FOOTNOTES:

The rebellion of Samul-sum-ukin appeared to tearfrom its lines the whole structure of the Assyrian supremacy. But Assurbanipal knew how to cope with serious danger: deep-seated confusion in Elam made his task easier. Thus he succeeded in this sixth war in driving his brother's army out of the field. He besieged Sippara and Kutha. Against Ummanigas of Elam, who, though placed there by Assurbanipal himself, was now an ally of Samul-sum-ukin, his own son Tammaritu rose in rebellion. He slew his father, but persisted in the war against Assyria, which his father had begun. He marched out to aid Samul-sum-ukin; in the middle of the war Indabigas, one of his servants, rebelled against him; Tammaritu found it necessary to seek the protection of his enemy Assurbanipal. Thus Samul-sum-ukin's hope in the help of Elam vanished. After Sippara, Kutha, and Borsippa had fallen, Babylon was shut up. The famine in the city was so great that "they ate the flesh of their sons and their daughters," as Assurbanipal tells us. Of the death of his brother he tells us: Asshur, Sin, Samas, Bin, Bel, Nebo, and Istar thrust him into burning fire, and destroyed his life. Assurbanipal's punishments were fearful. He had the tongues torn out of those who spoke against him; even those of the offenders who escaped the famine and the burning fire, did not get away free; they were slain or reduced to slavery. But he spared the remainder of the sons of Babylon, Kutha, and Sippara. On the people of Accad, on the portion of the Chaldæans and Aramæans, and those of the sea coast who had taken the side of Samul-sum-ukin, he again placed the yoke of Asshur. A relief of the palace of Assurbanipal exhibits him on the chariot of war, with prisoners and booty before him. The inscription says: the king commands the coronation robe of Samulsum-ukin, his garments, his wives, his chariots, his captains, his warriors, and his slaves to be brought before him.[380]

After thus suppressing the rising of the Babylonians, Assurbanipal directed the whole of his forces to the subjugation of Elam. The domestic condition of Elam seemed to promise success to a vigorous attack. Indabigas experienced the fate which he had prepared for Tammaritu; he was driven from the throne by a man of the name of Ummanaldas, the son of Attamitu.[381]This rebel did not find universal recognition; Pache maintained a part of the land against him. Under such circumstances the victory could not be very difficult. Assurbanipal sent troops under Balibni against the land of Bit Yakin, which was governed by Nabubelzikri, a grandson of Merodach Baladan, as a tributary prince (perhaps the son of Nahid-Merodach, p. 147), who appears to have taken part in the rebellion of Samul-sum-ukin, and then to have escaped to Elam. Assurbanipal had already demanded his surrender from Indabigas, and he repeated the demand after the rise of Ummanaldas, who also refused it. The Assyrian army led by Assurbanipal to his seventh war crossed the borders of Elam. Ummanaldas abandoned his metropolis, Madaktu, and fled into the mountains. Assurbanipal placed Tammaritu on the throne at Susa, but soon returned, either from fear of his disobedience or because he had heard of it, to Elam, dethroned Tammaritu, and carried him prisoner to Assyria; marched through the whole land, devastating it, and took 30 cities, which are enumerated in the inscription. Nevertheless, after his departure, Ummanaldas again obtainedpower over Elam; Assurbanipal was compelled to march against the country once more. This was his eighth war. He obtained the most complete success; Madaktu and Susa fell into his hand. "I opened their treasure-houses," says Assurbanipal; "I took the treasures, which the earlier kings of Elam and those of these days had collected. No enemy beside myself had laid hands upon them. The silver and gold which the earlier and later kings of Sumir and Accad, and of Kardunias, had sent to Elam, which earlier kings and Samul-sum-ukin had paid for the help of Elam; robes, arms, chariots, I carried to Assyria. I broke down the tower of Susa; Susinak, the god of their oracle, whose image no man had seen, and the remaining gods (eighteen gods and goddesses are mentioned) with their treasures, priests, and servants, I carried to Assyria. Thirty-two images of the kings in silver, gold, brass, and stone, I carried away from Susa, Madaktu, and Huradi, and in addition an image of Humbanigas (p. 99), of Istar-Nandi, of Halludus (p. 144), and the younger Tammaritu. I broke the winged lions and bulls, which guarded the temples, the winged bulls before the temple gates of Elam, and sent their gods and goddesses into captivity: I destroyed the palaces of their kings, the earlier and the later, the opponents of my father; the rulers and inhabitants of their cities, the people great and small, I carried away with their flocks; their warriors I divided throughout the land of my kingdom (645B.C.)[382]"

In spite of this savage destruction, Ummanaldas could return from the mountains, and again take possession of the ruins of Madaktu. He was now, asit appears, prepared to accede to Assurbanipal's renewed request to give up the grandson of Merodach Baladan. The latter anticipated his surrender, inasmuch as he and his armour-bearer mutually slew each other. Ummanaldas gave up the corpse, and Assurbanipal had the head cut off. Thus died the last scion of Merodach Baladan of whom we hear: so ended the race which for 80 years, with incredible endurance and stubbornness, had asserted the independence of South Chaldæa and Babylonia against Assyria. After this Ummanaldas had to give way to Pache, who received a part of Elam. But Pache could not stand before the Assyrian army, or did not venture to resist it. He was taken prisoner; Ummanaldas also was captured, "like a raven," in the mountains, into which he had fled for refuge. "Tammaritu, Pache, and Ummanaldas, who ruled over Elam in succession, I brought them beneath my yoke, with Uaiti, the king of the Arabs, whom I brought out of his land to Assyria. I had them bound to the yoke of my war-chariot; they drew it to the gate of the temple of Bilit, the famed wife of Asshur, the mother of the great gods."[383]

Ancient Elam, the oldest power in the region of the Euphrates and Tigris, and in all hither Asia, which once, before the times of Hammurabi of Babylon, before the year 2000B.C., had held sway over the states of the lower Euphrates, whose armies in those days had seen Syria, was fallen, never to rise again. "In the midst of hell," says the prophet Ezekiel, "is Elam, and all her multitude about her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether partsof the earth. They who caused terror in the land of the living have borne their share with them that go down to the pit. They have set her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude; they are placed among the slain."[384]It is true that, more than a century after the fall of Susa, we hear of stubborn attempts on the part of Elam to restore her state; but after that Elam ceased to exist, except as a name, and her history was then the more utterly forgotten, because after this rebellion the metropolis of Susa became the residence of the wide dominion of the kings of another people, the Achæmenids.

Babylonia was in subjection, and Elam had ceased to exist. Assurbanipal employed his arms in punishing the Arabian tribes who had supported the rebellion of his brother. Ammuladin, the king of the Kedarites, had attacked the princes of Syria who remained loyal to Assurbanipal. The attack failed. Ammuladin was defeated, and taken prisoner by Kamoshalta, the king of Moab; with him Adiya, a princess of the Arabians, was given up to Assurbanipal.[385]Two other princes of the Arabs, the brothers Abiyateh and Aimu, had led their warriors to Babylon, to Samul-sum-ukin. They had been there defeated together with him and shut up in Babylon. When the famine was sore there, they attempted in vain to break through the siege; Abiyateh gave himself up to Assurbanipal. With them the soldiers of a third Arabian prince, Uaiti, had marched to Babylon. Assurbanipal now attacked Uaiti, whose tribes dwelt on the borders of Ammon, Moab and Edom, in Hauran and near Zoba; their dwellings and tents were burnt. Uaiti was carried prisoner to Nineveh, andAbiyateh was set up in his place. Scarcely had he been set up, when he united with Nadnu, the prince of the Nebaiyoth, against Assyria. On his ninth campaign, Assurbanipal marched over the Tigris and Euphrates into the deserts of Syria. As he tells us, he defeated the servants of the deity of Atar-Samain and the Nebaiyoth, took both princes prisoners in the battle, and caused their flocks to be driven off far and wide. "I divided camels like sheep," he says; "they fetched half a shekel of silver at the gate. On my return I took Hosah, which lies on the shore of the sea, which was disobedient, and did not pay tribute, and carried the people to Assyria. The people of Akko, who did not obey, I destroyed; the remnant I carried to Assyria."[386]

