"Thresh away, oxen, thresh away faster,The straw for yourselves, and the grain for your master!"
"Thresh away, oxen, thresh away faster,The straw for yourselves, and the grain for your master!"
"Thresh away, oxen, thresh away faster,
The straw for yourselves, and the grain for your master!"
Such were the Egyptians and such was Egypt where the childhood of Israel was passed. It was a land of culture, it was a land of wealth and abundance, but it was also a land of popular superstition and idolatry, and the idolatry and culture were too closely associated in the minds of the Israelites to be torn apart. In turning their backs on the Egyptian idols, it was necessary that they should turn them on Egyptian civilisation as well. Hence it was that intercourse with Egypt was forbidden, and the King of Israel who began by marrying an Egyptian princess and importing horses from the valley of the Nile, ended by building shrines to the gods of the heathen. Hence, too, it was that the distinctive beliefs and practices of Egypt are ignored or disallowed. Even the doctrine of the resurrection is passed over in silence; the Pentateuch keeps the eyes of the Israelite fixed on the present life, where he will meet with his punishment or reward. The doctrine of the resurrection was part of the faith in Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and Yahveh of Israel would have no other god beside Himself.
Moreover, the Israelites saw but little of the betterside of the Egyptians. They lived in Goshen, on the outskirts of northern Egypt, where the native population was largely mixed with foreign elements. When they first settled there the Pharaoh and his court were Asiatic or of Asiatic descent. And in later days the rise of a purely native government meant for them a bitter bondage and the murder of their children. Between the Israelite and the Egyptian there was hostility from the first; Joseph began by confiscating the lands of both peasant and noble; the natives revenged themselves by reducing his kinsfolk to a condition of serfdom, and the last act in the drama of the Exodus was the "spoiling of the Egyptians."
While the influence of Egypt upon Israel may be described as negative, that of Babylonia was positive. Abraham was a Babylonian by birth; the Asiatic world through which he wandered was Babylonian in civilisation and government, and the Babylonian exile was the final turning-point in the religious history of Judah. The Semitic Babylonians were allied in race and language to the Hebrews; they had common ideas and common points of view. Though Egyptian influence is markedly absent from the Mosaic Code, we find in it old Semitic institutions and beliefs which equally characterised Babylonia.
But the Semites were not the first occupants of Babylonia. The civilisation of the country had been founded by a race which spoke an agglutinative language, like that of the modern Finns or Turks, and which scholars have now agreed to call Sumerian. The Sumerians had been the builders of the cities, the reclaimers of the marshy plain, the inventors of the picture-writing which developed into the cuneiformor wedge-shaped characters, and the pioneers of a culture which profoundly affected the whole of western Asia. The Semites entered upon the inheritance, adopting, modifying, and improving upon it. The Babylonian civilisation, with which we are best acquainted, was the result of this amalgamation of Sumerian and Semitic elements.
Out of this mixture of Sumerians and Semites there arose a mixed people, a mixed language, and a mixed religion. The language and race of Babylonia were thus like those of England, probably also like those of Egypt. Mixed races are invariably the best; it is the more pure-blooded peoples who fall behind in the struggle for existence.
Recent excavations have thrown light on the early beginnings of Babylonia. The country itself was an alluvial plain, formed by the silt deposited each year by the Tigris and Euphrates. The land grows at the rate of about ninety feet a year, or less than two miles in a century; since the age of Alexander the Great the waters of the Persian Gulf have receded more than forty-six miles from the shore. When the Sumerians first settled by the banks of the Euphrates it must have been on the sandy plateau to the west of the river where the city of Ur, the modern Mugheir, was afterwards built. At that time the future Babylonia was a pestiferous marsh, inundated by the unchecked overflow of the rivers which flowed through it. Thereclamation of the marsh was the first work of the new-comers. The rivers were banked out and the inundation regulated by means of canals. All this demanded no little engineering skill; in fact, the creation of Babylonia was the birth of the science of engineering.
Settlements were made in the fertile plain which had thus been won, and which, along with the adjoining desert, was called by the Sumerians theEdin, or "Plain." On the southern edge of this plain, and on what was then the coast-line of the Persian Gulf, the town of Eridu was built, which soon became a centre of maritime trade. Its site is now marked by the mounds of Abu Shahrein or Nowâwis, nearly 150 miles from the sea; its foundation, therefore, must go back to about 7500 years, or 5500 B.C. Ur, a little to the north-west, with its temple of the Moon-god, was a colony of Eridu.
In the plain itself many cities were erected, which rose around the temples of the gods. In the north was Nippur, now Niffer, whose great temple of Mul-lil or El-lil, the Lord of the Ghost-world, was a centre of Babylonian religion for unnumbered centuries. After the Semitic conquest Mul-lil came to be addressed as Bel or "Lord," and when the rise of Babylon caused the worship of its patron-deity Bel-Merodach to spread throughout the country, the Bel of Nippur became known as the "older Bel." Nippur waswatered by the canal Kabaru, the Chebar of Ezekiel, and to the south of it was the city of Lagas, now Tello, where French excavators have brought to light an early seat of Sumerian power. A little to the west of Lagas was Larsa, the modern Senkereh, famous for its ancient temple of the Sun-god, a few miles to the north-west of which stood Erech, now Warka, dedicated to the Sky-god Anu and his daughter Istar.
Northward of Nippur was Bab-ili or Babylon, "the Gate of God," a Semitic translation of its original Sumerian name, Ka-Dimirra. It was a double city, built on either side of the Euphrates, and adjoining its suburb of Borsippa, once an independent town. Babylon seems to have been a colony of Eridu, and its god, Bel-Merodach, called by the Sumerians "Asari who does good to man," was held to be the son of Ea, the culture-god of Eridu. E-Saggil, the great temple of Bel-Merodach, rose in the midst of Babylon; the temple of Nebo, his "prophet" and interpreter, rose hard by in Borsippa. Its ruins are now known as the Birs-i-Nimrûd, in which travellers have seen the Tower of Babel.
