperity; he it
was who had humiliated Hamath and the princes of the coast of Arvad, and
the nomads of the Arabian desert. He had witnessed the rise of the
most energetic of all the Israelite dynasties, and he had curbed its
ambition; Omri had been forced to pay him tribute; Ahab, Ahaziah, and
Joram had continued it; and Ben-hadads suzerainty, recognised more or
less by their vassals, had extended through Moab and Judah as far as the
Bed Sea. Not only had he skilfully built up this fabric of vassal states
which made him lord of two-thirds of Syria, but he had been able to
preserve it unshaken for a quarter of a century, in spite of
rebellions in several of his fiefs and reiterated attacks from Assyria;
Shalmaneser, indeed, had made an attack on his line, but without
breaking through it, and had at length left him master of the field.
This superiority, however, which no reverse could shake, lay in himself
and in himself alone; no sooner had he passed away than it suddenly
ceased, and Hazael found himself restricted from the very outset to the
territory of Damascus proper.* Hamath, Arvad, and the northern peoples
deserted the league, to return to it no more; Joram of Israel called on
his nephew Ahaziah, who had just succeeded to Jehoram of Judah, and both
together marched to besiege Bamoth.
* From this point onward, the Assyrian texts which mentioned
_the twelve kings of the Khati_, Irkhulini of Hamath and
Adadidri (Ben-hadad) of Damascus, now only name _Khazailu of
the country of Damascus_.
The Israelites were not successful in their methods of carrying on
sieges; Joram, wounded in a skirmish, retired to his palace at Jezreel,
where Ahaziah joined him a few days later, on the pretext of inquiring
after his welfare. The prophets of both kingdoms and their followers
had never forgiven the family of Ahab their half-foreign extraction, nor
their eclecticism in the matter of religion. They had numerous partisans
in both armies, and a conspiracy was set on foot against the absent
sovereigns; Elisha, judging the occasion to be a propitious one,
despatched one of his disciples to the camp with secret instructions.
The generals were all present at a banquet, when the messenger arrived;
he took one of them, Jehu, the son of Nimshi, on one side, anointed
him, and then escaped. Jehu returned, and seated himself amongst his
fellow-officers, who, unsuspicious of what had happened, questioned him
as to the errand. Is all well? Wherefore came this mad fellow to thee?
And he said unto them, Ye know the man and what his talk was. And they
said, It is false; tell us now. And he said, Thus and thus spake he to
me, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Israel.
Then they hasted, and took every man his garment and put it under him on
the top of the stairs, and blew the trumpet, saying, Jehu is king.
He at once marched on Jezreel, and the two kings, surprised at this
movement, went out to meet him with scarcely any escort. The two parties
had hardly met when Joram asked, Is it peace, Jehu? to which Jehu
replied, What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and
her witchcrafts are so many? Whereupon Joram turned rein, crying to
his nephew, There is treachery, O Ahaziah. But an arrow pierced him
through the heart, and he fell forward in his chariot. Ahaziah, wounded
near Ibleam, managed, however, to take refuge in Megiddo, where he died,
his servants bringing the body back to Jerusalem.*
* According to the very curtailed account in 2 Chron. xxii.
9, Ahaziah appears to have hidden himself in Samaria, where
he was discovered and taken to Jehu, who had him killed.
This account may perhaps have belonged to the different
version of which a fragment has been preserved in 2 Kings x.
12-17.
When Jezebel heard the news, she guessed the fate which awaited her. She
painted her eyes and tired her head, and posted herself in one of the
upper windows of the palace. As Jehu entered the gates she reproached
him with the words, Is it peace, thou Zimri--thy masters murderer? And
he lifted up his face to the window and said, Who is on my side--who?
Two or three eunuchs rose up behind the queen, and he called to them,
Throw her down. So they threw her down, and some of her blood was
sprinkled on the wall and on the horses; and he trode her under foot.
And when he was come in he did eat and drink; and he said, See now
to this cursed woman and bury her; for she is a kings daughter. But
nothing was found of her except her skull, hands, and feet, which they
buried as best they could. Seventy princes, the entire family of Ahab,
were slain, and their heads piled up on either side of the gate. The
priests and worshippers of Baal remained to be dealt with. Jehu summoned
them to Samaria on the pretext of a sacrifice, and massacred them before
the altars of their god. According to a doubtful tradition, the brothers
and relatives of Ahaziah, ignorant of what had happened, came to salute
Joram, and perished in the confusion of the slaughter, and the line of
David narrowly escaped extinction with the house of Omri.*
* 2 Kings x. 12-14. Stade has shown that this account is in
direct contradiction with its immediate context, and that it
belonged to a version of the events differing in detail from
the one which has come down to us. According to the latter,
Jehu must at once have met Jehonadab the son of Rechab, and
have entered Samaria in his company (vers. 15-17); this
would have been a poor way of inspiring the priests of Baal
with the confidence necessary for drawing them into the
trap. According to 2 Chron. xxii. 8, the massacre of the
princes of Judah preceded the murder of Ahaziah.
Athaliah assumed the regency, broke the tie of vassalage which bound
Judah to Israel, and by a singular irony of fate, Jerusalem offered an
asylum to the last of the children of Ahab. The treachery of Jehu, in
addition to his inexpiable cruelty, terrified the faithful, even while
it served their ends. Dynastic crimes were common in those days, but the
tragedy of Jezreel eclipsed in horror all others that had preceded it;
it was at length felt that such avenging of Jahveh was in His eyes too
ruthless, and a century later the Prophet Hosea saw in the misery of his
people the divine chastisement of the house of Jehu for the blood shed
at his accession.
The report of these events, reaching Calah, awoke the ambition of
Shalmaneser. Would Damascus, mistrusting its usurper, deprived of
its northern allies, and ill-treated by the Hebrews, prove itself as
invulnerable as in the past? At all events, in 842 B.C., Shalmaneser
once more crossed the Euphrates, marched along the Orontes, probably
receiving the homage of Hamath and Arvad by the way. Restricted solely
to the resources of Damascus, <Hazael did not venture to advance into
Coele-Syria as Ben-hadad had always done; he barricaded the defiles of
Anti-Lebanon, and, entrenched on Mount Shenir with the flower of his
troops, prepared to await the attack. It proved the most bloody battle
that the Assyrians had up to that period ever fought. Hazael lost 16,000
foot-soldiers, 470 horsemen, 1121 chariots, and yet succeeded in falling
back on Damascus in good order. Shalmaneser, finding it impossible to
force the city, devastated the surrounding country, burnt numberless
villages and farms, and felled all the fruit trees in the Haurân up to
the margin of the desert. This district had never, since the foundation
of the kingdom by Bezon a century before, suffered at the hands of an
enemys army, and its population, enriched as much by peaceful labour
as by the spoil of its successful wars, offered a prize of incalculable
value. On his return march Shalmaneser raided the Bekaa, entered
Phoenicia, and carved a triumphal stele on one of the rocks of
Baalirasi.*
* The site of Baalirasi is left undecided by Assyriologists.
The events which follow enable us to affirm with tolerable
certainty that the point on the coast where Shalmaneser
received the tributes of Tyre and Sidon is none other than
the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb: the name Baalirasi, the
master of the head, would then be applicable to the rocky
point which rises to the south of the river, and on which
Egyptian kings had already sculptured their stelæ.
The Kings of Tyre and Sidon hastened to offer him numerous gifts,
and Jehu, who owed to his presence temporary immunity from a Syrian
invasion, sent his envoys to greet him, accompanied by offerings of gold
and silver in bars, vessels of gold of various forms, situlæ, salvers,
cups, drinking-vessels, tin, sceptres, and wands of precious woods.
Shalmanesers pride was flattered by this homage, and he carved on one
of his monuments the representation of this first official connection of
Assyria with Israel.
[Illustration: 131.jpg JEHU, KING OF ISRAEL, SENDS PRESENTS TO
SHALMANESER]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the scenes represented
on the Black Obelisk.