Not only the Arabian tribes between the Euphrates and the Jordan, not only the princes of Syria, but the land of Ararat also, as Assurbanipal expressly declares,[387]and Cilicia and the East of Asia were subject. This follows, without a doubt, from the circumstance that Ardys, king of Lydia, who succeeded his father Gyges on the throne in the year 653B.C., soon after recognised anew the supremacy of Assurbanipal, in order to obtain his aid against the Cimmerians, who again heavily oppressed Lydia from the Halys. Assurbanipal had not only maintained the kingdom against the revolt of Samul-sum-ukin, he had strengthened it by the overthrow of Elam, established the supremacy of Assyria in Hither Asia, and extended it to the west of Asia Minor. We do not hear anything of an attempt to renew the vassalage of Egypt, though the war against the Nabatæans and Kedarites brought Assurbanipal to the borders of Egypt. We may suppose that theresistance of the regions of Akko and Hosah (to the south of Tyre[388]) possibly rested on the expectation of Egyptian assistance. But the inscriptions of Assurbanipal end with the war against the Arabians; beyond this we have no accounts of Assyrian origin. The struggles of Assurbanipal with the Nebaiyoth and the Kedarites on the borders of Ammon and Moab, the reduction of Akko, are the last acts of the Assyrians in Syria, of which we have any definite information. They must have taken place not long before the year 640B.C.It will be seen further on that Assurbanipal after this time was engaged in the East.

The Hebrew Scriptures also know nothing of any interference of Assyria in the fortunes of their race after the reign of Manasses of Judah, which ended in the year 642B.C.A statement of Herodotus, which is indeed very obscure, makes it possible to conclude that there was a later border war between Assyria and Egypt. He says: "Psammetichus besieged Ashdod (Azotus), a large city of Syria, for 29 years, till he took it." "This city," Herodotus adds, "endured the longest siege of any that we know."[389]Psammetichus could not besiege the Philistine city of Ashdod, until the southern fortresses of the Philistines, Raphia, Gaza and Ascalon were in his hands. His object in the attack upon these cities could only be to render the march of the Assyrian armies to his land more difficult. These armies would have to collect in the south of Philistia, and provide themselves with stores, especially water, before they could begin the march through the desert. In the beginning of this war, at any rate, it could not have been merely the forces of the Philistines which Psammetichus had to contendwith here; there must have been Assyrian garrisons and Assyrian troops in the cities. Diodorus also tells us of the mode in which Psammetichus drew out his forces in the battles which he fought in Syria.[390]That the siege of a city should last 29 years is in itself inconceivable; we can only accept the statement of Herodotus as meaning that the war for the possession of the cities of the Philistines on the coast lasted 29 years. If we calculate this time from the irruption of the Scythians into Syria, which in any case put an end to this war,i. e.from the year 625B.C., Psammetichus rebelled against Assyria in the year 654 or 653B.C., and immediately afterwards desired to establish himself on the borders of Syria beyond the desert. If Assurbanipal was fighting against Arabian tribes, on the borders of Edom, just before the year 640B.C., and took Akko, the narrative of this campaign ought also to speak of a collision with the Egyptian army, if Psammetichus was carrying on war against Ashdod as early as this date. We saw above that Psammetichus's rebellion against Assyria in Egypt could not take place later than the year 653B.C.

Assurbanipal begins the account of his buildings with a statement of what he had done for the temples of Babylon;[391]he concludes it with a description of his works at Nineveh. The walls with which Sennacherib had surrounded that city had been injured by heavy falls of rain which Bin sent down. Assurbanipal strengthened the substructure, and restored them from the foundations to the pinnacles.[392]He restored, extended, and adorned the palace of his grandfather Sennacherib, in which he had grown up:the kings of the Arabians whom he had captured in battle had been compelled to work at them. Whoever destroys the inscription of his name, or the name of his father and grandfather, and does not set it up along with the inscription of his own name, him will Asshur and the rest of the gods, Sin, Samas, Bin, Bel, Nebo, Adar, and Nergal punish with the condemnation which will correspond to the glory of his (Assurbanipal's) name.[393]In the ruins of this palace, the ruins of Kuyundshik, a number of slabs with reliefs have been preserved, exhibiting the warlike achievements of Assurbanipal, with which he caused the halls of this building to be adorned. On them we see the envoys of the kings of Ararat paying homage to Assurbanipal. Urtaki, Teumman, and Tammaritu are seen in battle against the Assyrians; we see the head of Teumman of Elam brought to Assyria, and Ummanigas is enthroned at Madaktu by an Assyrian officer, (p. 169). Further, a relief shows us Assurbanipal sitting under some trees with some women; on one of the trees hangs the head of the descendant of Merodach Baladan, Nabubelzikri.[394]Finally, we find on these reliefs the cities of Elam, the city of Susa, and their sieges. The inscriptions give the names, and briefly explain the incidents depicted.