In the neighbourhood of Babylon were Kish (El-Hymar) and Kutha (Tel-Ibrahim); somewhat to the north of it, and on the banks of the Euphrates, was Sippara or Sepharvaim, whose temple, dedicated to the Sun-god, has been found in the mounds of Abu-Habba. Sippara was the northern fortress of the Babylonianplain; it stood where the Tigris and Euphrates approached most nearly one another, and where, therefore, the plain itself came practically to an end. Upi or Opis, on the Tigris, still farther to the north, lay outside the boundaries of primæval Chaldæa.
East of Babylonia were the mountains of Elam, inhabited by non-Semitic tribes. Among them were the Kassi or Kossæeans, who maintained a rude independence in their mountain fastnesses, and who, at one time, overran Babylonia and founded a dynasty there which lasted for several centuries. The capital of Elam was Susa or Shushan, the seat of an early monarchy, whose civilisation was derived from the Babylonians.
In the south the Tigris and Euphrates made their way to the region of salt-marshes, called Marratu in the inscriptions, Merathaim by the prophet Jeremiah. They were inhabited by the Semitic tribe of the Kaldâ, whose princes owned an unwilling obedience to the Babylonian kings. One of them, Merodach-baladan, succeeded in making himself master of Babylonia, and from that time forward the Kaldâ became so integral a part of the population as eventually to give their name to the whole of it. For the writers of Greece and Rome the Babylonians are Chaldæans. It is probable that Nebuchadrezzar was of Kaldâ origin; if so, this would have been a further reason for the extension of the tribal name to the whole country.
The settlement of the Kaldâ in the marshes was of comparatively late date. Indeed, in the early age of Babylonian history these marshes did not as yet exist; it was not until Eridu had ceased to be a seaport that they were reclaimed from the sea. The Kaldâ were the advance-guard of the Nabatheans and other Aramaic tribes of northern Arabia, who migrated into Babylonia and pitched their tents on the banks of the Euphrates, first of all as herdsmen, afterwards as traders. After the fall of the Babylonian monarchy their numbers and importance increased, and the Aramaic they spoke—the so-called "Chaldee"—came more and more to supersede the language of Babylonia.
When first we get a glimpse of Babylonian history, the country is divided into a number of small principalities. They are all Sumerian, and among them the principality of Kish occupies a leading place. The temple of Mul-lil at Nippur is the central sanctuary, to which they bring their offerings, and from which a civilising influence emanates. It is an influence, however, which reflects the darker side of life. Mul-lil was the lord of the dead; his priests were sorcerers and magicians, and their sacred lore consisted of spells and incantations. Supplementing the influence of Nippur, and in strong contrast with it, was the influence of Eridu. Ea or Oannes, the god of Eridu, was a god who benefited mankind. He was the lord of wisdom, and his wisdom displayed itself in delivering men from theevils that surrounded them, and in teaching them the arts of life. But he was lord also of the water, and it was told of him how he had arisen, morning after morning, from the depths of the Persian Gulf, and had instructed the people of Chaldæa in all the elements of civilisation. Eridu was the home of the hymns that were sung to the gods of light and life, and which came to be looked upon as divinely inspired.
It is clear that the myth of Cannes points to foreign intercourse as the ultimate cause of Babylonian culture. It is natural that such should have been the case. Commerce is still the great civiliser, and the traders and sailors of Eridu created tastes and needs which they sought to satisfy.
The small states of Babylonia were constantly at war with each other, even though they shared in a common civilisation, worshipped the same gods, and presented their offerings to the same sanctuary of Nippur. Southern Babylonia—or Kengi, "the land of canals and reeds," as it was often named—was already divided against the north. At times it exercised supremacy as far as Nippur. En-sakkus-ana of Kengi conquered Kis, like one of his predecessors who had dedicated the statue, the store of silver, and the furniture of the conquered prince to Mul-lil. Kis claimed sovereignty over the Bedâwin "archers," who had their home in the district now called Jokha. But Kis eventually revenged itself. One of its rulers made himself master of Nippur, andthe kingdom of Kengi passed away. The final blow was struck by Lugal-zaggi-si, the son of the high-priest of the city of Opis. Lugal-zaggi-si not only conquered Babylonia, he also created an empire. On the vases of delicately-carved stone which he dedicated to the god of Nippur, a long inscription of one hundred and thirty-two lines describes his deeds, and tells how he had extended his dominion from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. It may be that at this time the culture of Babylonia was first brought to the west, and that his conquests first communicated a knowledge of the Sumerian language and writing to the nations of western Asia. With the spoils of his victories the walls of Ur were raised "high as heaven," and the temple of the Sun-god at Larsa was enlarged. Erech was made his capital, and doubtless now received its Sumerian title of "the City"par excellence.
The dynasty of Erech was supplanted by the First dynasty of Ur. Erech was captured by Lugal-kigub-nidudu of Ur, and took the second rank in the new kingdom. The position of Ur on the western bank of the Euphrates exposed it to the attacks of the Semitic tribes of northern Arabia, and thus accustomed its inhabitants to the use of arms, while at the same time its proximity to Eridu made it a centre of trade. In Abrahamic days it had long been a place of resort and settlement by Arabian and Canaanite merchants.
How long the supremacy of Ur lasted we do not know. Nor do we know whether it preceded or was followed by the supremacy of Lagas. The kings of Lagas had succeeded in overcoming their hereditary enemies to the north. The so-called "Stela of the Vultures," now in the Louvre, commemorates the overthrow of the forces of the land of Upe or Opis, and depicts the bodies of the slain as they lie on the battlefield devoured by the birds of prey. E-ana-gin, the king of Lagas who erected it, never rested until he had subjected the rest of southern Babylonia to his sway. The whole of "Sumer" was subdued, and the memory of a time when a king of Kis, Mesa by name, had subjected Lagas to his rule, was finally wiped out.
High-priests now took the place of kings in Kis and the country of Opis. But a time came when the same change occurred also at Lagas. doubtless in consequence of its conquest by some superior power. One of the monuments discovered at Tello, the ancient Lagas, describes the victories of the "high-priest" Entemena over the ancestral foe, and the appointment of a certain Ili as "high-priest" of the land of Opis. From henceforward Kis and Opis disappear from history.