The chief of the embassage is shown prostrating himself and kissing the
dust before the king, while the rest advance in single file, some with
vessels in their hands, some carrying sceptres, or with metal bowls
supported on their heads. The prestige of the house of Omri was still a
living influence, or else the Ninevite scribes were imperfectly informed
of the internal changes which had taken place in Israel, for the
inscription accompanying this bas-relief calls Jehu the son of Omri,
and grafts the regicide upon the genealogical tree of his victims.
Shalmanesers victory had been so dearly bought, that the following year
the Assyrians merely attempted an expedition for tree-felling in the
Amanos (841 B.C.). Their next move was to push forward into Kuî, in the
direction of the Pyramos and Saros (840 B.C.). In the summer of 839 they
once more ventured southwards, but this time Hazael changed his tactics:
pitched battles and massed movements, in which the fate of a campaign
was decided by one cast of the dice, were now avoided, and ambuscades,
guerilla warfare, and long and tedious sieges became the order of the
day. By the time that four towns had been taken, Shalmanesers patience
was worn out: he drew off his troops and fell back on Phoenicia, laying
Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos under tribute before returning into Mesopotamia.
Hazael had shown himself possessed of no less energy than Ben-hadad;
and Damascus, isolated, had proved as formidable a foe as Damascus
surrounded by its vassals; Shalmaneser therefore preferred to leave
matters as they were, and accept the situation. Indeed the results
obtained were of sufficient importance to warrant his feeling some
satisfaction. He had ruthlessly dispelled the dream of Syrian hegemony
which had buoyed up Ben-hadad, he had forced Damascus to withdraw the
suzerainty it had exercised in the south, and he had conquered Northern
Syria and the lower basin of the Orontes. Before running any further
risks, he judged it prudent to strengthen his recently acquired
authority over these latter countries, and to accustom the inhabitants
to their new position as subjects of Nineveh.
He showed considerable wisdom by choosing the tribes of the Taurus and
of the Oappadocian marches as the first objects of attack. In regions
so difficult of access, war could only be carried on with considerable
hardship and severe loss. The country was seamed by torrents and densely
covered with undergrowth, while the towns and villages, which clung to
the steep sides of the valleys, had no need of walls to become effective
fortresses, for the houses rose abruptly one above another, and formed
so many redoubts which the enemy would be forced to attack and take
one by one. Few pitched battles could be fought in a district of this
description; the Assyrians wore themselves out in incessant skirmishes
and endless petty sieges, and were barely compensated by the meagre
spoil which such warfare yielded.
[Illustration: 134.jpg A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Alfred Boissier.
In 838 B.C. Shalmaneser swept over the country of Tabal and reduced
twenty-four of its princes to a state of subjection; proceeding
thence, he visited the mountains of Turat,* celebrated from this period
downwards for their silver mines and quarries of valuable marbles.
* The position of the mountains of Turat is indicated by the
nature of their products: We know of _a silver mine_ at
Marash and an iron mine not worked, and _two fine quarries_,
one of pink and the other of black marble. Turat,
therefore, must be the Marash mountain, the Aghir-Uagh and
its spurs; hence the two sorts of stone mentioned in the
Assyrian text would be, the one the pink, the other the
black marble.
In 837 he seized the stronghold of Uêtash in Melitene, and laid Tabal
under a fresh contribution; this constituted a sort of advance post
for-Assyria in the sight of those warlike and continually fluctuating
races situated between the sources of the Halys and the desert border
of Asia Minor.* Secure on this side, he was about to bring matters to
a close in Cilicia, when the defection of Ianzu recalled him to the
opposite extremity of the empire. He penetrated into Namri by the
defiles of Khashmur,** made a hasty march through Sik-hisatakh,
Bît-Tamul, Bît-Shakki, and Bît-Shedi, surprised the rebels and drove
them into the forests; he then bore down on Parsua*** and plundered
twenty-seven petty kings consecutively.
* A fragment of an anonymous list, discovered by Delitzsch,
puts the expedition against the Tabal in 837 B.C. instead of
in 838, and consequently makes the entire series of ensuing
expeditions one year later, up to the revolt of Assur-dain-
pal. This is evidently a mistake of the scribe who compiled
this edition of the Canon, and the chronology of a
contemporary monument, such as the Black Obelisk, ought to
obtain until further light can be thrown on the subject.
** For the site of Khashmur or Khashmar, cf. _supra_, p. 35,
note 3. The other localities cannot as yet be identified
with any modern site; we may conjecture that they were
scattered about the basin of the upper Dîyalah.
*** Parsua, or with the native termination Parsuash, has
been identified first with Persia and then with Parthia, and
Rost still persists in its identification, if not with the
Parthia of classical geographers, at least with the Parthian
people. Schrader has shown that it ought to be sought
between Namri on the south and the Mannai on the north; in
one of the valleys of the Gordysean mountains, and his
demonstration has been accepted with a few modifications of
detail by most scholars. I believe it to be possible to
determine its position with still further precision. Parsua
on one side lay on the border of Namri, which comprises the
districts to the east of the Dîyalah in the direction of
Zohab, and was contiguous to the Medes on the other side,
and also to the Mannai, who occupied the southern regions of
Lake Urumiah; it also lies close to Bît-Khamban, the
principal of the Cossæan tribes, as it would appear. I can
find only one position on the map which would answer to all
these requirements: this is in the main the basin of the
Gavê-rud and its small affluents, the Ardelân and the
sources of the Kizil-Uzên, and I shall there place Parsua
until further information is forthcoming on the subject.
Skirting Misi, Amadai, Araziash,* and Kharkhar, and most of the
districts lying on the middle heights of the table-land of Iran, he at
length came up with Ianzu, whom he seized and brought back prisoner to
Assyria, together with his family and his idols.
* Amadai is a form of Madai, with a prothetical _a_, like
Agusi or Azala, by the side of Guzi and Zala. The
inscription of Shalmaneser III. thus gives us the first
mention of the classical Medes. Araziash, placed too far to
the east in Sagartenê by Fr. Lenormant, has been located
further westwards by Schrader, near the upper course of the
Kerkhâ; but the documents of all periods show us that on one
side it adjoined Kharkhar, that is the basin of the Gamas-
âb, on the other side Media, that is the country of Hamadan.
It must, therefore, be placed between the two, in the
northern part of the ancient Cambadenê in the present
Tchamabadân. Kharkhar in this case would be in the southern
part of Cambadene, on the main road which leads from the
gates of the Zagros to Hamadan; an examination of the
general features of the country leads me to believe that the
town of Kharkhar should occupy the site of Kirmânshahân, or
rather of the ancient city which preceded that town.
It was at this juncture, perhaps, that he received from the people of
Muzri the gift of an elephant and some large monkeys, representations of
which he has left us on one of his bas-reliefs. Elephants were becoming
rare, and it was not now possible to kill them by the hundred, as
formerly, in Syria: this particular animal, therefore, excited the
wonder of the Ninevites, and the possession of it flattered the vanity
of the conqueror. This was, however, an interlude of short duration, and
the turbulent tribes of the Taurus recalled him to the west as soon as
spring set in.
He laid waste Kuî in 836 B.C., destroyed Timur, its capital, and on his
return march revenged himself on Aramê of Agusi, whose spirit was still
unbroken by his former misfortunes.
[Illustration: 137.jpg ELEPHANT AND MONKEYS BROUGHT AS A TRIBUTE TO
NINEVEH BY THE PEOPLE OF MUZBI]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
Black Obelisk.
Tanakun and Tarsus fell into his hands 835 B.C.; Shalmaneser replaced
Kati, the King of Kuî, by his brother Kirri, and made of his dominions a
kind of buffer state between his own territory and that of Pamphylia and
Lycaonia. He had now occupied the throne for a quarter of a century,
not a year of which had elapsed without seeing the monarch gird on his
armour and lead his soldiers in person towards one or other points
of the horizon. He was at length weary of such perpetual warfare, and
advancing age perchance prevented him from leading his troops with that
dash and vigour which are necessary to success; however this might be,
on his return from Cilicia he laid aside his armour once for all, and
devoted himself to peaceful occupations.