FOOTNOTES:[355]G. Smith, "Assyr. Canon," p. 164.[356]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 320. E. Schrader, "K. A. T." s. 208. The astronomical canon makes Esarhaddon's reign in Babylon end with the year 668B.C.[357]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 324.[358]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 322.[359]Assurbanipal, it is true, says that he has conquered Muzur and Cush (G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 324), which is certainly an exaggeration unless Upper Egypt is meant by Cush.[360]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 328.[361]G. Smith,loc. cit.pp. 328, 329.[362]Nahum iii. 8-10.[363]The Apis-pillar from the twenty-first year of Psammetichus proves that the Egyptians put him immediately after Tirhaka. As they make the reign of Psammetichus commence with the year 664B.C.the death of Tirhaka must fall in this year, and the war of Urdamane in the next.[364]Inhabitants of Karbit, in the land of Halahasta, were brought here; compare Cyl. B. in Ménant, "Ann." p. 291. If the king of the memorial stone of the ruins of the temple of Ammon at Napata, whose name is read with much uncertainty as Nuat-Mi (amun), or Amun-merinut, or Tonuat-amen, is not one and the same person with the Urdamane or Undamane (Unt-amen?) of Assurbanipal, it is very difficult to explain who he is. If the name of the person making dedications beside Tirhaka at Karnak is the same which the monument gives (Mariette, "Monum. divers." pl. 80, sqq.), this would be an important factor for the identification with Urdamane, which is also supported by the fact that Piker of Pasupti is prominent among the opponents of this Ethiopian: Pakruru of Pisaptu has been previously mentioned by Assurbanipal. The narrative of the memorial stone would then be the counterpart of the Assyrian account; the only striking thing in the narrative of the Ethiopian king is that the victory of Memphis is mentioned, but not the capture of the Assyrians. He ought also, it is true, to have mentioned the retreat forced upon him by the Assyrians. The narrative runs: In the year when he came to the throne Nuat-amon saw two serpents in a dream, and when he asked the interpretation of the dream, it was announced to him: "he possessed the south, he should conquer the north." He set out, and when he arrived at Thebes the prophet of the temple of Ammon-Ra met him with the astrologers, and the inhabitants who were at first hostile to him were filled with joy. But when Nuat-amon approached Memphis, the sons of the rebellion marched against him, in order to do battle: he inflicted on them a great defeat, and made himself master of the city of Memphis. From Memphis he marched out, in order to do battle with the chiefs of the land of the North, but they remained in their walls. When their cities were besieged, they appeared before Nuat-amon lying on their bellies, with their faces on the ground, and Piker the chief of Pasupti said: "Thou slayest whom thou wilt, and thou givest life to whom thou wilt, and all vow to be thy servants." The heart of Nuat-amon was full of joy when he heard these words. They turned back into their cities and sent all the good things of the North and the South to the lord of Upper and Lower Egypt. Maspero, "Essai sur la stèle du songe." Rev. Archéol. 1868, 17, 329 ff.[365]G. Smith, "Assurbanipal," p. 62, 63.[366]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 74, 75.[367]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 95 ff.[368]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 115, 96, 97.[369]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 151.[370]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 380.[371]G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 103. Ménant, "Annal." p. 282.[372]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 107, 117.[373]Cylinder B., in G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 120 ff.[374]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 140, 146. Ménant, "Annal." p. 286.[375]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 133, 155, 142-145.[376]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 171.[377]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 154, 155, 169, 201. "Disc." p. 338.[378]Above, p. 163. It is certain that Psammetichus's reign ends in the year 610B.C.; Boeckh, "Manetho," Zeitschr. "für Geschich.," s. 716 ff., Unger, "Manetho," s. 280. Herodotus and Manetho allot 54 years to the reign of Psammetichus, and an Apis-pillar tells us that a new Apis was installed in the month Athyr of the 54th year of the reign of Psammetichus. Necho therefore died before, or in the year 664B.C.(610 + 54).[379]G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 66; "Disc." p. 332. In the computation of Herodotus, the accession of Gyges of Lydia takes place in 719 or 716, according as the fall of Sardis is put in 549 or 546B.C.; his death takes place in 681 or 678B.C.In the canon of Eusebius, on the same data, he is computed to have ascended the throne in 699 or 696, and to have reigned till 663 or 660. In the list of Lydian kings (Euseb. "Chron." I, p. 69, ed. Schöne), he ascended, on the same data, in 689 or 686, and reigned to 653 or 650B.C.The latter dates must be accepted if Gyges sent help to Psammetichus. Samul-sum-ukin would not have found it necessary to invite the prince or princes of Miluhhi to rebellion, if Egypt had revolted from Assyria before his rebellion—Miluhhi must then be used on the cylinder in a wider sense for Egypt and Meroe—and Gyges could not send any help to Psammetichus, if he was not king himself. We are not in a position to fix accurately the date of the rebellion of Samul-sum-ukin, since the list of the Assyrian rulers breaks off with the year 665B.C.The fact that it is the sixth war of Assurbanipal in which he marches against his brother—I enumerate the wars according to Cylinder A—only proves that the war cannot have taken place before 660B.C.In the astronomical canon the reign of Saosduchinus ends with the year 648B.C.; and we may therefore assume with certainty that the overthrow of Samul-sum-ukin took place in this year. How long before this Samul-sum-ukin took up arms, we do not know; he may very well have done so in the year 652B.C.For the rebellion was not brought to a close till after a long siege of Babylon: or the rebellion may have commenced even earlier, so that Gyges could undoubtedly have sent help to Psammetichus in the last years of his reign. The cylinders, which narrate the history of the wars of Assurbanipal, date from the year of Samasdainani, who in Cylinder A is called viceroy of Accad, and on the others viceroy of Babel. We are not in a position to fix definitely the place of this year. A tablet of Erech bears the date of 20 Nisan of the twentieth year of Assurbanipal in Babel (Ménant, "Annal." p. 29 ff.). As Assurbanipal must have dated his rule in Babylon from the overthrow of Samul-sum-ukin, and Assurbanipal himself died in the year 626B.C., Samul-sum-ukin's death must have taken place at least before 646B.C.On the cylinders and on the reliefs in his palace at Nineveh, Assurbanipal merely calls himself king of Asshur. If in the documents relating to his buildings in Babylon as well as on the Babylonian brick already mentioned he calls himself king of Babel, it follows that these inscriptions belong to the period after the war with his brother. G. Smith, "Disc." p. 378, 380.[380]G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 199; Ménant,loc. cit.p. 288.[381]Ménant,loc. cit.p. 293; G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 165-168, 181.[382]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 349 ff. If Babylon fell in the sixth war, 648B.C., the destruction of Susa at the end of the eighth war cannot have taken place earlier than in the year 645B.C.[383]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 371; "Assurb." p. 237, 241, 243, 304, 306; Ménant,loc. cit.p. 291.[384]Ezekiel xxxii. 24.[385]G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 299; "Assyr. Canon," p. 148.[386]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 370.[387]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 370.[388]Joshua xix. 29.[389]Herod. 2, 157.[390]Diod. 1, 67.[391]Beginning of Cylinder C. in G. Smith, "Disc." p. 377.[392]Above, p. 108. G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 308.[393]End of Cylinder A. in G. Smith, "Disc." p. 372 ff.[394]Place, "Ninive." Pl. 57.

[355]G. Smith, "Assyr. Canon," p. 164.

[356]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 320. E. Schrader, "K. A. T." s. 208. The astronomical canon makes Esarhaddon's reign in Babylon end with the year 668B.C.

[357]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 324.

[358]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 322.

[359]Assurbanipal, it is true, says that he has conquered Muzur and Cush (G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 324), which is certainly an exaggeration unless Upper Egypt is meant by Cush.

[360]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 328.

[361]G. Smith,loc. cit.pp. 328, 329.

[362]Nahum iii. 8-10.

[363]The Apis-pillar from the twenty-first year of Psammetichus proves that the Egyptians put him immediately after Tirhaka. As they make the reign of Psammetichus commence with the year 664B.C.the death of Tirhaka must fall in this year, and the war of Urdamane in the next.

[364]Inhabitants of Karbit, in the land of Halahasta, were brought here; compare Cyl. B. in Ménant, "Ann." p. 291. If the king of the memorial stone of the ruins of the temple of Ammon at Napata, whose name is read with much uncertainty as Nuat-Mi (amun), or Amun-merinut, or Tonuat-amen, is not one and the same person with the Urdamane or Undamane (Unt-amen?) of Assurbanipal, it is very difficult to explain who he is. If the name of the person making dedications beside Tirhaka at Karnak is the same which the monument gives (Mariette, "Monum. divers." pl. 80, sqq.), this would be an important factor for the identification with Urdamane, which is also supported by the fact that Piker of Pasupti is prominent among the opponents of this Ethiopian: Pakruru of Pisaptu has been previously mentioned by Assurbanipal. The narrative of the memorial stone would then be the counterpart of the Assyrian account; the only striking thing in the narrative of the Ethiopian king is that the victory of Memphis is mentioned, but not the capture of the Assyrians. He ought also, it is true, to have mentioned the retreat forced upon him by the Assyrians. The narrative runs: In the year when he came to the throne Nuat-amon saw two serpents in a dream, and when he asked the interpretation of the dream, it was announced to him: "he possessed the south, he should conquer the north." He set out, and when he arrived at Thebes the prophet of the temple of Ammon-Ra met him with the astrologers, and the inhabitants who were at first hostile to him were filled with joy. But when Nuat-amon approached Memphis, the sons of the rebellion marched against him, in order to do battle: he inflicted on them a great defeat, and made himself master of the city of Memphis. From Memphis he marched out, in order to do battle with the chiefs of the land of the North, but they remained in their walls. When their cities were besieged, they appeared before Nuat-amon lying on their bellies, with their faces on the ground, and Piker the chief of Pasupti said: "Thou slayest whom thou wilt, and thou givest life to whom thou wilt, and all vow to be thy servants." The heart of Nuat-amon was full of joy when he heard these words. They turned back into their cities and sent all the good things of the North and the South to the lord of Upper and Lower Egypt. Maspero, "Essai sur la stèle du songe." Rev. Archéol. 1868, 17, 329 ff.