A new power had meanwhile appeared on the scene. While the Sumerian princes were engaged in mutual war, the Semites were occupying northern Babylonia,and establishing their power in the city of Agadê or Akkad, not far from Sippara. Here, in B.C. 3800, arose the empire of Sargani-sar-ali, better known to posterity as "Sargon" of Akkad. He became the hero of the Semitic race in Babylonia. Legends told how he had been hidden by his royal mother in an ark of bulrushes daubed with pitch, and intrusted to the waters of the Euphrates, how he had been found and adopted as a son by Akki the irrigator, and how the goddess Istar had loved him and restored him to his kingly estate. At all events, the career of Sargon was a career of victories. Babylonia was united under his rule, Elam was subjugated, and three campaigns sufficed to make "the land of the Amorites," Syria and Canaan, obedient to his sway. He caused an image of himself to be carved on the shores of the Mediterranean, and demanded tribute from Cyprus, Uru-Malik or Urimelech being appointed governor of Syria, as we learn from a cadastral survey of the district of Lagas. A revolt of the Sumerian states, however, called him home, and for a time fortune seemed against him. He was besieged in Akkad, but a successful sally drove back the rebels, and they were soon utterly crushed. Then Sargon marched into Suri or Mesopotamia, subduing that country as well as the future Assyria. It was the last, however, of his exploits. His son Naram-Sin succeeded him shortly afterwards (B.C. 3750), and continued the conquests of his father, Canaan was alreadya Babylonian province, and Naram-Sin now carried his arms against Magan, or the Sinaitic Peninsula, where he secured the precious mines of copper and turquoise. Building stone from Magan had already been imported to Babylonia by Ur-Nina, a king of Lagas, and grandfather of E-ana-gin, but it must have been brought in the ships of Eridu.
Naram-Sin's son was Bingani-sar-ali. A queen, Ellat-Gula, seems to have sat on the throne not many years later, and with her the dynasty may have come to an end. At any rate, the empire of Akkad is heard of no more. But it left behind it a profound and abiding impression on western Asia. Henceforward the culture and art of the west was Babylonian,—Semitic Babylonian, however, and no longer Sumerian Babylonian as in the days of Lugal-zaggi-si. Sargon was a patron of literature as well as a warrior. Standard works on astronomy and astrology and the science of omens were compiled for the great library he established at Akkad, where numerous scribes were kept constantly at work. Sumerian books were brought from the cities of the south and translated into Semitic; commentaries were written on the older literature of the country, and dictionaries and grammars compiled. It was now that that mixed language arose, or at least was admitted into the literary dialect, which made Babylonian so much resemble modern English. The lexicon was filled with Sumerian words which had puton a Semitic form, and Semitic lips expressed themselves in Sumerian idioms.
Art, too, reached a high perfection. The seal-cylinders of the reign of Sargon of Akkad represent the highest efforts of the gem-cutter's skill in ancient Babylonia, and a bas-relief of Naram-Sin, found at Diarbekr in northern Mesopotamia, while presenting close analogies to the Egyptian art of the Old Empire, is superior to anything of the kind as yet discovered in Babylonia of either an earlier or a later date. As in Egypt, so too in Babylonia, the sculpture of later times shows retrogression rather than advance. It is impossible not to believe that between the art of Egypt in the age of the Old Empire and that of Babylonia in the reigns of Sargon and Naram-Sin there was an intimate connection. The mines of the Sinaitic Peninsula were coveted by both countries.
Sumerian princes still continued to rule in Sumer or southern Babylonia, but after the era of Sargon their power grew less and less. A Second Sumerian dynasty, however, arose at Ur, and claimed sovereignty over the rest of Chaldæa. One of its kings, Ur-Bau, was a great builder and restorer of the temples, and under his son and successor Dungi (B.C. 2700), a high-priest of the name of Gudea governed Lagas, the monuments of which have given us an insight into the condition of the country in his age. His statues of hard diorite from the Peninsula of Sinai are now in the Louvre;one of them is that of the architect of his palace, with a copy of its plan upon his lap divided according to scale. Gudea, though owning allegiance to Dungi, carried on wars on his own behalf, and boasts of having conquered "Ansan of Elam." The materials for his numerous buildings were brought from far. Hewn stones were imported from the "land of the Amorites," limestone and alabaster from the Lebanon, gold-dust and acacia-wood from the desert to the south of Palestine, copper from northern Arabia, and various sorts of wood from the Armenian mountains. Other trees came from Dilmun in the Persian Gulf, from Gozan in Mesopotamia, and from Gubin, which is possibly Gebal. The bitumen was derived from "Madga in the mountains of the river Gurruda," in which some scholars have seen the name of the Jordan, and the naphtha springs of the vale of Siddim.
The library of Gudea has been found entire, with its 30,000 tablets or books arranged in order on its shelves, and filled with information which it will take years of labour to examine thoroughly. Not long after his death, the Second dynasty of Ur gave way to a Third, this time of Semitic origin. Its kings still claimed that sovereignty over Syria and Palestine which had been won by Sargon. One of them, Inê-Sin, carried his arms to the west, and married his daughters to the "high-priests" of Ansan in Elam, and of Mer'ash in northern Syria. His grandson, Gimil-Sin,marched to the ranges of the Lebanon and overran the land of Zamzali, which seems to be the Zamzummim of Scripture.
But with Gimil-Sin the strength of the dynasty seems to have come to an end. Babylonia was given over to the stranger, and a dynasty of kings from southern Arabia fixed its seat at Babylon. The language they spoke and the names they bore were common to Canaan and the south of Arabia, and sounded strangely in Babylonian ears. The founder of the dynasty was Sumu-abi, "Shem is my father," a name in which we cannot fail to recognise the Shem of the Old Testament. His descendants, however, had some difficulty in extending and maintaining their authority. The native princes of southern Babylonia resisted it, and the Elamites harried the country with fire and sword. In B.C. 2280 Kudur-Nankhundi, the Elamite king, sacked Erech and carried away the image of its goddess, and not long afterwards we find another Elamite king, Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, claiming lordship over the whole of Chaldsea. The western provinces of Babylonia shared in the fate of the sovereign power, and an Elamite prince, Kudur-Mabug by name, was made "Father" or "Governor of the land of the Amorites." His son Eri-Aku, the Arioch of Genesis, was given the title of king in southern Babylonia, with Larsa as his capital. Larsa had been taken by storm by the Elamite forces, andits native king, Sin-idinnam, driven out. He fled for refuge to the court of the King of Babylon, who still preserved a semblance of authority.