But he did not on that account renounce all attempts at conquest.
Conducting his campaigns by proxy delegated the command of his army to
his Tartan Dayân-assur, and the northern tribes were the first on whom
this general gave proof of his prowess. Urartu had passed into the
hands of another sovereign since its defeat in 845 B.C., and a second
Sharduris* had taken the place of the Aramê who had ruled at the
beginning of Shalma-nesers reign.
* The name is written Siduri or Seduri in the text of the
Obelisk, probably in accordance with some popular
pronunciation, in which the r was but slightly rolled and
finally disappeared. The identity of Seduri and Sharduris,
has been adopted by recent historians. Belck and Lehmann
have shown that this Seduri was not Sharduris, son of
Lutipris, but a Sharduris II., probably the son of Aramê.
It would appear that the accession of this prince, who was probably
young and active, was the signal for a disturbance among the people of
the Upper Tigris and the Masios--a race always impatient of the yoke,
and ready to make common cause with any fresh enemy of Assyria. An
insurrection broke out in Bît-Zamani and the neighbouring districts.
Dayân-assur quelled it offhand; then, quitting the basin of the Tigris
by the défiles of Armash, he crossed the Arzania, and entered Urartu.
Sharduris came out to meet him, and was defeated, if we may give
credence to the official record of the campaign. Even if the account be
an authentic one, the victory was of no advantage to the Assyrians, for
they were obliged to retreat before they had subjugated the enemy, and
an insurrection among the Patina prevented them from returning to the
attack in the following year. With obligations to their foreign master
on one hand and to their own subjects on the other, the princes of the
Syrian states had no easy life. If they failed to fulfil their duties as
vassals, then an Assyrian invasion would pour in to their country, and
sooner or later their ruin would be assured; they would have before them
the prospect of death by impaling or under the knife of the flayer, or,
if they escaped this, captivity and exile in a far-off land. Prudence
therefore dictated a scrupulous fidelity to their suzerain. On the other
hand, if they resigned themselves to their dependent condition, the
people of their towns would chafe at the payment of tribute, or some
ambitious relative would take advantage of the popular discontent to
hatch a plot and foment a revolution, and the prince thus threatened
would escape from an Assyrian reprisal only to lose his throne or fall
by the blow of an assassin. In circumstances such as these the people of
the Patina murdered their king, Lubarna II., and proclaimed in his
room a certain Sum, who had no right to the crown, but who doubtless
undertook to liberate them from the foreigner. Dayân-assur defeated the
rebels and blockaded the remains of their army in Kinalua. They defended
themselves at first energetically, but on the death of Surri from some
illness, their courage failed them and they offered to deliver over the
sons of their chief if their own lives might be spared. Dayân-assur
had the poor wretches impaled, laid the inhabitants under a heavy
contribution, and appointed a certain Sâsi, son of Uzza, to be their
king. The remainder of Syria gave no further trouble--a fortunate
circumstance, for the countries on the Armenian border revolted in 832
B.C., and the whole year was occupied in establishing order among
the herdsmen of Kirkhi. In 831 B.C., Dayân-assiir pushed forward into
Khubushkia, and traversed it from end to end without encountering any
resistance. He next attacked the Mannai. Their prince, Ualki, quailed
before his onslaught; he deserted his royal city Zirtu,* and took refuge
in the mountains. Dayân-assur pursued him thither in vain, but he was
able to collect considerable booty, and turning in a south-easterly
direction, he fought his way along the base of the Gordysean mountains
till he reached Parsua, which he laid under tribute. In 830 B.C. it was
the turn of Muzazir, which hitherto had escaped invasion, to receive a
visit from the Tartan. Zapparia, the capital, and fifty-six other towns
were given over to the flames. From thence, Dayân-assur passed into
Urartu proper; after having plundered it, he fell back on the southern
provinces, collecting by the way the tribute of Guzân, of the Mannai,
of Andiu,** and Parsua; he then pushed on into the heart of Namri, and
having razed to the ground two hundred and fifty of its towns, returned
with his troops to Assyria by the defiles of Shimishi and through
Khalman.
* The town is elsewhere called Izirtu, and appears to have
been designated in the inscriptions of Van by the name of
Sisiri-Khadiris.
** Andia or Andiu is contiguous to Naîri, to Zikirtu and to
Karalla, which latter borders on Manna; it bordered on the
country of Misa or Misi, into which it is merged under the
name of Misianda in the time of Sargon. Delattre places
Andiu in the country of the classical Matiense, between the
Mationian mountains and Lake Urumiah. The position of Misu
on the confines of Araziash and Media, somewhere in the
neighbourhood of Talvantu-Dagh, obliges us to place Andiu
lower down to the south-east, near the district of Kurdasir.
This was perhaps the last foreign campaign of Shalmaneser III.s reign;
it is at all events the last of which we possess any history. The record
of his exploits ends, as it had begun more than thirty years previously,
with a victory in Namri.
[Illustration: 137.jpg BLACK OBELISK OF SHALMANESER III]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast in the Louvre. [The
original is in the Brit. Mus.--Tr.]
The aged king had, indeed, well earned the right to end his allotted
days in peace. Devoted to Calah, like his predecessor, he had there
accumulated the spoils of his campaigns, and had made it the
wealthiest city of his empire. He continued to occupy the palace of
Assur-nazir-pal, which he had enlarged. Wherever he turned within its
walls, his eyes fell upon some trophy of his wars or panegyric of his
virtues, whether recorded on mural tiles covered with inscriptions and
bas-reliefs, or celebrated by statues, altars, and triumphal stelæ.
The most curious among all these is a square-based block terminating
in three receding stages, one above the other, like the stump of
an Egyptian obelisk surmounted by a stepped pyramid. Five rows
of bas-reliefs on it represent scenes most flattering to Assyrian
pride;--the reception of tribute from Gilzân, Muzri, the Patina, the
Israelitish Jehu, and Marduk-abal-uzur, King of the land of Sukhi. The
latter knew his suzerains love of the chase, and he provided him with
animals for his preserves, including lions, and rare species of deer.
[Illustration: 142.jpg STAG AND LIONS OF THE COUNTRY OF SUKHI]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
Black Obelisk.
The inscription on the monument briefly relates the events which had
occurred between the first and the thirty-first years of Shalmanesers
reign;--the defeat of Damascus, of Babylon and Urartu, the conquest
of Northern Syria, of Cilicia, and of the countries bordering on
the Zagros. When the king left Calah for some country residence in
its-neighbourhood, similar records and carvings would meet his eye. At
Imgur-Bel, one of the gates of the palace was covered with plates of
bronze, on which the skilful artist had embossed and engraved with the
chisel episodes from the campaigns on the Euphrates and the Tigris, the
crossing of mountains and rivers, the assault and burning of cities, the
long lines of captives, the _mêlée_ with the enemy and the pursuit of
the chariots. All the cities of Assyria, Nineveh,* Arbela, Assur, even
to the more distant towns of Harrân** and Tushkhân,***--vied with each
other in exhibiting proofs of his zeal for their gods and his affection
for their inhabitants; but his predilection for Calah filled them with
jealousy, and Assur particularly could ill brook the growing aversion
with which the Assyrian kings regarded her. It was of no avail that she
continued to be the administrative and religious capital of the empire,
the storehouse of the spoil and annual tribute of other nations, and
was continually embellishing herself with fresh monuments: a spirit
of discontent was daily increasing, and merely awaited some favourable
occasion to break out into open revolt. Shalmaneser enjoyed the dignity
of _limmu_ for the second time after thirty years, and had celebrated
this jubilee of his inauguration by a solemn festival in honour of Assur
and Eammân.****
* Nineveh is mentioned as the starting-place of nearly all
the first campaigns in the inscription on the _Monolith_;
also in the Balawât inscription, on the other hand, towards
the end of the reign, Calah is given as the residence of the
king on the _Black Obelisk_
** Mention of the buildings of Shalmaneser III. at Harrân
occurs in an inscription of Nabonidus.
