THE HITTITE STATES after the Revival of the Xth CenturyB.C.
THE HITTITE STATES after the Revival of the Xth CenturyB.C.
On the outskirts of the Hittite kingdoms there were already present most of the elements of the powers that later were to submerge them. In the immediate West we place the Muski-Phrygians, but the mutual boundary is indefinable and probably varied constantly.[948]East of the Euphrates, Mitanni was no more, and Assyria was recruiting; while from the south and south-east there had already begun the steady infiltration of Aramæan peoples, who now occupied most of the tongue of land between the Orontes and the Euphrates.[949]Damascus was their centre, and within the Hittite-Assyrian sphere they had already planted strong settlements in the plains westward of the Euphrates. Even the kings of Samalla are early found with Semiticnames,[950]a fact which corresponds with the character of a whole series of its monuments.[951]We may suspect from the name in like manner the Aramæan extraction of the dynasty of Bit Adini, which ruled over a broad and numerously peopled Hittite tract extending from south of Carchemish even across the Euphrates, including probably the site of Tell-Ahmar. Shugab lay also on both banks of the river, somewhat further north. In the north-east a new and formidable power akin to the earlier Hittites was gathering strength in the vicinity of Lake Van, by name Urartu; but the Cimmerian hordes had not as yet appeared in the north.
Many of the surface monuments of the Hittites seem to belong to this period of revival: they are linked by various common features in detail, and illustrate at the same time the development of new motives in art. The increasing power of the priest-king is reflected in the prominence now given to his portrait as a chief subject for the sculptures.[952]His dress has now assumed a magnificence of embroidery and tapestry unknown in earlier times, though clearly derived, as regards the close cap, long robe, mantle, and shoes, from the priestly dress of the bygone age. On the rock carving of Ivrîz he pays his devotions to a god of agriculture, who presents so many new features that he might at first sight be taken for an entirely new conception, notwithstanding that his dress is obviously a direct modification only of the time-honoured and sacred costumeof the Hatti gods. Yet he is a descendant of the Son-god of Boghaz-Keui,[953]and his new virtues are a product of the Hittite lands. Now he has become the peasant’s god, the patron of agriculture, himself rewarding toil with fruit and corn. In Babylonia, where the grain grew wild, and the harvest was a gift of nature varying only in degree, the function of the consort to the earth-goddess, as the fertiliser, had been a secondary consideration. In the prominence of manhood under the Hatti kings, the god had received his separate local attributes and sanctuary. Now he appears, alone, in a third phase clearly developed upon a soil where the goddess was benign only to those who toiled. Here the clearing of the ground, irrigation, ploughing, sowing, and constant tending were necessary before the harvest could be won; and in this attribution the god is worshipped. The Greeks, when they arrived upon the scene, saw in him their own Hercules as the god of toil. His dress, however, as we have mentioned, betokens his Hittite origin. The tunic and turned-up shoes, though more elaborate, remain essentially the same as of old. The national hat, however, has lost its height, and is also broader; and the same difference may be noted in the newly found Amazon figure at Boghaz-Keui. This change, indeed, may be traced back to the later years of the Hatti period, if reliance may be placed on the Egyptian representation[954]of the Hittite monarch who visited RamesesII.The pigtail, moreover, has disappeared, and from the source last quoted and other considerations we are inclined to believe that even in the Hatti period it was already antiquated, surviving only in religious representations as sanctified by time. For civil purposes it may eventhen have been replaced by the new style, which at any rate is characteristic of the monuments of the age we are considering, in which the hair is gathered in a thick bunch curling backward behind the neck.[955]
The range of these changes in detail on both sides of the Taurus is another indication of close bonds between the various branches of the Hittite peoples. In the architecture of these times there appears a new and striking motive, equally wide in its distribution, in the lion corner-stone.[956]The lion itself we have seen to have been early introduced into Hittite symbolism, but the earliest examples in the round seem to be the product of this age. The carvings of Sakje-Geuzi, which show the Hittite style just tinged with Assyrian or Aramaic (Semitic) influence, can be assigned with some certainty to the period 900-850B.C.At Sinjerli the great lions seem to be of earlier date,[957]but in any case there is a remarkable coherence in design and method of employment between all the recorded specimens; as well as a correspondence in treatment of detail with the lions which decorate the chief gateway and the tank at Boghaz-Keui.[958]
One of the lions of Marash is covered with an inscription, the nature of which seems to conform entirely with the dominant theocratic ideals of the age.[959]The monuments and ruins of this place are in themselves evidence of a city of remarkable strength and of conspicuous importance in the Hittite world,[960]of which it was one of the last surviving members. Unhappily for history we must still wait here as elsewherefor the evidences which the excavator’s spade alone can satisfactorily bring to light. The bare references in the Assyrian annals to the capture of this or that city, or to the various desperate coalitions of the Hittite states against the power that threatened their independence, if not their existence, tell us little but the date and manner of their downfall. If one could but penetrate the gloom that enshrouds the story of the Hittites in these stirring times, how many Iliads could be written to delight their readers!