Khammurabi or Amraphel, the fifth successor of Sumu-abi, was now on the throne of Babylon. His long reign of fifty-five years marked an epoch in Babylonian history. At first he was the vassal of Kudur-Laghghamar, and along with his brother vassals, Eri-Aku of Larsa and Tudghula or Tidal of Kurdistan, had to serve in the campaigns of his suzerain lord in Canaan. But an opportunity came at last for revolt, it may be in consequence of the disaster which had befallen the army of the invaders in Syria at the hands of Abram and his Amorite allies. The war lasted long, and at the beginning went against the King of Babylon. Babylon itself was captured by the enemy, and its great temple laid in ruins. But soon afterwards the tide turned. Eri-Aku and his Elamite supporters were defeated in a decisive battle. Larsa was retaken, and Khammurabi ruled once more over an independent and united Babylonia. Sin-idinnam was restored to his principality, and we now possess several of the letters written to him by Khammurabi, in which his bravery is praised on "the day of Kudur-Laghghamar's defeat," and he is told to send back the images of certain Elamite goddesses to their original seats. They had doubtless been carried to Larsa when it fell into the hands of the Elamite invaders.
As soon as Babylonia was cleared of its enemies, Khammurabi set himself to the work of fortifying its cities, of restoring and building its temples and walls, and of clearing and digging canals. The great canal known as that of "the King," in the northern part of the country, was either made or re-excavated by him, and at Kilmad, near the modern Bagdad, a palace was erected. Art and learning were encouraged, and a literary revival took place which brought back the old glories of the age of Sargon. Once more new editions were made of standard works, poets arose to celebrate the deeds of the monarch, and books became multiplied. Among the literary products of the period was the great Chaldæan Epic in twelve books, recording the adventures of the hero Gilgames, and embodying the Chaldæan story of the Deluge.
The supremacy over western Asia passed to Khammurabi, along with sovereignty over Babylonia, and he assumed the title of "King of the land of the Amorites." So too did his great-grandson, Ammi-ditana. Two generations later, with Samas-ditana the First dynasty of Babylon came to an end. It had made Babylon the capital of the country—a position which it never subsequently lost. It had raised Bel-Merodach, the god of Babylon, to the head of the pantheon, and it had lasted for 304 years. It was followed by a Sumerian dynasty from the south, which governed the country for 368 years, but of which we know littlemore than the names of the kings composing it and the length of their several reigns.
It fell before the avalanche of an invasion from the mountains of Elam. The Kassites poured into the Babylonian plain, and Kassite kings ruled at Babylon for 576 years and a half. During their domination the map of western Asia underwent a change. The Kassite conquest destroyed the Babylonian empire; Canaan was lost to it for ever, and eventually became a province of Egypt. The high-priests of Assur, now Kaleh Sherghat, near the confluence of the Tigris and Lower Zab, made themselves independent and founded the kingdom of Assyria, which soon extended northward into the angle formed by the Tigris and Upper Zab, where the cities of Nineveh and Calah afterwards arose. The whole country had previously been included by the Babylonians in Gutium or Kurdistan.
The population of Assyria seems to have been more purely Semitic than that of Babylonia. Such at least was the case with the ruling classes. It was a population of free peasants, of soldiers, and of traders. Its culture was derived from Babylonia; even its gods, with the exception of Assur, were of Babylonian origin. We look in vain among the Assyrians for the peace-loving tendencies of the Babylonians; they were, on the contrary, the Romans of the East. They were great in war, and in the time of the Second Assyrian empire great also in law and administration. But theywere not a literary people; education among them was confined to the scribes and officials, rather than generally spread as in Babylonia. War and commerce were their two trades.
The Kassite conquerors of Babylonia soon submitted to the influences of Babylonian civilisation. Like the Hyksos in Egypt, they adopted the manners and customs, the writing and language, of the conquered people, sometimes even their names. The army, however, continued to be mainly composed of Kassite troops, and the native Babylonians began to forget the art of fighting. The old claims to sovereignty in the west, however, were never resigned; but the Kassite kings had to content themselves with intriguing against the Egyptian government in Palestine, either with disaffected Canaanites, or with the Hittites and Mitannians, while at the same time they professed to be the firm friends of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Burna-buryas in B.C. 1400 writes affectionately to his "brother" of Egypt, begging for some of the gold which in Egypt he declares is as abundant "as the dust," and which he needs for his buildings at home. He tells the Egyptian king how his father Kuri-galzu had refused to listen to the Canaanites when they had offered to betray their country to him, and he calls Khu-n-Aten to account for treating the Assyrians as an independent nation and not as the vassals of Babylonia.
The Assyrians, however, did not take the same view as the Babylonian king. They had been steadily growing in power, and had intermarried into the royal family of Babylonia. Assur-yuballidh, one of whose letters to the Pharaoh has been found at Tel el-Amarna, had married his daughter to the uncle and predecessor of Burna-buryas, and his grandson became king of Babylon. A revolt on the part of the Kassite troops gave the Assyrians an excuse for interfering in the affairs of Babylonia, and from this time forward their eyes were turned covetously towards the kingdom of the south.
As Assyria grew stronger, Babylonia became weaker. Calah, nowNimrud, was founded about B.C. 1300 by Shalmaneser I., and his son and successor Tiglath-Ninip threw off all disguise and marched boldly into Babylonia in the fifth year of his reign. Babylon was taken, the treasures of its temple sent to Assur, and Assyrian governors set over the country, while a special seal was made for the use of the conqueror. For seven years the Assyrian domination lasted. Then Tiglath-Ninip was driven back to Assyria, where he was imprisoned and murdered by his son, and the old line of Kassite princes was restored in the person of Rimmon-sum-uzur. But it continued only four reigns longer. A new dynasty from the town of Isin seized the throne, and ruled for 132 years and six months.
It was while this dynasty was reigning that a fresh line of energetic monarchs mounted the Assyrian throne. Rimmon-nirari I., the father of Shalmaneser I. (B.C. 1330-1300) had already extended the frontiers of Assyria to the Khabur in the west and the Kurdish mountains in the north, and his son settled an Assyrian colony at the head-waters of the Tigris, which served to garrison the country. But after the successful revolt of the Babylonians against Tiglath-Ninip the Assyrian power decayed. More than a century later Assur-ris-isi entered again on a career of conquest and reduced the Kurds to obedience.