*** The Monolith discovered at Kurkh is in itself a proof
that Shalmaneser executed works in this town, the Tushkhân
of the inscriptions.
**** Any connection established between this thirty-year
jubilee and the thirty years festival of Egypt rests on
facts which can be so little relied on, that it must be
accepted with considerable reserve.
[Illustration: 144.jpg THE BRONZE-COVERED GATES OF BALAWÀT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sketch by Pinches.
It is possible that he may have thought this a favourable moment for
presenting to the people the son whom he had chosen from among his
children to succeed him. At any rate, Assur-dain-pal, fearing that
one of his brothers might be preferred before him, proclaimed himself
king, and nearly the whole of Assyria gathered around his standard.
Assur and twenty-six more of the most important cities revolted in his
favour--Nineveh, Imgur-bel, Sibaniba, Dur-balat, Arbela, Zabân in the
Chaldæan marches, Arrapkha in the valley of the Upper Zab, and most
of the colonies, both of ancient and recent foundation--Amidi on the
Tigris, Khindanu near the mouths of the Kha-bur and Tul-Abni on the
southern slopes of the Masios. The aged king remained in possession only
of Calah and its immediate environs--Nisibis, Harrân, Tushkhân, and the
most recently subdued provinces on the banks of the Euphrates and the
Orontes. It is probable, however, that the army remained faithful to
him, and the support which these well-tried troops afforded him enabled
the king to act with promptitude. The weight of years did not permit him
to command in person; he therefore entrusted the conduct of operations
to his son Samsi-rammân, but he did not live to see the end of the
struggle. It embittered his last days, and was not terminated till 822
B.C., at which date Shalmaneser had been dead two years. This prolonged
crisis had shaken the kingdom to its foundations; the Syrians, the
Medes, the Babylonians, and the peoples of the Armenian and Aramæan
marches were rent from it, and though Samsi-rammân IV. waged continuous
warfare during the twelve years that he governed, he could only
partially succeed in regaining the territory which had been thus lost.*
* All that we know of the reign of Samsi-rammân IV. comes
from an inscription in archaic characters containing the
account of four campaigns, without giving the years of each
reign or the _limmu_, and historians have classified them in
different ways.
His first three campaigns were-directed against the north-eastern and
eastern provinces. He began by attempting to collect the tribute from
Naîri, the payment of which had been suspended since the outbreak of
the revolution, and he re-established the dominion of Assyria from the
district of Paddir to the township of Kar-Shulmânasharid, which his
father had founded at the fords of the Euphrates opposite to Carchemish
(821 B.C.). In the following campaign he did not personally take part,
but the Rabshakeh Mutarriz-assur pillaged the shores of Lake Urumiah,
and then made his way towards Urartu, where he destroyed three hundred
towns (820). The third expedition was directed against Misi and
Gizilbunda beyond the Upper Zab and Mount Zilar.* The inhabitants of
Misi entrenched themselves on a wooded ridge commanded by three peaks,
but were defeated in spite of the advantages which their position
secured for them;** the people of Gizilbunda were not more fortunate
than their neighbours, and six thousand of them perished at the assault
of Urash, their capital.***
* Mount Zilar is beyond the Upper Zab, on one of the roads
which lead to the basin of Lake Urumiah, probably in
Khubushkia. There are two of these roads--that which passes
over the neck of Kelishin, and the other which runs through
the gorges of Alan; with the exception of these two points,
the mountain chain is absolutely impassable. According to
the general direction of the campaign, it appears to me
probable that the king crossed by the passes of Alan; Mount
Zilâr would therefore be the group of chains which cover the
district of Pîshder, and across which the Lesser Zab passes
before descending to the plain.
** The country of Misi adjoined Gizilbunda, Media, Araziâsh,
and Andiu. All these circumstances incline us to place it in
the south-eastern part of Kurdistan of Sihmeh, in the upper
valley of Kisil-Uzên. The ridge, overlooked by three peaks,
on which the inhabitants took refuge, cannot be looked for
on the west, whore there are few important heights: I should
rather identify it with the part of the Gordysean mountains
which bounds the basin of the Kisil-Uzên on the west, and
which contains three peaks of 12,000 feet--the Tchehel-
tchechma, the Derbend, and the Nau-Kân.
*** The name of the country has been read Giratbunda,
Ginunbunda, Girubbunda; a variant, to which no objections
can be made, has furnished Gizilbunda. It was contiguous on
one side to the Medes, and on the other to the Mannai, which
obliges us to place it in Kurdistan of Gerrus, on the Kizil-
Uzôn. It may be asked if the word Kizil which occurs several
times in the topographical nomenclature of these regions is
not a relic of the name in question, and if Gizil-bunda is
not a compound of the same class as Kizil-uzên, Kizil-
gatchi, Kizihalân, Kizil-lôk, whether it be that part of the
population spoke a language analogous to the dialects now in
use in these districts, or that the ancient word has been
preserved by later conquerors and assimilated to some well-
known word in their own language.
Mutarriz-assur at once turned upon the Medes, vanquished them, and drove
them at the point of the sword into their remote valleys, returning to
the district of Araziash, which he laid waste. A score of chiefs
with barbarous names, alarmed by this example, hastened to prostrate
themselves at his feet, and submitted to the tribute which he imposed
on them. Assyria thus regained in these regions the ascendency which the
victories of Shalmaneser III. in their time had won for her.
Babylon, which had endured the suzerainty of its rival for a quarter
of a century, seems to have taken advantage of the events occurring in
Assyria to throw off the yoke, by espousing the cause of Assur-dain-pal.
Samsi-rammân, therefore, as soon as he was free to turn his attention
from Media (818), directed his forces against Babylonia. Metur-nât,
as usual, was the first city attacked; it capitulated at once, and its
inhabitants were exiled to Assyria. Kami to the south of the Turnat, and
Dibina on Mount Yalrnan, suffered the same fate, but Gananâtê held out
for a time; its garrison, however, although reinforced by troops from
the surrounding country, was utterly routed before its walls, and the
survivors, who fled for refuge to the citadel in the centre of the town,
were soon dislodged. The Babylonians, who had apparently been taken by
surprise at the first attack, at length made preparations to resist
the invaders. The Prince of Dur-papsukal, who owned allegiance to
Marduk-balatsu-ikbi, King of Babylon, had disposed his troops so as
to guard the fords of the Tigris, in order to prevent the enemy from
reaching his capital. But Samsi-rammân dispersed this advanced force,
killing thirteen thousand, besides taking three thousand prisoners, and
finally reduced Dur-papsukal to ashes.
[148.jpg MONOLITH OF SAMSI-RAMMAN IV]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Mansell. The
original is in the British Museum.