[365]G. Smith, "Assurbanipal," p. 62, 63.

[366]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 74, 75.

[367]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 95 ff.

[368]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 115, 96, 97.

[369]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 151.

[370]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 380.

[371]G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 103. Ménant, "Annal." p. 282.

[372]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 107, 117.

[373]Cylinder B., in G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 120 ff.

[374]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 140, 146. Ménant, "Annal." p. 286.

[375]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 133, 155, 142-145.

[376]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 171.

[377]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 154, 155, 169, 201. "Disc." p. 338.

[378]Above, p. 163. It is certain that Psammetichus's reign ends in the year 610B.C.; Boeckh, "Manetho," Zeitschr. "für Geschich.," s. 716 ff., Unger, "Manetho," s. 280. Herodotus and Manetho allot 54 years to the reign of Psammetichus, and an Apis-pillar tells us that a new Apis was installed in the month Athyr of the 54th year of the reign of Psammetichus. Necho therefore died before, or in the year 664B.C.(610 + 54).

[379]G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 66; "Disc." p. 332. In the computation of Herodotus, the accession of Gyges of Lydia takes place in 719 or 716, according as the fall of Sardis is put in 549 or 546B.C.; his death takes place in 681 or 678B.C.In the canon of Eusebius, on the same data, he is computed to have ascended the throne in 699 or 696, and to have reigned till 663 or 660. In the list of Lydian kings (Euseb. "Chron." I, p. 69, ed. Schöne), he ascended, on the same data, in 689 or 686, and reigned to 653 or 650B.C.The latter dates must be accepted if Gyges sent help to Psammetichus. Samul-sum-ukin would not have found it necessary to invite the prince or princes of Miluhhi to rebellion, if Egypt had revolted from Assyria before his rebellion—Miluhhi must then be used on the cylinder in a wider sense for Egypt and Meroe—and Gyges could not send any help to Psammetichus, if he was not king himself. We are not in a position to fix accurately the date of the rebellion of Samul-sum-ukin, since the list of the Assyrian rulers breaks off with the year 665B.C.The fact that it is the sixth war of Assurbanipal in which he marches against his brother—I enumerate the wars according to Cylinder A—only proves that the war cannot have taken place before 660B.C.In the astronomical canon the reign of Saosduchinus ends with the year 648B.C.; and we may therefore assume with certainty that the overthrow of Samul-sum-ukin took place in this year. How long before this Samul-sum-ukin took up arms, we do not know; he may very well have done so in the year 652B.C.For the rebellion was not brought to a close till after a long siege of Babylon: or the rebellion may have commenced even earlier, so that Gyges could undoubtedly have sent help to Psammetichus in the last years of his reign. The cylinders, which narrate the history of the wars of Assurbanipal, date from the year of Samasdainani, who in Cylinder A is called viceroy of Accad, and on the others viceroy of Babel. We are not in a position to fix definitely the place of this year. A tablet of Erech bears the date of 20 Nisan of the twentieth year of Assurbanipal in Babel (Ménant, "Annal." p. 29 ff.). As Assurbanipal must have dated his rule in Babylon from the overthrow of Samul-sum-ukin, and Assurbanipal himself died in the year 626B.C., Samul-sum-ukin's death must have taken place at least before 646B.C.On the cylinders and on the reliefs in his palace at Nineveh, Assurbanipal merely calls himself king of Asshur. If in the documents relating to his buildings in Babylon as well as on the Babylonian brick already mentioned he calls himself king of Babel, it follows that these inscriptions belong to the period after the war with his brother. G. Smith, "Disc." p. 378, 380.

[380]G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 199; Ménant,loc. cit.p. 288.

[381]Ménant,loc. cit.p. 293; G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 165-168, 181.

[382]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 349 ff. If Babylon fell in the sixth war, 648B.C., the destruction of Susa at the end of the eighth war cannot have taken place earlier than in the year 645B.C.

[383]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 371; "Assurb." p. 237, 241, 243, 304, 306; Ménant,loc. cit.p. 291.

[384]Ezekiel xxxii. 24.

[385]G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 299; "Assyr. Canon," p. 148.

[386]G. Smith, "Disc." p. 370.

[387]G. Smith,loc. cit.p. 370.

[388]Joshua xix. 29.

[389]Herod. 2, 157.

[390]Diod. 1, 67.

[391]Beginning of Cylinder C. in G. Smith, "Disc." p. 377.

[392]Above, p. 108. G. Smith, "Assurb." p. 308.

[393]End of Cylinder A. in G. Smith, "Disc." p. 372 ff.

[394]Place, "Ninive." Pl. 57.

"Asshur was a cedar in Lebanon," so the prophet Ezekiel tells us; "a shadowing thicket, and of a tall stature, with fair branches, and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the flood set him up on high; with her stream she went round about his plants, and sent her conduits unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were great, and his branches became strong because of the multitude of waters, and spread themselves out. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Then was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him; the cypresses were not like his boughs, and the planes were not like his branches. No tree in the garden of God was like to him in beauty. I (Jehovah) have made him fair by the multitude of his branches, and all the trees of Eden envied him."[395]

Babylon and Asshur are two stems springing out of the same root. The younger could borrow from theelder her religion, her ritual, her models in art and industry, and finally her writing; and along with this those scientific acquisitions, by no means contemptible, which had been made on the Euphrates. The peculiar characteristic of the younger branch rests on its warlike power, which (nurtured in those long struggles in the Zagrus and in the Armenian mountains) at last far exceeded the power of the Babylonians.

There is no state in the ancient East, which, beginning from a reign so small in proportion, and provided with such scanty material means, rose so high as Assyria—which from such a basis attained to a wider supremacy, or maintained it so long and so vigorously. By slow and laborious steps this kingdom worked its way upward in frequent and severe conflicts beside Babylonia. To reduce and keep in obedience the region round the sources of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the land of Van and Ararat, to subjugate the territory of the Moschi and Tibarenes, required the most severe struggles. The attempt of Tiglath Pilesar I. to reach the North of Syria and the Mediterranean was a success, yet it remained without any lasting results. Not till the beginning of the ninth centuryB.C.does the dominion of Assyria obtain more important dimensions, not in the North only, but also in the West and East. Assurnasirpal reached Mount Amanus, the Orontes, Mount Lebanon; he received the tribute of the Phenician cities. Shalmanesar II. directed his most vigorous efforts against Hamath and Damascus, while at the same time he reduced the Cilicians, as well as the nations of the Western table land of Iran, to pay tribute. At the division of the ninth and eighth centuriesB.C.Bin-nirar III. held sway from the shore of the RedSea over Edom, on the shore of the Mediterranean over the Philistines and Israel, in the East over Mount Zagrus and the Medes. Then after the middle of the eighth century Tiglath Pilesar II. forced his way as far as Arachosia, and at the least maintained his dominion over the tribes of the Medes; in the West he humbled Hamath, Damascus, Samaria; Judah paid homage with the Philistines and all the princes of Syria with the distant tribes of the Arabians, to the great king of Asshur. He first completely subjugated Babylonia, and forced even Southern Chaldæa to recognise his supremacy. Sargon, after him, maintained Syria even against the arms of Egypt, and added the crown of Babylon to the crown of Asshur: Cyprus as well as the islands of the Persian Gulf pay homage to him. Sennacherib maintains the dominion over Babylonia against the most stubborn rebellions, as well as against the Elamites, and also the supremacy over Media; and if he was not able to maintain Syria against Egypt, he still retained the upper hand in the eastern half of Asia Minor. Esarhaddon ruled over Asshur and Babel; he restored the dominion over Syria; he conquered Egypt. The armies of his successor not only march victoriously into the gates of Memphis, Thebes, and Babylon, but even into the gates of Susa. In repeated campaigns he annihilates the ancient kingdom of Elam, and receives from the West the homage of Lydia.