His son, Tiglath-pileser I., was one of the great conquerors of history. He carried his arms far and wide. Kurdistan and Armenia, Mesopotamia and Comagênê, were all alike overrun by his armies in campaign after campaign. The Hittites paid tribute, as also did Phoenicia, where he sailed on the Mediterranean in a ship of Arvad and killed a dolphin in its waters. The Pharaoh of Egypt, alarmed at the approach of so formidable an invader, sent him presents, which included a crocodile and a hippopotamus, and on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, near Carchemish and Pethor, he hunted wild elephants, as Thothmes III. had done before him. His son still claimed supremacy in the west, as is shown by the fact that he erected statues in "the land of the Amorites." But the energy of the dynasty was now exhausted, and Assyriafor a time passed under eclipse. This was the period when David established his empire; there was no other great power to oppose him in the Oriental world, and it seemed as if Israel was about to take the place that had once been filled by Egypt and Babylon. But the opportunity was lost; the murder of Joab and the unwarlike character of Solomon effectually checked all dreams of conquest, and Israel fell back into two petty states.
The military revival of Assyria was as sudden as had been its decline. In B.C. 885, Assur-nazir-pal II. ascended the throne. His reign of twenty-five years was passed in constant campaigns, in ferocious massacres, and the burning of towns. In both his inscriptions and his sculptures he seems to gloat over the tortures he inflicted on the defeated foe. Year after year his armies marched out of Nineveh to slaughter and destroy, and to bring back with them innumerable captives and vast amounts of spoil. Western Asia was overrun, tribute was received from the Hittites and from Phoenicia, and Armenia was devastated by the Assyrian forces as far north as Lake Van. The policy of Assur-nazir-pal was continued by his son and successor Shalmaneser II., with less ferocity, but with more purpose (B.C. 860-825). Assyria became dominant in Asia; its empire stretched from Media on the east to the Mediterranean on the west. But it was an empire which was without organisation or permanency.Every year a new campaign was needed to suppress the revolts which broke out as soon as the Assyrian army was out of sight, or to supply the treasury with fresh spoil. The campaigns were in most cases raids rather than the instruments of deliberately planned conquest. Hence it was that the Assyrian monarch found himself checked in the west by the petty kings of Damascus and the neighbouring states. Ben-Hadad and Hazael, it is true, were beaten again and again along with their allies, while Omri of Israel offered tribute to the invader, like the rich cities of Phoenicia; but Damascus remained untaken and its people unsubdued.
The war with Assyria, however, saved Israel from being swallowed up by its Syrian neighbour. Hazael's strength was exhausted in struggling for his own existence; he had none left for the conquest of Samaria. Shalmaneser himself, towards the end of his life, was no longer in a position to attack others. A great revolt broke out against him, headed by his son Assur-dain-pal, the Sardanapallos of the Greeks, who established himself at Nineveh, and there reigned as rival king for about seven years. His brother Samas-Rimmon, who had remained faithful to his father, at last succeeded in putting down the rebellion. Nineveh was taken, and its defenders slain. Henceforth Samas-Rimmon reigned with an undisputed title.
But Assyria was long in recovering from the effects of the revolt, which had shaken her to the foundations. The dynasty itself never recovered. Samas-Rimmon, indeed, at the head of the army which had overcome his brother, continued the military policy of his predecessors; the tribes of Media and southern Armenia were defeated, and campaigns were carried on against Babylonia, the strength of which was now completely broken. In B.C. 812 Babylon was taken, but two years later Samas-Rimmon himself died, and was succeeded by his son Rimmon-nirari III. His reign was passed in constant warfare on the frontiers of the empire, and in B.C. 804 Damascus was surrendered to him by its king Mariha, who became an Assyrian tributary. In the following year a pestilence broke out, and when his successor, Shalmaneser III., mounted the throne in B.C. 781, he found himself confronted by a new and formidable power, that of Ararat or Van. The eastern and northern possessions of Assyria were taken from her, and the monarchy fell rapidly into decay. In B.C. 763 an eclipse of the sun took place on the 15th of June, and was the signal for the outbreak of a revolt in Assur, the ancient capital of the kingdom. It spread rapidly to other parts of the empire, and though for a time the government held its own against the rebels, the end came in B.C. 745. Assur-nirari, the last of the old dynasty, died or was put to death, and Pulu or Pul, one of hisgenerals, was proclaimed king on the 13th of Iyyar or April under the name of Tiglath-pileser III.
Tiglath-pileser III. was the founder of the Second Assyrian empire, which was based on a wholly different principle from that of the first. Occupation and not plunder was the object of its wars. The ancient empire of Babylonia in western Asia was to be restored, and the commerce of the Mediterranean to be diverted into Assyrian hands. The campaigns of Tiglath-pileser and his successors were thus carried on in accordance with a deliberate line of policy. They aimed at the conquest of the whole civilised world, and the building up of a great organisation of which Nineveh and its ruler were the head. It was a new principle and a new idea. And measures were at once adopted to realise it.
The army was made an irresistible engine of attack. Its training, discipline, and arms were such as the world had never seen before. And the army was followed by a body of administrators. The conquered population was transported elsewhere or else deprived of its leaders, and Assyrian colonies and garrisons were planted in its place. The administration was intrusted to a vast bureaucracy, at the head of which stood the king. He appointed the satraps who governed the provinces, and were responsible for the taxes and tribute, as well as for the maintenance of order. The bureaucracy was partly military, partlycivil, the two elements acting as a check one upon the other.
But it was necessary that Ararat should be crushed before the plans of the new monarch could be carried out. The strength of the army was first tested in campaigns against Babylonia and the Medes, and then Tiglath-pileser marched against the confederated forces of the Armenian king. A league had been formed among the princes of northern Syria in connection with that of the Armenians, but the Assyrian king annihilated the army of Ararat in Comagênê, and then proceeded to besiege Arpad. Arpad surrendered after a blockade of three years; Hamath, which had been assisted by Azariah of Judah, was reduced into an Assyrian province; and a court was held, at which the sovereigns of the west paid homage and tribute to the conqueror (B.C. 738). Among these were Rezon of Damascus and Menahem of Samaria. Tiglath-pileser was still known in Palestine under his original name of Pul, and the tribute of Menahem is accordingly described by the Israelitish chronicler as having been given to Pul.