The respite thus obtained gave Marduk-balatsu-ikbi sufficient time to
collect the main body of his troops: the army was recruited from Kaldâ
and Ela-mites, soldiers from Namri, and Aramaean contingents, and the
united force awaited the enemy behind the ruins of Dur-papsukal,
along the banks of the Dabân canal. Five thousand footmen, two hundred
horsemen, one hundred chariots, besides the kings tent and all his
stores, fell into the hands of the Assyrians. The victory was complete;
Babylon, Kuta, and Borsippa capitulated one after the other, and the
invaders penetrated as far as the land of the Kaldâ, and actually
reached the Persian Gulf. Samsi-rammân offered sacrifices to the
gods, as his father had done before him, and concluded a treaty with
Marduk-balatsu-ikbi, the terms of which included rectification of
boundaries, payment of a subsidy, and the other clauses usual in
such circumstances; the peace was probably ratified by a matrimonial
alliance, concluded between the Babylonian princess Sammuramat and
Bammân-nirâri, son of the conqueror. In this manner the hegemony of
Assyria over Karduniash was established even more firmly than before
the insurrection; but all available resources had been utilised in the
effort necessary to secure it. Samsi-rammân had no leisure to reconquer
Syria or Asia Minor, and the Euphrates remained the western frontier of
his kingdom, as it had been in the early days of Shalmaneser III. The
peace with Babylon, moreover, did not last long; Bau-akhiddîn, who
had succeeded Marduk-balatsu-ikbi, refused to observe the terms of the
treaty, and hostilities again broke out on the Turnat and the Tigris, as
they had done six years previously. This war was prolonged from 813
to 812 B.C., and was still proceeding when Samsi-rammân died. His son
Bammân-nirâri III. quickly brought it to a successful issue. He carried
Bau-akhiddîn captive to Assyria, with his family and the nobles of his
court, and placed on the vacant throne one of his own partisans, while
he celebrated festivals in honour of his own supremacy at Babylon, Kuta,
and Borsippa. Karduniash made no attempt to rebel against Assyria during
the next half-century. Bammân-nirâri proved himself an energetic and
capable sovereign, and the thirty years of his reign were by no means
inglorious. We learn from the eponym lists what he accomplished during
that time, and against which countries he waged war; but we have not yet
recovered any inscription to enable us to fill in this outline, and put
together a detailed account of his reign. His first expeditions were
directed against Media (810), Gozân (809), and the Mannai (808-807); he
then crossed the Euphrates, and in four successive years conducted as
many vigorous campaigns against Arpad (806), Kkazaiu (808), the town
of Baali (804), and the cities of the Phoenician sea-board (803). The
plague interfering with his advance in the latter direction, he again
turned his attention eastward and attacked Khubushkia in 802, 792, and
784; Media in 801-800, 794-793, and 790-787; Lushia in 799; Namri in
798; Diri in 796-795 and 785; Itua in 791, 783-782; Kishki in 785. This
bare enumeration conjures up a vision of an enterprising and victorious
monarch of the type of Assur-nazir-pal or Shalmaneser III., one who
perhaps succeeded even where his redoubtable ancestors had failed.
The panoramic survey of his empire, as unfolded to us in one of his
inscriptions, includes the mountain ranges of Illipi as far as Mount
Sihina, Kharkhar, Araziash, Misu, Media, the whole of Gizilbunda, Man,
Parsua, Allabria, Abdadana, the extensive territory of Istaîri, far-off
Andiu, and, westwards beyond the Euphrates, the Khâti, the entire
country of the Amorites, Tyre, Sidon, Israel, Edom, and the Philistines.
Never before had the Assyrian empire extended so far east in the
direction of the centre of the Iranian tableland, nor so far to the
south-west towards the frontiers of Egypt.*
* Allabria or Allabur is on the borders of Parsua and of
Karalla, which allows us to locate it in the basins of the
Kerkhorâh and the Saruk, tributaries of the Jagatu, which
flow into Lake Urumiah. Abdadana, which borders on
Allabria, and was, according to Rammân-nirâri, at the
extreme end of Naîri, was a little further to the east or
north-east; if I am not mistaken, it corresponds pretty
nearly to Uriâd, on the banks of the Kizil-Uzên.
In two only of these regions, namely, Syria and Armenia, do native
documents add any information to the meagre summary contained in the
Annals, and give us glimpses of contemporary rulers. The retreat of
Shalmaneser, after his partial success in 839, had practically left the
ancient allies of Ben-hadad II. at the mercy of Hazael, the new King of
Damascus, but he did not apparently attempt to assert his supremacy over
the whole of Coele-Syria, and before long several of its cities acquired
considerable importance, first Mansuate, and then Hadrach,* both of
which, casting Hamath into the shade, succeeded in holding their own
against Hazael and his successors. He renewed hostilities, however,
against the Hebrews, and did not relax his efforts till he had
thoroughly brought them into subjection. Jehu suffered loss on all his
frontiers, from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites,
the Keubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the valley
of Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan, ** Israel became thus once more
entirely dependent on Damascus, but the sister kingdom of Judah still
escaped its yoke through the energy of her rulers.
* Mansuati successfully resisted Rammân-nirâri in 797 B.C.,
but he probably caused its ruin, for after this only
expeditions against Hadrach are mentioned. Mansuati was in
the basin of the Orontes, and the manner in which the
Assyrian texts mention it in connection with Zimyra seems to
show that it commanded the opening in the Lebanon range
between Cole-Syria and Phoenicia. The site of Khatarika, the
Hadrach of Zech. ix. 1, is not yet precisely determined; but
it must, as well as Mansuati, have been in the neighbourhood
of Hamath, perhaps between Hamath and Damascus. It appears
for the first time in 772.
** 2 Kings x. 32, 33. Even if verse 33 is a later addition,
it gives a correct idea of the situation, except as regards
Bashan, which had been lost to Israel for some time already.
Athaliah reigned seven years, not ingloriously; but she belonged to
the house of Ahab, and the adherents of the prophets, whose party had
planned Jehus revolution, could no longer witness with equanimity one
of the accursed race thus prospering and ostentatiously practising the
rites of Baal-worship within sight of the great temple of Jahveh. On
seizing the throne, Athaliah had sought out and put to death all the
members of the house of David who had any claim to the succession; but
Jeho-sheba, half-sister of Ahaziah, had with difficulty succeeded in
rescuing Joash, one of the kings sons. Her husband was the high priest
Jehoiada, and he secreted his nephew for six years in the precincts of
the temple; at the end of that time, he won over the captains of the
royal guard, bribed a section of the troops, and caused them to swear
fealty to the child as their legitimate sovereign. Athaliah, hastening
to discover the cause of the uproar, was assassinated. Mattan, chief
priest of Baal, shared her fate; and Jehoiada at once restored to Jahveh
the preeminence which the gods of the alien had for a time usurped
(837). At first his influence over his pupil was supreme, but before
long the memory of his services faded away, and the king sought only
how to rid himself of a tutelage which had grown irksome. The temple
had suffered during the late wars, and repairs were much needed.
Joash ordained that for the future all moneys put into the sacred
treasury--which of right belonged to the king--should be placed
unreservedly at the disposal of the priests on condition that they
should apply them to the maintenance of the services and fabric of
the temple: the priests accepted the gift, but failed in the faithful
observance of the conditions, so that in 814 B.C. the king was obliged
to take stringent measures to compel them to repair the breaches in the
sanctuary walls:* he therefore withdrew the privilege which they had
abused, and henceforth undertook the administration of the Temple
Fund in person. The beginning of the new order of things was not very
successful. Jehu had died in 815, after a disastrous reign, and both he
and his son Jehoahaz had been obliged to acknowledge the supremacy of
Hazael: not only was he in the position of an inferior vassal, but, in
order to preclude any idea of a revolt, he was forbidden to maintain
a greater army than the small force necessary for purposes of defence,
namely, ten thousand foot-soldiers, fifty horsemen, and ten chariots.**
* 2 Kings xii. 4-16; cf. 2 Chron. xxiv. 1-14. The beginning
of the narrative is lost, and the whole has probably been
modified to make it agree with 2 Kings xxii. 3-7.
** 2 Kings xiii. 1-7. It may be noticed that the number of
foot-soldiers given in the Bible is identical with that
which the Assyrian texts mention as Ahabs contingent at the
battle of Qarqar, viz. 10,000; the number of the chariots is
very different in the two cases. Kuenen and other critics
would like to assign to the reign of Jehoahaz the siege of
Samaria by the Syrians, which the actual text of the Book of
the Kings attributes to the reign of Joram.
The power of Israel had so declined that Hazael was allowed to march
through its territory unhindered on his way to wage war in the country
of the Philistines; which he did, doubtless, in order to get possession
of the main route of Egyptian commerce. The Syrians destroyed Gath,*
reduced Pentapolis to subjection, enforced tribute from Edom, and then
marched against Jerusalem. Joash took from the treasury of Jahveh the
reserve funds which his ancestors, Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah, had
accumulated, and sent them to the invader,** together with all the gold
which was found in the kings house.
* The text of 2 Kings xii. 17 merely says that Hazael took
Gath. Gath is not named by Amos among the cities of the
Philistines (Amos. i. 6-8), but it is one of the towns cited
by that prophet as examples to Israel of the wrath of Jahveh
(vi. 2). It is probable, therefore, that it was already
destroyed in his time.