No other kingdom can display so long a series of warlike and active princes, unwearied in conflict, as Assyria. They believed that they were fighting not for dominion only, or glory, but also for their gods, for Asshur, Sin and Samas, for Istar, Bin and Adar, against the nations who did not worship these deities. It is this extraordinary activity of theprinces which alone explains the long continuance, and the constantly increasing extent, of the Assyrian power. For great as is the activity and unwearied perseverance of these princes, there is an equal lack of capability to create any organisation of their dominion and sovereignty which could secure even approximately the dependence of the subject nations. They take the field, defeat the enemy, and rest content if he pays homage and tribute, if the image of the victorious king of Asshur is engraved on the rocks of the conquered land, or set up in the city of the enemy. Ere long, if the tribute fails, war must be again commenced. The enemy is removed from the government, another prince is set on the throne of the subjugated land; the same game is commenced once more, as soon as there is the least prospect of shaking off the yoke. Owing to the stubbornness, more especially of the Semitic tribes and the mountaineers in the North, the kings of Asshur are condemned to constant campaigns. The defections are punished with savage devastation of the land and destruction of the cities. The rebellious princes and their leading adherents are often put to death with exquisite cruelty; they are flayed, or beheaded, or impaled, and yet such terrorism produces no visible effects. On the other hand, if they submit, they are often pardoned; they are again recognised or set up as princes over their lands, in some cases even after repeated defection. Occasionally, in order to maintain independently the Assyrian supremacy, Assyrian fortresses are planted in the conquered districts; as at the crossings over the Euphrates, in the region of the Medes, on the borders of Elam, and in Syria. For the most part it is only over the smaller districts that Assyrian viceroys were placed. Native kings, chiefs,and princes remain on the throne in the more extensive lands, and over the greater nations, as in the cities and principalities of Syria. Sometimes an attempt is made to secure the submission of princes by alliance with the royal house of Assyria. Over Babylonia alone were sons and brothers of the king repeatedly placed, and not always with a happy result. If Esarhaddon, instead of transferring the government of Egypt, under his supremacy, to one prince, divides it among 20, this organisation was not an Assyrian invention; in all essentials it was a transference of the lords of the districts from vassalage to the king of Napata to vassalage to the king of Assyria. The chief means of the kings of Assyria for securing the obedience of the vanquished for the future consisted at all times in carrying away and transplanting parts of the conquered population. The nationalities of Hither Asia, as far as the table-land of Iran, underwent considerable intermixture in consequence of this system, but this means could only work thoroughly in the smaller regions and communities—for the kingdom of Israel, for Hamath, and the Arabian tribes.

In such a defective organisation of the empire, while limited to such elementary, and at the same time such unproductive, means, it would be more interesting to find an answer to the question, how the kings of Assyria were able to keep their own nation willing to undertake these endless wars; how from their native land, of no great extent, they could obtain the men and the means for such burdensome efforts—and in any crisis this was the only power they could rely upon—how the authority of the crown could be maintained in spite of such heavy requisitions on their subjects;—did our knowledge allow us togive even an approximate explanation. An hereditary succession, interrupted far less than is usual elsewhere in the East, appears to have rendered these tasks easier to the kings of Asshur, to have been favourable to the continuance of the kingdom, and to have assisted the rulers in extending their supremacy. Tiglath Pilesar I. mentions four of his ancestors in unbroken succession on the throne (II. 36). The kings always describe themselves as sons and grandsons of preceding rulers. Down to the time of Sargon we hear nothing of the murder of kings, and only of one attempt at rebellion on the part of a king's son. With Sargon a new dynasty seems to have ascended the throne: he neither calls himself a son of his predecessor (Shalmanesar IV.), nor does he mention any other of the earlier rulers as his progenitor. But his race, in its turn, seems to have held the throne till the fall of the kingdom, though he and his son Sennacherib fell by assassination, though Esarhaddon only acquired the throne after a conflict with the two brothers who had slain their father, and Assurbanipal had to defend it against the rebellion of a brother. That the power exercised by the kings of Assyria was unlimited even in their own territory is beyond a doubt. The king is the supreme judge, the general in chief, the high-priest. He ascertains the will of the gods, who reveal themselves to him, who send him dreams, assure him of their assistance. It is the gods, their lords, who overthrow the enemy and the rebellious princes before them. The kings offer sacrifice and pour libations in person, not the priests. In his palace at Kuyundshik (p. 181) Sennacherib pours a drink-offering over four lions which he has slain in hunting, and which lie before the altar. Other monuments exhibit the king, with a bowl in his hand containing gifts for the gods,or holding up a pine-apple. At the sacrifices the king wears a peculiar priestly robe: small pictures of the sun and moon, with a horned cap, a pitcher, and a two-pronged fork, hang from his neck: in his hand he has a short staff. The priests serve at his side; behind the form of the king on the monuments stand winged spirits, in expectation or protection, at the sacrifices. Only the king wears the upright tiara orkidaris; a tall conical cap, flattened at the top. He alone speaks in the inscriptions. He frequently relates the deeds of his generals as performed immediately by himself. Service about the person of the king is entrusted to eunuchs, who are distinguished on the monuments by corpulence, flat cheeks, beardless chins, and lank hair—while all others wear long hair curling at the end, and long, carefully-trimmed beards. Eunuchs carry the parasol and the fan of the king; they are his butlers, and conduct into his presence those who come to pay homage or tribute; they also perform the duties of the royal scribes. We find them equally active as magistrates of the state; and finally we see them on war chariots as commanders of divisions of the troops.

On the organisation of the government we have very scanty information. The prophet Nahum speaks of the leaders and mighty men of the king of Asshur, of the "crowned" of the Assyrians who are numerous as the locusts, and the captains whom he compares to a swarm of grasshoppers.[396]Ezekiel mentions the "captains and rulers of Assyria gorgeously clothed in blue purple, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men."[397]From the chronicle of the Assyrian kingdom preserved to us from the beginning of the ninth century,B.C.we find that the years wereregularly distinguished in a definite series by the names of certain high officers. The beginning is made by the year of Turtanu (Tartan), the chief-commander of the king; then follows the year of the chief of the palace, the year of the Rabbitur,i. e.controller of the harem (or this precedes the other), the year of the privy councillor of the king, the year of the overseer of the land, then the years of the prefects of the cities or regions of Rezeph, Nisibis, Arapha; and finally, the year of the prefect of the metropolis, Chalah. The viceroys of other cities or districts,e. g.of Gozan and Amida, were sometimes prefixed to the year; in the second half of the reign of Assurbanipal we also find the prefect of Babylon in the series of these high officers.[398]The regular list of the officers, after whom the year is named, and the record of the most important events which took place in the year, placed against the name of the officer, indicate a certain established order in the management of business. That in other respects also records were accurately kept is shown by the inscriptions, not only in the definite chronological statements for remote events, but also in the continued announcements of the numbers of slain enemies, of prisoners, of cattle taken as booty, of men and women removed and transplanted, and tribute received in money and animals. We see on the reliefs (at least on the monuments of the time of Sargon and after) the scribes occupied with these enumerations; they put down their notes on strips of leather. Short accounts of their successes by generals who have been sent out, reviews of affairs in neighbouring states, invariably directed to the king in person, are still in existence. The informant as arule refers to the detailed communications which the messengers will make. There is also preserved a fragment of the diplomatic correspondence between Assyria and Elam, a letter of Ummanaldas II. of Elam concerning the descendant of Merodach Baladan, who fled to him (p. 174), and a proclamation of Assurbanipal to the subjects of this Nabubelzikri, that he had taken them under his protection, and made Balibni a viceroy over them.[399]