The Assyrian king was now free to turn the full strength of his forces against Ararat. The country was ravaged up to the very gates of its capital, the modern Van, and only the strong walls of the city kept the invader out of it. The Assyrian army next moved eastward to the southern shores of the Caspian, strikingterror into the Kurdish and Median tribes, and so securing the lowlands of Assyria from their raids. The affairs of Syria next claimed the attention of the conqueror. Rezon and Pekah, the new king of Samaria, had attempted to form a league against Assyria; and, with this end in view, determined to replace Ahaz, the youthful king of Judah, by a creature of their own. Ahaz turned in his extremity to Assyrian help, and Tiglath-pileser seized the opportunity of accepting the vassalage of Judah, with its strong fortress of Jerusalem, and at the same time of overthrowing both Damascus and Samaria. Rezon was closely besieged in his capital, while the rest of the Assyrian army was employed in overrunning Samaria, Ammon, Moab, and the Philistines (B.C. 734). Pekah was put to death, and Hosea appointed by the Assyrians in his place. After a siege of two years, Damascus fell in B.C. 732, Rezon was slain, and his kingdom placed under an Assyrian satrap. Meanwhile Tyre was compelled to purchase peace by an indemnity of 150 talents.
Syria was now at the feet of Nineveh. A great gathering of the western kings took place at Damascus, where Tiglath-pileser held his court after the capture of the city, and the list of those who came to do homage to him includes Jehoahaz or Ahaz of Judah, and the kings of Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Hamath. Hosea, it would seem, was not yet on the Israelitish throne.
The old empire of Babylonia was thus restored as far as the Mediterranean. All that remained was for the Assyrian usurper to legitimise his title by occupying Babylon itself, and there receiving the crown of Asia. In B.C. 731, accordingly, he found a pretext for invading Babylonia and seizing the holy city of western Asia. Two years later he "took the hands" of Bel-Merodach, and was thereby adopted by the god as his own son. But he did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his victories. He died December B.C. 727, and another usurper, Ululâ, possessed himself of the throne, and assumed the name of Shalmaneser IV. His reign, however, was short. He died while besieging Samaria, which had revolted after the death of its conqueror, and in December B.C. 722, a third general seized the vacant crown. He took the name of the old Babylonian monarch, Sargon, and the court chroniclers of after-days discovered that he was a descendant of the legendary kings of Assyria. His first achievement was the capture of Samaria. Little spoil, however, was found in the half-ruined city; and the upper classes, who were responsible for the rebellion, were carried into captivity to the number of 27,280 persons. The city itself was placed under an Assyrian governor.
Sargon found that the empire of Tiglath-pileser had in great measure to be re-conquered. Neither Tiglath-pileser nor his successor had been able to leave thethrone to their children, and the conquered provinces had taken advantage of the troubles consequent on their deaths to revolt. Babylonia had been lost. Merodach-baladan, the Chaldæan prince, had emerged from the marshes of the south and occupied Babylon, where he was proclaimed king immediately after Shalmaneser's death. For twelve years he reigned there, with the help of the Elamites, and one of the first tasks of Sargon was to drive the latter from the Assyrian borders. Sargon had next to suppress a revolt in Hamath, as well as an invasion of Palestine by the Egyptians. The Egyptian army, however, was defeated at Raphia, and the Philistines with whom it was in alliance returned to their allegiance to the Assyrian king.
Now came, however, a more serious struggle. Ararat had recovered from the blow it had received at the hands of Tiglath-pileser, and had organised a general confederacy of the northern nations against their dangerous neighbour. For six years the struggle continued. But it ended in victory for the Assyrians. Carchemish, the Hittite stronghold which commanded the road across the Euphrates, was taken in B.C. 717, and the way lay open to the west. The barrier that had existed for seven centuries between the Semites of the east and west was removed, and the last relic of the Hittite conquests in Syria passed away. In the following year Sargon overran the territories ofthe Minni between Ararat and Lake Urumiyeh, and two years later the northern confederacy was utterly crushed. The fortress of Muzazir, under Mount Rowandiz, was added to the Assyrian dominions, its gods were carried into captivity, and the King of Ararat committed suicide in despair. From henceforward Assyria had nothing to fear on the side of the north. The turn of the Medes came next. They were compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of Nineveh; so also was the kingdom of Ellipi, the later Ekbatana. Sargon could now turn his attention to Babylonia.
Merodach-baladan had foreseen the coming storm, and had done his best to secure allies. An alliance was made with the Elamites, who were alarmed at the conquest of Ellipi; and ambassadors were sent to Palestine (in B.C. 711), there to arrange a general rising of the population, simultaneously with the outbreak of war between Sargon and the Babylonian king. But before the confederates were ready to move, Sargon had fallen upon them separately. Ashdod, the centre of the revolt in the west, was invested and taken by the Turtannu or commander-in-chief; its ruler, a certain "Greek," who had been raised to power by the anti-Assyrian party, fled to the Arabian desert in the vain hope of saving his life, and Judah, Moab, and Edom were forced to renew their tribute. The Egyptians, who had promised to assist the rebelsin Palestine, prudently retired, and the Assyrian yoke was fixed more firmly than ever upon the nations of Syria. Merodach-baladan was left to face his foe alone. In B.C. 709 he was driven out of Babylon, and forced to take refuge in his ancestral kingdom in the marshes. Sargon entered Babylon in triumph, and "took the hands of Bel." His title to rule was acknowledged by the god and the priesthood, and an Assyrian was once more the lord of western Asia.
Four years later the old warrior was murdered by a soldier, and on the 12th of Ab, or July, his son Sennacherib was proclaimed king. Sennacherib was a different man from his father. Sargon had been an able and energetic general, rough perhaps and uncultured, but vigorous and determined. His son was weak and boastful, and under him the newly-formed Assyrian empire met with its first check. It is significant that the Babylonian priests never acknowledged him as the successor of their ancient kings; he revenged himself by razing the city and sanctuary of Bel to the ground.