** 2 Kings xii. 17, 18; cf. 2 Chron. xxiv. 22-24, where the
expedition of Hazael is represented as a punishment for the
murder of Mechariah, son of Jehoiada.
From this time forward Judah became, like Israel, Edom, the Philistines
and Ammonites, a mere vassal of Hazael; with the possible exception of
Moab, all the peoples of Southern Syria were now subject to Damascus,
and formed a league as strong as that which had successfully resisted
the power of Shalmaneser. Rammân-nirâri, therefore, did not venture to
attack Syria during the lifetime of Hazael; but a change of sovereign
is always a critical moment in the history of an Eastern empire, and he
took advantage of the confusion caused by the death of the aged king to
attack his successor Mari (803 B.C.). Mari essayed the tactics which his
father had found so successful; he avoided a pitched battle, and shut
himself up in Damascus. But he was soon closely blockaded, and forced
to submit to terms; Rammân-nirâri demanded as the price of withdrawal,
23,000 talents of silver, 20 talents of gold, 3000 of copper, 5000 of
iron, besides embroidered and dyed stuffs, an ivory couch, and a litter
inlaid with ivory,--in all a considerable part of the treasures amassed
at the expense of the Hebrews and their neighbours. It is doubtful
whether Rammân-nirâri pushed further south, and penetrated in person as
far as the deserts of Arabia Petrsæ--a suggestion which the mention
of the Philistines and Edomites among the list of his tributary states
might induce us to accept. Probably it was not the case, and he really
went no further than Damascus. But the submission of that city included,
in theory at least, the submission of all states subject to her sway,
and these dependencies may have sent some presents to testify their
desire to conciliate his favour; their names appear in the inscriptions
in order to swell the number of direct or indirect vassals of the
empire, since they were subject to a state which had been effectually
conquered.
Rammân-nirâri did not meet with such good fortune in the North; not only
did he fail to obtain the brilliant successes which elsewhere attended
his arms, but he ended by sustaining considerable reverses. The Ninevite
historians reckoned the two expeditions of 808 and 807 B.C. against the
Mannai as victories, doubtless because the king returned with a train of
prisoners and loaded with spoil; but the Vannic inscriptions reveal
that Urartu, which had been rising into prominence during the reign
of Shalmaneser, had now grown still more powerful, and had begun to
reconquer those provinces on the Tigris and Euphrates of which the
Assyrians thought themselves the undoubted lords. Sharduris II. had been
succeeded, about 828, by his son Ishpuinis, who had perhaps measured his
strength against Samsi-ranimân IV. Ishpuinis appears to have conquered
and reduced to the condition of a province the neighbouring
principality of Biainas, which up to that time had been governed by a
semi-independent dynasty; at all events, he transferred thence his seat
of govern-and made Dhuspas his favourite residence. Towards the end of
his reign he associated with him on the throne his son Menuas, and made
him commander-in-chief of the army. Menuas proved a bold and successful
general, and in a few years had doubled the extent of his dominions. He
first delivered from the Assyrian yoke, and plundered on his fathers
account, the tribes on the borders of Lake Urumiah, Muzazir, Gilzân, and
Kirruri; then, crossing the Gordygean mountains, he burnt the towns in
the valley of the Upper Zab, which bore the uncouth names of Teraîs,
Ardis, Khanalis, Bikuras, Khatqanas, Inuas, and Nibur, laid waste the
more fertile part of Khubushkia, and carved triumphal stelas in the
Assyrian and Vannic scripts upon the rocks in the pass of Rowandiz.
[Illustration: 156.jpg TRIUMPHAL STELE OF MENUAS AT KELISHIN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by J. de Morgan.
It was probably to recover this territory that Rammân-nirâri waged war
three times in Khubushkia, in 802, 792, and 785, in a district which had
formerly been ruled by a prefect from Nineveh, but had now fallen into
the hands of the enemy.*
* It is probable that the stele of Kelishin, belonging to
the joint reign of Ishpuinis and Menuas, was intended to
commemorate the events which led Rammân-nirâri to undertake
his first expedition; the conquest by Menuas will fall then
in 804 or 803 B.C. The inscription of Meher-Kapussi contains
the names of the divinities belonging to several conquered
towns, and may have been engraved on the return from this
war.
Everywhere along the frontier, from the Lower Zab to the Euphrates,
Menuas overpowered and drove back the Assyrian outposts. He took from
them Aldus and Erinuis on the southern shores of Lake Van, compelled
Dayaîni to abandon its allegiance, and forced its king, Udhupursis, to
surrender his treasure and his chariots; then gradually descending the
valley of the Arzania, he crushed Seseti, Kulmê, and Ekarzu. In one year
he pillaged the Mannai in the east, and attacked the Khâti in the west,
seizing their fortresses of Surisilis, Tarkhigamas, and Sarduras; in
the province of Alzu he left 2113 soldiers dead on the field after one
engagement; Gupas yielded to his sway, followed by the towns of Khuzanas
and Puteria, whereupon he even crossed the Euphrates and levied tribute
from Melitene. But the struggle against Assyria absorbed only a portion
of his energy; we do not know what he accomplished in the east, in
the plains sloping towards the Caspian Sea, but several monuments,
discovered near Armavir and Erzerum, testify that he pushed his arms
a considerable distance towards the north and north-west.* He obliged
Etius to acknowledge his supremacy, sending a colony to its capital,
Lununis, whose name he changed to Menua-lietzilinis.**
* The inscription of Erzerum, discovered by F. de Saulcy and
published by him, shows that Menuas was in possession of the
district in which this town is situated, and that he rebuilt
a palace there.
** Inscriptions of Yazli-tash and Zolakert. It follows from
these texts that the country of Etius is the district of
Armavir, and Lununis is the ancient name of this city. The
now name by which Menuas replaced the name Lununis signifies
_the abode of the people of Menuas_; like many names arising
from special circumstances, it naturally passed away with
the rule of the people who had imposed it.
Towards the end of his reign he partly subjugated the Mannai, planting
colonies throughout their territory to strengthen his hold on the
country. By these campaigns he had formed a kingdom, which, stretching
from the south side of the Araxes to the upper reaches of the Zab and
the Tigris, was quite equal to Assyria in size, and probably surpassed
it in density of population, for it contained no barren steppes such as
stretched across Mesopotamia, affording support merely to a few wretched
Bedâwin. As their dominions increased, the sovereigns of Biainas began
to consider themselves on an equality with the kings of Nineveh, and
endeavoured still more to imitate them in the luxury and display of
their domestic life, as well as in the energy of their actions and the
continuity of their victories. They engraved everywhere on the rocks
triumphal inscriptions, destined to show to posterity their own exploits
and the splendour of their gods. Having made this concession to their
vanity, they took effective measures to assure possession of their
conquests. They selected in the various provinces sites difficult of
access, commanding some defile in the mountains, or ford over a river,
or at the junction of two roads, or the approach to a plain; on such
spots they would build a fortress or a town, or, finding a citadel
already existing, they would repair it and remodel its fortifications
so as to render it impregnable. At Kalajik, Ashrut-Darga, and the older
Mukhrapert may still be seen the ruins of ramparts built by Ishpuims.
Menuas finished the buildings his father had begun, erected others
in all the districts where he sojourned, in time of peace or war, at
Shushanz, Sirka,* Anzaff, Arzwapert, Geuzak, Zolakert, Tashtepê, and in
the country of the Mannai, and it is possible that the fortified village
of Melasgerd still bears his name.**
* The name of the ancient place corresponding to the modern
village of Sirka was probably Artsunis or Artsuyunis,
according to the Vannic inscriptions.
** A more correct form than Melas-gerd is Manas-gert, _the
city of Manas_, where Manas would represent Menuas: one of
the inscriptions of Aghtamar speaks of a certain
Menuakhinas, _city of Menuas_, which may be a primitive
version of the same name.