As to the activity, the forethought, and the results of the regular government, we only learn from the inscriptions of the kings about their buildings, that storehouses were in existence and kept up for the booty taken in war, and the tribute; that horses and beasts of burden were kept for the army. If we may conclude from these lists of the years and officers, these indications and hints, that the government of the native land was duly arranged and discharged its functions regularly, the fact that the army and siege apparatus were perpetually in readiness leads us to assume an active and careful military government. The army no doubt occupied the first place in the attention of the kings. Their warlike activity, supported by a force always in readiness, was the only foundation of their power beyond the borders of Asshur. Of the warriors of Assyria Isaiah says: "They shall come with speed from the ends of the earth; none shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken; whose arrows are sharp and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their chariots like a whirlwind. They shall roar like young lions, and layhold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it."[400]According to the description of Herodotus, the Assyrians wore brazen helmets worked in a peculiar way; cuirasses of linen, lances, and shields and swords like the Egyptians; and besides these, war-clubs with iron heads.[401]From the evidence of the monuments the Assyrian infantry were divided into troops, distinguished by their clothing and armour. The heavy-armed had conical helmets or round caps with a high ridge and cheek-pieces, armour-coats, provided with plates or rings of steel on the breast, or cuirasses of scale armour in the place of these plates and rings, greaves extending from the knee to the ancle, or scale-armour hose. Beside this they cover themselves with round or oval shields. Their weapons of attack are the lance, and a short sword, straight or crooked, which was carried in the belt. In addition to this heavy infantry there were the light troops; bowmen and slingers. The first were occasionally accompanied by shield-bearers, who carried shields of the height of a man, and planted them before the bowmen.

The kings fought from their chariots with bow and arrows. This was the mode of fighting of the princes and captains throughout the Semitic warlike states. The kings of Elam and Ur and those of Erech and Babel were no doubt the first to take the field with war-chariots; after them the kings of Damascus and Hamath, and the princes of the Philistines. From the Syrians the Pharaohs borrowed their royal war-chariots and the chariots for their army. So long as the Hebrews were husbandmen and breeders of cattle, they fought simply on foot; when they established a monarchy we saw that the first care of the new princes was to provide themselves with chariots of war. From theSemites this mode of fighting spread westward, not only to Egypt but also to Asia Minor and Hellas, and eastwards to the Indians on the Ganges. The commanders of the Assyrian army also fought from their chariots, which at the same time carried the standards of their divisions. The mass of chariots formed a special portion of the Assyrian army. Beside the two pole-horses, which are yoked, they are, as a rule, provided with a third or subsidiary horse; on the chariot, as a rule, are three men, a charioteer, and an archer, besides a shield-bearer, provided with coats of mail which leave only the arms free, and scale-armour for the legs. Occasionally the charioteer, as well as the archer, has a shield-bearer behind him. Cavalry was not wanting in the armies of Assyria any more than in the armies of the Pharaohs. We see numerous troops of cavalry with well-trained horses, partly armed with the lance and partly with the bow; partly sitting without any saddle on the bare back of the horse, and partly provided with pack saddles. Pictures of parade-duty are not uncommon. In these the lance is held free in the right hand, the shield is carried under the left arm. In the camp the rows of tents are separated by a broad gangway, in which rises the great tent of the king. We have already seen the king seated even in the camp on a high seat, with his bow in one hand and his arrow in the other. In the spacious tents, the warriors kindle fire between stones and place pots thereon, while in others the wounded are being tended on beds. We see the Assyrian army crossing a river; the king, the chariots and the baggage are rowed over in boats; the horses and the men swim, the latter with the aid of inflated bladders, as is still the custom in Mesopotamia. Other pictures exhibit ships with two rows of oars. In the battle wesee the line of the heavy-armed infantry awaiting the attack of the enemy; the first rank kneel down with outstretched lance; the second rank, in a somewhat crouching position, also hold the lance in rest; while the bowmen in the third rank stand upright and shoot over the two first ranks. Then the king, on his splendidly adorned chariot, drawn by richly caparisoned horses, sending forth arrow upon arrow, with the picture of Asshur the supreme deity over him, dashes upon the ranks of the enemy. In some reliefs, the infantry, or the cavalry of the enemy, already turned back in flight, shoot their arrows as they fly, an artifice well understood by the cavalry of the Medes and Persians. We also see the riders on camels defending themselves in this way in their flight.

The greater number of reliefs exhibit the enemies of the Assyrians in strongly fortified cities, protected by lofty walls and towers, in part with beautifully decorated pinnacles; sometimes two or three walls rise one behind the other. The fortresses lie on heights surrounded by vineyards, or forests of pines and fir-trees, or on rivers by palm-groves, where the fruits occasionally indicate the season of the siege; in other representations the position of the enemy's city on a river or the sea-coast is indicated by creatures of the water or the sea, like tortoises, large fish, etc. The Assyrians knew how to throw walls of circumvallation round the hostile city,[402]to build besieging-towers, to undermine the walls or force their way into the city by means of shafts under the earth.[403]But the ordinary mode of attack was to fill up the moat and then to make a breach in the walls by battering-rams. The battering-rams stood on wheels, and were protected by a casecovered by the skins of animals, or they were placed in the lower story of a moveable wooden tower, the upper part of which is occupied by archers; and the whole is then moved up on wheels to the wall. Machines for throwing stones are also to be seen on the monuments. When a breach is made, the infantry advance towards it under the protection of the "tortoise." If an attempt is made to scale the walls by ladders, the bowmen, where possible, from a covered position, such as a wood near the walls, keep up a lively fire upon the turrets of the wall, in order to distress the defenders and drive them from the breastwork, while the heavy-armed plant their ladders. The besieged then attempt to meet the storm by a shower of arrows, by throwing down stones and firebrands. When the walls are scaled we see the besieged pledging submission by raising their hands, the women escaping on mules or camels, or kneeling and praying for mercy. The victors collect the booty: arms, tripods, vessels, beds, stools; guards are set over these, while others bring to their commanders the heads of the slain, the number of which is taken down by the scribes. The flocks and herds of the vanquished, camels, sheep, and goats, are driven away; the prisoners are put in fetters and led before the king, who has ascended the throne. Here they appear, some with heavy irons on their hands and feet, some with the hands tied, some led by ropes, which are drawn through holes in their lips and noses, sometimes tied in pairs, sometimes in troops, driven forward with blows by the soldiers in charge. The king plants his foot on the neck of a captive prince; he puts out the eyes of another with his lance; others are impaled. Then follows the victorious return; soldiers and music go before the king's chariot, before which, aswe already know, the heads of the slain or executed princes of the enemy were occasionally carried.