Merodach-baladan re-entered Babylon immediately after the death of Sargon in B.C. 705, but he was soon driven back to his retreat in the Chaldæan marshes, and an Assyrian named Bel-ibni was appointed king in his place. The next campaign of importance undertaken by Sennacherib was in B.C. 701. Palestine had revolted, under the leadership of Hezekiah of Judah.The full strength of the Assyrian army was accordingly hurled against it. The King of Sidon fled to Cyprus, and Phoenicia, Ammon, Moab, and Edom hastened to submit to their dangerous foe. Hezekiah and his Philistine vassals alone ventured to resist.
The Philistines, however, were soon subdued. A new king was appointed over Ashkelon, and Hezekiah was compelled to restore to Ekron its former prince, whom he had imprisoned in Jerusalem on account of his loyalty to Assyria. The priests and nobles of Ekron, who had given him up to Hezekiah, were ruthlessly impaled. Meanwhile Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, on whose help Hezekiah had relied, was marching to the assistance of his ally. Sennacherib met him at Eltekeh, and there the combined forces of the Egyptians and Arabians were defeated and compelled to retreat. Hezekiah now endeavoured to make peace by the offer of rich and numerous presents, including thirty talents of gold and 800 of silver. But nothing short of the death of the Jewish king and the transportation of his people would content the invader. Hezekiah accordingly shut himself up within the strong walls of his capital, while the Assyrians ravaged the rest of the country and prepared to besiege Jerusalem. The cities and villages were destroyed, and 200,150 persons were led away into captivity. But at this moment a catastrophe befell the Assyrians which saved Hezekiah and "the remnant" of Israel.The angel of death smote the Assyrian army, and it was decimated by a sudden pestilence. Sennacherib fled from the plague-stricken camp, carrying with him his spoil and captives, and the scanty relics of his troops. It was the last time he marched to the west, and his rebellious vassal remained unpunished.
In the following year troubles in Babylonia called him to the south. Merodach-baladan was hunted out of the marshes, and fled with his subjects across the Persian Gulf to the opposite coast of Elam, while a son of Sennacherib was made king of Babylon. But his reign did not last long. Six years later he was carried off to Elam, and a new king of native origin, Nergal-yusezib by name, was proclaimed by the Elamites. This was in return for an attack made by Sennacherib upon the Chaldæan colony in Elam, where the followers of Merodach-baladan had found a refuge. Sennacherib had caused ships to be built at Nineveh by Phoenician workmen, and had manned them with Tyrian, Sidonian, and Ionian sailors who were prisoners of war. The ships sailed down to the Tigris and across the gulf, and then fell unexpectedly upon the Chaldæans, burning their settlement, and carrying away all who had escaped massacre.
Nergal-yusezib had reigned only one year when he was defeated and captured in battle by the Assyrians; but the Elamites were still predominant in Babylonia, and another Babylonian, Musezib-Merodach, was setupon the throne of the distracted country (B.C. 693). In B.C. 691 Sennacherib once more entered it, with an overwhelming army, determined to crush all opposition. But the battle of Khalulê, fought between the Assyrians on the one side, and the combined Babylonians and Elamites on the other, led to no definite result. Sennacherib, indeed, claimed the victory, but so he had also done in the case of the campaign against Hezekiah. Two years more were needed before the Babylonians at last yielded to the superior forces of their enemy. In B.C. 689 Babylon was taken by storm, and a savage vengeance wreaked upon it. The sacred city of western Asia was levelled with the dust, the temple of Bel himself was not spared, and the Arakhtu canal which flowed past it was choked with ruins. The Babylonian chronicler tells us that for eight years there were "no kings;" the image of Bel-Merodach had been cast to the ground by the sacrilegious conqueror, and there was none who could legitimise his right to rule.
On the 20th of Tebet, or December, B.C. 681, Sennacherib was murdered by his two sons, and the Babylonians saw in the deed the punishment of his crimes. His favourite son, Esar-haddon, was at the time commanding the Assyrian army in a war against Erimenas of Ararat. As soon as the news of the murder reached him, he determined to dispute the crown with his brothers, and accordingly marchedagainst them. They were in no position to resist him, and after holding Nineveh for forty-two days, fled to the court of the Armenian king. Esar-haddon followed, and a battle fought near Malatiyeh, on the 12th of Iyyar, or April, B.C. 680, decided the fate of the empire. The veterans of Esar-haddon utterly defeated the conspirators and their Armenian allies, and at the close of the day he was saluted as king. He then returned to Nineveh, and on the 8th of Sivan, or May, formally ascended the throne.
Esar-haddon proved himself to be not only one of the best generals Assyria ever produced, but a great administrator as well. He endeavoured to cement his empire together by a policy of reconciliation, and one of his first actions was to rebuild Babylon, to bring back to it its gods and people, and to make it one of the royal residences. Bel acknowledged him as his adopted son, and for twelve years Esar-haddon ruled over western Asia by right divine as well as by the right of conquest.
But a terrible danger menaced Assyria and the rest of the civilised Oriental world at the very beginning of his reign. Sennacherib's conquest of Ellipi, and the wars against Ararat and Minni, had weakened the barriers which protected the Assyrian empire from the incursions of the barbarians of the north. The Gimirrâ or Kimmerians, the Gomer of the Old Testament, driven by the Scyths from their seats on the Dniesterand the Sea of Azof, suddenly appeared on the horizon of western Asia. Swarming through the territories of the Minni to the east of Ararat, they swooped down upon the Assyrian frontier, along with other northern nations from Media, Sepharad, and Ashchenaz. While a body of Kimmerians under Teuspa marched westward, the rest of the allies, under Kastarit or Kyaxares of Karu-Kassi, attacked the fortresses which defended Assyria on the north-east. At Nineveh all was consternation, and public prayers, accompanied by fasting, were ordered to be offered up for a hundred days and nights to the Sun-god, that he might "forgive the sin" of his people, and avert the dangers that threatened them. The prayers were heard, and the invaders were driven into Ellipi. Then Esar-haddon marched against Teuspa, and forced him to turn from Assyria. The Kimmerians made their way instead into Asia Minor, where they sacked the Greek and Phrygian cities, and overran Lydia.
The northern and eastern boundaries of the empire were at length secured. It was now necessary to punish the Arab tribes who had taken advantage of the Kimmerian invasion to harass the empire on the south. Esar-haddon accordingly marched into the very heart of the Arabian desert—a military achievement of the first rank, the memory of which was not forgotten for years. The empire at last was secure.