His wars furnished him with the men and materials necessary for the
rapid completion of these works, while the statues, valuable articles
of furniture, and costly fabrics, vessels of silver, gold, and
copper carried off from Assyrian or Asiatic cities, provided him with
surroundings as luxurious as those enjoyed by the kings of Nineveh. His
favourite residence was amid the valleys and hills of the south-western
shore of Lake Van, the sea of the rising sun. His father, Ishpuinis, had
already done much to embellish the site of Dhuspas, or Khaldinas as
it was called, from the god Khaldis; he had surrounded it with strong
walls, and within them had laid the foundations of a magnificent
palace. Menuas carried on the work, brought water to the cisterns by
subterranean aqueducts, planted gardens, and turned the whole place into
an impregnable fortress, where a small but faithful garrison could defy
a large army for several years. Dhuspas, thus completed, formed the
capital and defence of the kingdom during the succeeding century.
Menuas was gathered to his fathers shortly before the death of
Eammân-nirâri, perhaps in 784 B.C.*
* This date seems to agree with the text of the _Annals of
Argistis_, as far as we are at present acquainted with them;
Müller has shown, in fact, that they contain the account of
fourteen campaigns, probably the first fourteen of the reign
of Argistis, and he has recognised, in accordance with the
observations of Stanislas Guyard, the formula which
separates the campaigns one from another. There are two
campaigns against the peoples of the Upper Euphrates
mentioned before the campaigns against Assyria, and as these
latter follow continuously after 781, it is probable that
the former must be placed in 783-782, which would give 783
or 784 for the year of his accession.
He was engaged up to the last in a quarrel with the princes who occupied
the mountainous country to the north of the Araxes, and his son Argistis
spent the first few years of his reign in completing his conquests in
this region.* He crushed with ease an attempted revolt in Dayaîni, and
then invaded Etius, systematically devastating it, its king, Uduris,
being powerless to prevent his ravages. All the principal towns
succumbed one after another before the vigour of his assault, and, from
the numbers killed and taken prisoners, we may surmise the importance of
his victories in these barbarous districts, to which belonged the names
of Seriazis, Silius, Zabakhas, Zirimutaras, Babanis, and Urmias,**
though we cannot definitely locate the places indicated.
* The _Annals of Argistis_ are inscribed on the face of the
rock which crowns the citadel of Van. The inscription
contains (as stated in note above) the history of the first
fourteen yearly campaigns of Argistis.
** The site of these places is still undetermined. Seriazis
and Silius (or Tarius) lay to the north-east of Dayaîni, and
Urmias, Urmê, recalls the modern name of Lake Urumiah, but
was probably situated on the left bank of the Araxes.
On a single occasion, the assault on Ureyus, for instance, Argistis took
prisoners 19,255 children, 10,140 men fit to bear arms, 23,280 women,
and the survivors of a garrison which numbered 12,675 soldiers at the
opening of the siege, besides 1104 horses, 35,016 cattle, and more than
10,000 sheep. Two expeditions into the heart of the country, conducted
between 784 and 782 B.C., had greatly advanced the work of conquest,
when the accession of a new sovereign in Assyria made Argistis decide to
risk a change of front and to concentrate the main part of his forces
on the southern boundary of his empire. Rammân-nirâri, after his last
contest in Khubushkia in 784, had fought two consecutive campaigns
against the Aramæan tribes of Itua, near the frontiers of Babylon, and
he was still in conflict with them when he died in 782 B.C. His son,
Shalmaneser IV., may have wished to signalise the commencement of his
reign by delivering from the power of Urartu the provinces which the
kings of that country had wrested from his ancestors; or, perhaps,
Argistis thought that a change of ruler offered him an excellent
opportunity for renewing the struggle at the point where Menuas had left
it, and for conquering yet more of the territory which still remained
to his rival. Whatever the cause, the Assyrian annals show us the two
adversaries ranged against each other, in a struggle which lasted from
781 to 778 B.C. Argistis had certainly the upper hand, and though
his advance was not rapid, it was never completely checked. The first
engagement took place at Nirbu, near the sources of the Supnat and the
Tigris: Nirbu capitulated, and the enemy pitilessly ravaged the Hittite
states, which were subject to Assyria, penetrating as far as the heart
of Melitene (781). The next year the armies encountered each other
nearer to Nineveh, in the basin of the Bitlis-tchaî, at Khakhias; and,
in 779, Argistis expressly thanks his gods, the Khaldises, for having
graciously bestowed upon him as a gift the armies and cities of Assur.
The scene of the war had shifted, and the contest was now carried on in
the countries bordering on Lake Urumiah, Bustus and Parsua. The natives
gained nothing by the change of invader, and were as hardly used by the
King of Urartu as they had been by Shalmaneser III. or by Samsirammân:
as was invariably the case, their towns were given over to the flames,
their fields ravaged, their cattle and their families carried into
captivity. Their resistance, however, was so determined that a second
campaign was required to complete the conquest: and this time the
Assyrians suffered a serious defeat at Surisidas (778), and a year
at least was needed for their recovery from the disaster. During this
respite, Argistis hastened to complete the pacification of Bustus,
Parsua, and the small portion of Man which had not been reduced to
subjection by Menuas. When the Assyrians returned to the conflict, he
defeated them again (776), and while they withdrew to the Amanus, where
a rebellion had broken out (775), he reduced one by one the small states
which clustered round the eastern and southern shores of Lake Urumiah.
He was conducting a campaign in Namri, when Shalmaneser IV. made a last
effort to check his advance; but he was again victorious (774), and from
henceforth these troubled regions, in which Nineveh had so persistently
endeavoured for more than a century to establish her own supremacy,
became part of the empire of Urartu. Argistiss hold of them proved,
however, to be a precarious and uncertain one, and before long the same
difficulties assailed him which had restricted the power of his rivals.
[Illustration: 164.jpg URARTIAN STELE ON THE ROCKS OF AK-KEUPBU]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Ximones.
He was forced to return again and again to these districts, destroying
fortresses and pursuing the inhabitants over plain and mountain: in 773
we find him in Urmes, the territory of Bikhuras, and Bam, in the very
heart of Namri; in 772, in Dhuaras, and Gurqus, among the Mannai, and
at the city of Uikhis, in Bustus. Meanwhile, to the north of the Araxes,
several chiefs had taken advantage of his being thus engaged in warfare
in distant regions, to break the very feeble bond which held them
vassals to Urartu. Btius was the fountain-head and main support of the
rebellion; the rugged mountain range in its rear provided its chiefs
with secure retreats among its woods and lakes and valleys, through
which flowed rapid torrents. Argistis inflicted a final defeat on the
Mannai in 771, and then turned his forces against Etius. He took by
storm the citadel of Ardinis which defended the entrance to the country,
ravaged Ishqigulus,* and seized Amegu, the capital of Uidharus: our
knowledge of his wars comes to an end in the following year with an
expedition into the land of Tarius.
* Sayce shows that Ishqigulus was the district of
Alexandropolis, to the east of Kars; its capital, Irdanius,
is very probably either the existing walled village of
Kalinsha or the neighbouring ruin of Ajuk-kaleh, on the
Arpa-tohâî.
The monuments do not tell us what he accomplished on the borders of
Asia Minor; he certainly won some considerable advantages there, and the
influence which Assyria had exercised over states scattered to the north
of the Taurus, such as Melitene, and possibly Tabal and Kummukh, which
had formed the original nucleus of the Hittite empire, must have now
passed into his hands. The form of Argistis looms before us as that of
a great conqueror, worthy to bear comparison with the most indefatigable
and triumphant of the Pharaohs of Egypt or the lords of Chaldæa. The
inscriptions which are constantly being discovered within the limits
of his kingdom prove that, following the example of all Oriental
sovereigns, he delighted as much in building as in battle: perhaps we
shall some day recover a sufficient number of records to enable us to
restore to their rightful place in history this great king, and the
people whose power he developed more than any other sovereign.