The strength of the chief cities formed in the last resort the support of the kingdom. The walls of these the kings of Asshur cannot have neglected to renew and strengthen. In the inscriptions only the buildings of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal at the walls of Nineveh are mentioned. According to the statements of Ctesias, preserved in Diodorus, the city of Nineveh formed a long rectangle of 480 stades (60 miles) in the circuit. The walls which inclosed this space were 100 feet high, and were overtopped by 1500 towers of double the height.[404]A writing of the Hebrews, which, however, is not earlier than the fourth centuryB.C., maintains that the circuit of Nineveh was three days' journey; 120,000 inhabitants lived in the city, who could not distinguish the right hand and the left,i. e.children in the earliest years of life. More important is the evidence of Nahum, from the middle of the seventh centuryB.C., that "Nineveh is full of men as a pool is full of water; her merchants are more numerous than the stars in heaven."[405]The position of Nineveh is marked by the ruins of Kuyundshik and Nebbi Yunus, opposite Mosul; and the remains of the outer wall allow us to fix, with tolerable accuracy, the circuit which it really had. As a fact it formed a long rectangle, somewhat out of the square. On the west the course of the Tigris covered the city; the wall on this side of the city extended along the ancient bed of the river for 13,600 feet; the wall of the longer eastern side measures 16,000 feet; the wall of the north side is exactly 7000 feet; that on the short south side is only half this length;[406]so that the whole circuit of the citydoes not reach ten miles,i. e.does not reach a sixth part of the extent given to it by Ctesias. Even if we add to this the circuit of the strong outer ramparts which run in a double and sometimes in a quadruple line, on the east side, from the point where the Khosr flows into the city, as far as the stream which, emptying into the Tigris, covered the southern front of Nineveh—even if we reckon in the city of Sargon (Khorsabad), which lay ten good miles to the north-east of Nineveh, on the left bank of the Khosr (p. 95), the circuit of both cities taken together does not amount to more than 15 miles. Xenophon, who was on the spot, and saw the walls of Nineveh still standing, gives them a circuit of six parasangs,i. e.of 20 miles. According to this, either the fortresses of Khorsabad and Nineveh were connected, and this circuit is actually given,—or Xenophon assumes that they once were in connection. We are hardly justified in excluding the first hypothesis. The lower part of the walls, so Xenophon tells us, was built of smoothed shell-stone;[407]the thickness was about 50 feet, and the height also 50 feet. On this substructure is raised the wall of bricks, which also is 50 feet thick, but 100 feet high. Hence these walls were standing 200 years after the fall of Nineveh; with the walls of Khorsabad, though broken by wide breaches, they were still to be traced through a circuit of 20 miles, and reached the astounding height of 150 feet,i. e.higher than Ctesias puts them. The remains of the walls of Khorsabad possess to this day a thickness of 45 feet, which agrees with Xenophon's measure; in the walls of Nineveh the substructure of well-hewn limestone can be traced, but the remains of the walls do not rise more than 46 feet above the present surface of the ground. If we are toventure on a supposition about the number of the inhabitants from the extent of the walls of Nineveh and Khorsabad—the total of the two cities, in which the royal palaces and temples occupied a considerable space, can hardly be put down at more than 300,000.

Twenty good miles to the south of Nineveh lay the other residence of the kings of Asshur, Chalah, the city founded by Shalmanesar I. Chalah was naturally even stronger than Nineveh. On the west, as at Nineveh, the Tigris formed the protection; about seven and a half miles to the south the greater Zab emptied into the Tigris. The course of this from the north-east to the south-west formed on the east also an outer line of defence, which was made still more strong by the fact that a not inconsiderable tributary of the Zab, the Bumodus (Ghasr), which flows from north to south, empties into the Zab about ten miles to the east of Chalah, just before the latter unites with the Tigris. Above the mouth of the Zab, Assurnasirpal carried a canal from that river in a northern direction to Chalah (II. 312). The city itself formed, as has been already remarked, a regular square, the extent of which reached about half the circuit of Nineveh; the south-west corner of the city was occupied by the royal palace. Xenophon gives to the walls of this "large but desolated" city, which he calls Larissa, a circuit of two parasangs (seven miles, nearly). The walls also were of less dimensions here. Xenophon found the substructure of stones 20 feet high; the walls of burnt bricks on the substructure 100 feet high; the thickness of the walls was 25 feet.[408]Northward of Chalah, on the brook Shordere, which flows past on the south and east of Chalah, are heaps of ruins, extending as far as Keremles, and from this point again through theplain as far as the district of Khorsabad. It is possible that the line of these forts formed an outer system of defence for Nineveh and Chalah, and that it lies at the bottom of the story of the 60 miles of circuit of Nineveh. The same circuit is given by Herodotus for the city of Babylon (cf. Chap. xv.). Of the third chief city, Asshur, which stood in ancient times, as we have seen, not only before Chalah, but also before Nineveh, nothing is left but heaps of refuse, out of which rises a conical hill. The ruins are of brick, among which here and there are seen some stones. The line of the old walls can still be traced. This city also formed a square, not less, but rather longer, in circuit than Chalah.[409]

It seems that the kings of Assyria laid less weight on the fortification of the city of Asshur, than on the strengthening of Chalah and Nineveh. They saw danger in the west only, from the lower Euphrates. The city of Asshur, on the western bank of the Tigris, was exposed to attacks from the west; Chalah and Nineveh were covered in this direction by the Tigris, which the enemy had to cross. To make the two cities so covered impregnable from the eastern side also was the object of the kings of Assyria, especially of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Assurbanipal. The thickness given to the walls of Nineveh, Khorsabad, and Chalah (25 to 50 feet), was sufficient to defy the battering-ram—the turrets, raised to the elevation of 120 to 150 feet, were so high that the stones of the slingers and the arrows of the bowmen could not reach them with effect, and no scaling-ladder or besieging-tower could be set up which would carry men to these turrets.

What Babylon possessed or acquired in science andpoetry, Assyria did not fail to appropriate, just as she used her divisions of the heavens and the year, her weights and measures, her standard of coinage, and her writing from all antiquity. In the ruins of Kuyundshik a great number of tablets have been dug up,[410]copies of old Babylonian originals, which have preserved for us the story of the Babylonians about Chasisathra (Xisuthrus) and the great flood, about the descent of Istar to the under world, and other narratives of a mythical character. In addition to this are prayers and poems, with fragments apparently on cosmogonical subjects, very difficult of interpretation, and hardly to be referred to any definite date. Of especial value for the deciphering of the Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform writing are the clay tablets discovered here, on which the cuneiform symbols are explained by placing beside them the phonetic value of the words and inflections, first of the Accadian, that language unknown to us, and then of Babylonian-Assyrian.[411]The use of writing was not less extensive in Babylonia and Assyria than in Egypt. The copious application of it for the purposes of government and legal business has been already mentioned. We are indebted to this for the remains of the list of years and rulers, the synchronistic tablets of the kings of Asshur and Babel, and a long series of private documents from the time of Bin-nirar III. down to the overthrow of the empire. These documents, and the ambition of the kings to retain their names in the buildings which they erected, to set up their images wherever their armies or their dominion advanced, to transfer tothe walls of the buildings which they erected their achievements written on cylinders or stone slabs, to adorn the walls of their palaces with pictures of their hunts, their sieges, their victories and triumphs, accompanied by written explanations, have enabled us to restore, at least in its main lines, the lost history of Assyria—a history of which the Greeks have left and could only leave to us the fact that a kingdom of this name existed, and was the foremost power in Hither Asia, along with echoes of Medo-Persian songs about Ninus, Semiramis, and Sardanapalus—from which the Hebrews have retained no more than the names and the acts of the rulers who made their influence most deeply felt in the fortunes of Israel. Yet even the inscriptions of the kings of Asshur do not give us the history of Assyria undefiled. But whatever care they took to represent their successes in the most brilliant light possible—here and there we are driven to the attempt to bring back these accounts to the fact—they are far removed from the extravagance and the voluble assertions of the inscriptions of the Pharaohs. The far more realistic and historical sense of the Assyrians is stamped in their monuments and inscriptions. As they allow us to see, year by year, the activity, the untiring perseverance, and warlike skill of the Assyrian nation and its princes, even though they magnify their successes—so too the reverse side of these qualities is brought into prominence; the fierce cruelty, the bloody savagery which the conquered had to undergo. The kings constantly boast of the punishments they have inflicted, and appear more than once to exaggerate them.