The Assyrian king was now free to complete thepolicy of Tiglath-pileser by conquering Egypt. Palestine was no longer a source of trouble. Judah had returned to its vassalage to Assyria, and the abortive attempts of Sidon and Jerusalem to rebel had been easily suppressed. True to his policy of conciliation, Esar-haddon had dealt leniently with Manasseh of Judah. He had been brought in fetters before his lord at Babylon, and there pardoned and restored to his kingdom. It was a lesson which neither he nor his successors forgot, like the similar lesson impressed a few years later upon the Egyptian prince Necho.
The Assyrian conquest of Egypt has been already described. The first campaign of Esar-haddon against it was undertaken in B.C. 674; and it was while on the march to put down a revolt in B.C. 668 that he fell ill and died, on the 10th of Marchesvan, or October. The empire was divided between his two sons. Assur-bani-pal had already been named as his successor, and now took Assyria, while Saul-sum-yukin became king of Babylonia, subject, however, to his brother at Nineveh. It was an attempt to flatter the Babylonians by giving them a king of their own, while at the same time keeping the supreme power in Assyrian hands.
The first few years of Assur-bani-pal's reign were spent in tranquillising Egypt by means of the sword, in suppressing insurrections, and in expelling Ethiopian invaders. After the destruction of Thebes in B.C. 661 the country sullenly submitted to the foreign rule;its strength was exhausted, and its leaders and priesthood were scattered and bankrupt. Elam was now almost the only civilised kingdom of western Asia which remained independent. It was, moreover, a perpetual thorn in the side of the Assyrians. It was always ready to give the same help to the disaffected in Babylonia that Egypt was to the rebels in Palestine, with the difference that whereas the Egyptians were an unwarlike race, the Elamites were a nation of warriors. Assur-bani-pal was not a soldier himself, and he would have preferred remaining at peace with his warlike neighbour. But Elamite raids made this impossible, and the constant civil wars in Elam resulting from disputed successions to the throne afforded pretexts and favourable opportunities for invading it. The Elamites, however, defended themselves bravely, and it was only after a struggle of many years, when their cities had fallen one by one, and Shushan, the capital, was itself destroyed, that Elam became an Assyrian province. The conquerors, however, found it a profitless desert, wasted by fire and sword, and in the struggle to possess it their own resources had been drained and well-nigh exhausted.
The second Assyrian empire was now at the zenith of its power. Ambassadors came from Ararat and from Gyges of Lydia to offer homage, and to ask the help of the great king against the Kimmerian and Scythianhordes. His fame spread to Europe; the whole of the civilised world acknowledged his supremacy.
But the image was one which had feet of clay. The empire had been won by the sword, and the sword alone kept it together. Suddenly a revolt broke out which shook it to its foundations. Babylonia took the lead; the other subject nations followed in its train.
Saul-suma-yukin had become naturalised in Babylonia. The experiment of appointing an Assyrian prince as viceroy had failed; he had identified himself with his subjects, and like them dreamed of independence. He adopted the style and titles of the ancient Babylonian mouarchs; even the Sumerian language was revived in public documents, and the son of Esar-haddon put himself at the head of a national movement. The Assyrian supremacy was rejected, and once more Babylon was free.
The revolt lasted for some years. When it began we do not know; but it was not till B.C. 648 that it was finally suppressed, and Saul-suma-yukin put to death after a reign of twenty years. Babylon had been closely invested, and was at last starved into surrender. But, taught by the experience of the past, Assur-bani-pal did not treat it severely. The leaders of the revolt, it is true, were punished, but the city and people were spared, and its shrines, like those of Kutha and Sippara, were purified, while penitential psalms were sung to appease the angry deities, and the daily sacrifices whichhad been interrupted were restored. A certain Kandalanu was made viceroy, perhaps with the title of king.
Chastisement was now taken upon the Arabian tribes who had joined in the revolt. But Egypt was lost to the empire for ever. Psammetikhos had seized the opportunity of shaking off the yoke of the foreigner, and with the help of the troops sent by Gyges from Lydia, had driven out the Assyrian garrisons and overcome his brother satraps.
Assur-bani-pal was in no position to punish him. The war with Elam and the revolt of Babylonia had drained the country of its fighting men and the treasury of its resources. And a new and formidable enemy had appeared on the scene. The Scyths had followed closely on the footsteps of the Kimmerians, and were now pouring into Asia like locusts, and ravaging everything in their path. The earlier chapters of Jeremiah are darkened by the horrors of the Scythian invasion of Palestine, and Assur-bani-pal refers with a sigh of relief to the death of that "limb of Satan," the Scythian king Tugdamme or Lygdamis. This seems to have happened in Cilicia, and Assyria was allowed a short interval of rest.
Assur-bani-pal's victories were gained by his generals. He himself never appears to have taken the field in person. His tastes were literary, his habits luxurious. He was by far the most munificent patron of learningAssyria ever produced; in fact, he stands alone in this respect among Assyrian kings. The library of Nineveh was increased tenfold by his patronage and exertions; literary works were brought from Babylonia, and a large staff of scribes was kept busily employed in copying and re-editing them. Unfortunately, the superstition of the monarch led him to collect more especially books upon omens and dreams, and astrological treatises, but other works were not overlooked, and we owe to him a large number of the syllabaries and lists of words in which the cuneiform characters and the Assyrian vocabulary are explained.
When Assur-bani-pal died the doom of the Assyrian empire had already been pronounced. The authority of his two successors, Assur-etil-ilani-yukin and Sin-sar-iskun, or Saracos, was still acknowledged both in Syria and in Babylonia, where Kandalanu had been succeeded as viceroy by Nabopolassar. One of the contract-tablets from the north of Babylonia is dated as late as the seventh year of Sin-sar-iskun. But not long after this the Babylonian viceroy revolted against his sovereign, and with the help of the Scythian king, who had established himself at Ekbatana, defeated the Assyrian forces and laid siege to Nineveh. The siege ended in the capture and destruction of the city, the death of its king, and the overthrow of his empire. In B.C. 606 the desolator of the nations was itself laid desolate, and its site has never been inhabited again.