Assyria had thus lost all her possessions in the northern and eastern
parts of her empire; turning to the west, how much still remained
faithful to her? After the expedition of 775 B.C. to the land of Cedars,
two consecutive campaigns are mentioned against Damascus (773) and
Hadrach (772); it was during this latter expedition, or immediately
after it, that Shalmaneser IV. died. Northern Syria seems to have been
disturbed by revolutions which seriously altered the balance of power
within her borders. The ancient states, whose growth had been
arrested by the deadly blows inflicted on them in the ninth century
by Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., had become reduced to the
condition of second-rate powers, and their dominions had been split up.
The Patina was divided into four small states--the Patina proper, Unki,
Iaudi, and Samalla, the latter falling under the rule of an Aramaean
family;* perhaps the accession of Qaral, the founder of this dynasty,
had been accompanied by convulsions, which might explain the presence of
Shalmaneser IV. in the Amanos in 775.
* The inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III. mention Unku,
Iaudi, Samalla, and the Patin, in the districts where the
texts of Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., only know of
the Patina.
All these principalities, whether of ancient or recent standing, ranged
themselves under one of two kingdoms--either Hadrach or Arpad, whose
names henceforth during the following half-century appear in the front
rank whenever a coalition is formed against Assyria. Carchemish, whose
independence was still respected by the fortresses erected in its
neighbourhood, could make no move without exposing itself to an
immediate catastrophe: Arpad, occupying a prominent position a little
in front of the Afrîn, on the main route leading to the Orontes, had
assumed the _rôle_ which Carchemish was no longer in a position to fill.
Agusi became the principal centre of resistance; all battles were fought
under the walls of its fortresses, and its fall involved the submission
of all the country between the Euphrates and the sea, as in former times
had been the case with Kinalua and Khazazu.*
* That Arpad was in Agusi is proved, among other places, by
the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III., which show us from
743 to 741 the king at war with Matîlu of Agusi and his
suzerain Sharduris III. of Urartu.
Similar to the ascendency of Arpad over the plateau of Aleppo was
that of Hadrach in the valley of the Orontes. This city had taken the
position formerly occupied by Hamath, which was now possibly one of its
dependencies; it owed no allegiance to Damascus, and rallied around it
all the tribes of Coele-Syria, whose assistance Hadadezer, but a short
while before, had claimed in his war with the foreigner. Neither Arpad,
Hadrach, nor Damascus ever neglected to send the customary presents to
any sovereign who had the temerity to cross the Euphrates and advance
into their neighbourhood, but the necessity for this act of homage
became more and more infrequent. During his reign of eighteen years
Assurdân III., son and successor of Shalmaneser IV., appeared only three
times beneath their walls--at Hadrach in 766 and 755, at Arpad in 750,
a few months only before his death. Assyria was gradually becoming
involved in difficulties, and the means necessary to the preservation
of its empire were less available than formerly. Assurdân had frankly
renounced all idea of attacking Urartu, but he had at least endeavoured
to defend himself against his enemies on the southern and eastern
frontiers; he had led his armies against Gananâtê (771,767), against
Itua (769), and against the Medes (766), before risking an attack on
Hadrach (765), but more than this he had not attempted. On two occasions
in eight years (768, 764) he had preferred to abstain from offensive
action, and had remained inactive in his own country. Assyria found
herself in one of those crises of exhaustion which periodically laid
her low after each outbreak of ambitious enterprise; she might well be
compared to a man worn out by fatigue and loss of blood, who becomes
breathless and needs repose as soon as he attempts the least exertion.
Before long, too, the scourges of disease and civil strife combined with
exhaustion in hastening her ruin. The plague had broken out in the very
year of the last expedition against Hadrach (765), perhaps under the
walls of that city. An eclipse of the sun occurred in 763, in the month
of Sivân, and this harbinger of woe was the signal for an outbreak of
revolt in the city of Assur.*
* The ideas which Orientals held on the subject of comets
renders the connection between the two events very likely,
if not certain.
From Assur the movement spread to Arrapkha, and wrought havoc there
from 761 to 760; it then passed on to Gozân, where it was not finally
extinguished till 758. The last remains of Assyrian authority in
Syria vanished during this period: Assurdân, after two years respite,
endeavoured to re-establish it, and attacked successively Hadrach (755)
and Arpad (754). This was his last exploit. His son Assur-nirâri III.
spent his short reign of eight years in helpless inaction; he lost
Syria, he carried on hostilities in Namri from 749 to 748--whether
against the Aramaeans or Urartians is uncertain--then relapsed into
inactivity, and a popular sedition drove him finally from Calah in 746.
He died some months later, without having repressed the revolt; none of
his sons succeeded him, and the dynasty, having fallen into disrepute
through the misfortunes of its last kings, thus came to an end; for,
on the 12th of Iyyâr, 742 B.C., a usurper, perhaps, the leader of
the revolt at Calah, proclaimed himself king under the name of
Tiglath-pileser.* The second Assyrian empire had lasted rather less than
a century and a half, from Tukulti-ninip II. to Assur-nirâri III.**
* Many historians have thought that Tiglath-pileser III. was
of Babylonian origin; most of them, however, rightly
considers that he was an Assyrian. The identity of Tiglath-
pileser III. with Pulu, the Biblical Pul (2 Kings xv. 19)
has been conclusively proved by the discovery of the
_Babylonian Chronicle_, where the Babylonian reigns of
Tiglath-pileser III. and his son Shalmaneser V. are inserted
where the dynastic lists give Pulu and Ululai, the Poros and
Eluloos of Ptolemy.
** Here is the concluding portion of the dynasty of the
kings of Assyria, from Irba-rammân to Assur-nirâri III.:--
[Illustration: 169.jpg TABLE OF THE DYNASTY OF THE KINGS OF ASSYRIA]
In the manner in which it had accomplished its work, it resembled the
Egyptian empire of eight hundred years before. The Egyptians, setting
forth from the Nile valley, had overrun Syria and had at first brought
it under their suzerainty, though without actually subduing it. They had
invaded Amurru and Zahi, Naharaim and Mitanni, where they had pillaged,
burnt, and massacred at will for years, without obtaining from these
countries, which were too remote to fall naturally within their sphere
of influence, more than a temporary and apparent submission; the
regions in the neighbourhood of the isthmus alone had been regularly
administered by the officers of Pharaoh, and when the country between
Mount Seir and Lebanon seemed on the point of being organised into a
real empire the invasion of the Peoples of the Sea had overthrown and
brought to nought the work of three centuries. The Assyrians, under the
leadership of ambitious kings, had in their turn carried their arms over
the countries of the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, but, like those
of the Egyptians before them, their expeditions resembled rather the
destructive raids of a horde in search of booty than the gradual and
orderly advance of a civilised people aiming at establishing a permanent
empire. Their campaigns in Cole-Syria and Palestine had enriched their
own cities and spread the terror of their name throughout the Eastern
world, but their supremacy had only taken firm root in the plains
bordering on Mesopotamia, and just when they were preparing to extend
their rule, a power had sprung up beside them, over which they had
been unable to triumph: they had been obliged to withdraw behind the
Euphrates, and they might reasonably have asked themselves whether, by
weakening the peoples of Syria at the price of the best blood of their
own nation, they had not merely laboured for the benefit of a rival
power, and facilitated the rise of Urartu. Egypt, after her victory over
the Peoples of the Sea, had seemed likely, for the moment, to make a
fresh start on a career of conquest under the energetic influence of
Ramses III., but her forces proved unequal to the task, and as soon
as the masters hand ceased to urge her on, she shrank back, without a
struggle, within her ancient limits, and ere long nothing remained to
her of the Asiatic empire carved out by the warlike Pharaohs of the
Theban dynasties. If Tiglath-pileser could show the same courage and
capacity as Ramses III., he might well be equally successful, and raise
his nation again to power; but time alone could prove whether Nineveh,
on his death, would be able to maintain a continuous effort, or whether
her new display of energy would prove merely ephemeral, and her empire
be doomed to sink into irremediable weakness under the successors of her
deliverer, as Egypt had done under the later Ramessides.