The rivalry of the long series of the rulers of Assyria in building temples and palaces, which begins with the oldest period of the realm, after the pattern ofBabylonia, has preserved for us no inconsiderable remains of Assyrian arts, and ocular evidence of the industry and mode of life, of the character and manners of the Assyrians—not indeed in the breadth and unbroken succession of development in which the monuments and the inexhaustible sepulchres on the Nile have retained the picture of ancient Egypt. For monuments of plastic art, the ruins of Erech, and Ur, and of Babylon, have been investigated almost in vain. The ruins of Nineveh and Chalah have preserved a considerable series of works of sculpture. If in the ruins of Babylon, with the exception of outlines on seals or other cylinders, there is scarcely a single image of a god preserved, there have been discovered at Nineveh some statues of gods, and innumerable pictures in relief of gods and demons, on the slabs of the palaces. The most frequent object on these is the image of the god Asshur. On a bearded human head, of grave aspect, the god wears a round cap or a helmet, round which are horns; the figure extends only to the knees; it is surrounded by a winged disk to which, from the knees of the god downwards, are attached the tail-feathers of a bird. In battle-pictures the breast of the god is clothed with a cuirass of steel-plates; his bow is in his hand; he shoots his arrows against the enemies of his nation. On the pictures representing a victorious return, and the seal-cylinders of the kings, the bow rests in the hands of the god. Nebo, the god of the planet Mercury (I. 267), is exhibited in standing images, with long beard and bared breast; the robe descends from the breast. Of a statue of Istar, in her old temple at Nineveh, we have at the least the head.[412]The god Bin also is to be seen on cylinders; he holds the trident of his lightning in his hand, apointed cap is on his head; his robe falls, not from the shoulders, but only from the hips down to his ancles. The moon god Sin is seen on Assyrian cylinders in a long robe, with a long beard, standing on a half-moon; a second half-moon rises above the tall covering of his head. In a figure swimming in water, with a round horned cap on the head, and ending in the body of a fish from the hips downwards, we may no doubt recognise Dagon. The cylinders most frequently exhibit a sun's disk by the side of the images of Asshur, the crescent and seven stars.[413]On the slabs of stone which exhibit to us the forms of the kings, symbolical indications of the chief deities are visible to the left of the kings; we see the sun, the moon, a horned cap, and a winged disk, perhaps the symbol of the god Asshur. In the reliefs winged demons are often to be seen. They wear the high round cap, out of which rise four united bull's horns: occasionally the head is uncovered, and then it is surrounded merely with the narrow fillet of the priests; the arms and thighs are always uncovered. These forms also are frequently found in pairs, guarding the entrance to rooms; at times standing or kneeling in an attitude of blessing or prayer, on both sides of a wonderfully-shaped and adorned tree. In the same way two eagle-headed genii often stand opposite each other. Human figures, clothed in royal attire, with the head and wings of an eagle, are often found. Walking figures of lions with eagle heads and wings, or the back of a man on the legs of a bird surmounted by a lion's head, are found. The gates of the temples and palaces are guarded by winged bulls and lions with human heads. These are always placed in pairs.The height of these images ranges from 10 to 18 feet. At the point where the long, richly-worked wings, which are thrown far back, are joined to the shoulders, rises a grave and solemn countenance, with a strong beard, sometimes wearing a cap, sometimes a tall tiara, round which wind four bull's horns. These figures stand at times entirely detached before the entrance; in others the fore part and fore legs alone are free from the pilasters of the doors, and the figure is continued in relief on the side of the pilaster.

Plastic art in Assyria is less forced and typical in the lines, forms, and figures, than plastic art on the Nile: it is not fettered by the unchangeable laws of Egyptian art; it is less solemn, and free from the tiresome parallelism of the Egyptian forms. The sculpture of Assyria is more significant and vigorous. Not tied down by the hieratic style, like the Egyptian, it also works for the most part in the softer material of limestone, while the Egyptians prefer granite, the hardest of all materials. The Assyrians do not strive after the gigantic and colossal forms of Egypt: the dimensions even of the colossal bulls and lions are on a more moderate scale. Far more naïve, they conceive of life more freshly, fully, and powerfully, and aim far more at a true representation of life than the Egyptian. Egypt prefers the sunk, Assyria the raised picture. On the Nile the outline is the chief object: in Assyria the forms are always modelled full, strong, and round, with energetic expression of the limbs, and muscular to an excess. The movement is more vigorous and full of expression than in Egypt, without, however, sacrificing repose and fixedness, and without destroying dignity in the representation of ceremonies. The feet of the figures exhibit the Egyptian position in profile, but the upper part of the body is full,rounded, and closely compressed. The tall and thin forms of Egypt are not to be found in the monuments of Assyria. The clothing is heavy; the position and expression of the face is far more varied than in Egypt. The animals are represented plump and full of life, often with startling truth even in the most rapid motion; though not unfrequently with great exaggeration in the muscles. The great guardians of the portals exhibit a beautiful effect in the contrast of their mighty animal energy, and the quiet dignity of their human faces. Great practice in the treatment of the forms can hardly be mistaken anywhere; in spite of the dimensions, often colossal, the proportions are correctly preserved; and the larger pictures of camps, battles, and marches, if not better than those of Egypt, are more various and free in composition. Within the sphere of Assyrian art we are in a position to establish a certain distinction, a progress of some importance. The figures in the palaces of Assurnasirpal and Shalmanesar II., the two great princes of the ninth centuryB.C., are stronger and thicker, more coarse, violent, and exaggerated than the reliefs in the buildings of Sargon. In the century which passed since that time the plastic art of Assyria obviously made technical advances, and attained a more delicate treatment and greater regularity in the exposition. Later still, at the height of its development, Assyrian art is seen in the figures of the great palace of Nineveh (Kuyundshik), which Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Assurbanipal built in succession (p. 181).

The architecture of Assyria was not essentially different from that of Babylonia. The Assyrians had brought with them from the lower Euphrates the habit of building in bricks, and continued to use this style, though harder material lay at a less distance fromthem than from the cities of the Babylonian plain. The temples and the palaces of Asshur, Nineveh, and Chalah consisted for the most part of unburnt brick-slabs, dried in the sun and mixed with straw. This material made it necessary here, as in Babylonia, to make the walls stout, which was also advisable owing to the summer heat. The thickness varies between five and fifteen feet. The stone for the substructure and casing, mostly limestone and shell-stone, was quarried in the adjacent mountains. The buildings were roofed by beams extending from wall to wall: by this necessity the breadth of the rooms was limited. As a rule these are narrow, and the want of breadth is compensated by length. These are the dimensions of the porticoes and galleries which we can trace in the remains of the royal palaces: the great portico of the palace of king Assurnasirpal at Chalah (II. 313) has only a breadth of 35 feet, with a length of 154 feet; the porticoes in the palace of Kuyundshik are from 150 to 180 feet long, and 40 feet in width; the great gallery is only 25 feet broad, but more than 200 feet in length. Yet in the palace of king Sargon at Khorsabad, remains of the bases of pillars have been found. The application of the brick-vaulted roof in the form of pointed and round arches is shown in the narrow passage in the building of Shalmanesar II. at Chalah (II. 323), and in some remains of door-arches at Khorsabad. The pictures of cities in relief also occasionally exhibit arched gateways. The sculptures in the stone slabs of white, grey, and yellow limestone or alabaster, which cover the walls and chambers to a height of 10 or 12 feet, were painted, as is shown by numerous traces of colour upon them.[414]The walls of the chambers above the sculptures, wherethey did not make way for window lights, were decked with burnt and glazed tiles, sometimes coloured and enamelled; the beams of the roofs were adorned with carved work of wood and ivory, with plates of gold and silver, and precious stones.[415]The outer walls of the palaces must also have been cased with slabs of stone.

Back to Index Next