We pass then to the last phase, which covers the period 850-700B.C., during which the Hittite states were one by one submerged by the various powers that encircled them, and finally the Cimmerians blotted out from Asia Minor the memory of the past. The story is soon told; for we have only the record of the Assyrian[961]and Vannic[962]inscriptions to help in filling the outline of the Hittite story of these last centuries which was sketched in an earlier chapter. These records also are usually either brief and formal, or expressed in terms obviously exaggerated and partial; and the operations of which they tell were for the most part confined to the eastern Hittite states. Such as they are, however, they are welcome.
The story opens about 884 or 885B.C., with the loss of Tul Barsip, a chief stronghold of the Bit Adini. This was, as it were, the warning of a long series of incursions by the Assyrian forces under Assur-nazir-pal and his successor, ShalmaneserII.The Euphrates was crossed by them on rafts of skin as aforetime. Shangara, King of Carchemish, was awed into sendinga handsome tribute to secure the safety of his crown and life. Among his gifts were a royal chariot, objects of gold, silver, copper and iron, bulls of bronze, decorated cups and carvings in ivory. The route of the Assyrian leader lay by way of the Orontes valley, and for a brief moment, Lubarna, who at that time was head of the principalities of the Hattina, seems to have contemplated resistance. Realising, however, the inutility of such a course, he followed the example of Shangara, and paved with presents the way of the Assyrian king, who, with the route now open, passed onwards beyond the Lebanon. But the Hittite leaders were not yet conquered. Somewhere about 860B.C.nearly all the Hittite states of Syria, including Carchemish, Bit Adini, Gurgum, Samalla, Quë, and the Hattina, leagued themselves in a determined effort to resist, if not to rid themselves of, the Assyrian menace. Taking advantage of the absence of Shalmaneser’s army in the north, where he was assailing the fastnesses of the Urartu, they even crossed the frontier and made considerable inroads upon the Assyrian lands. The vengeance of the Assyrian was swift. The towns of Bit Adini were taken by storm, and the Euphrates was crossed. Gurgum, one of the states first open to attack, seceded from the confederates and submitted. The combined army of Adini, Samalla, and the Hattina was next defeated, and the Assyrian forces pressed once more up the valley of the Orontes, this time in pursuit of the King of the Hattina, Shapalulme, who had escaped. Seizing the opportunity, the King of Samalla collected his troops, and being joined by the King of Carchemish, with reinforcements also from Quë and further west, he prepared to defend his country against the invader. The effort, however,was vain. The fortress of Shapalulme was burnt. It is even possible that the Assyrian passed over the Amanus into Cilicia,[963]being only stopped on the frontiers of the chief Hittite state by ambassadors and presents.[964]Hittite prisoners graced this triumph of the Assyrian conqueror, in his capital, being distinguished by their long robes and cumbrous hats.[965]
Though in the following year Bit Adini once more rebelled, with the result that two hundred villages and six fortresses were taken or destroyed, and Tell Barsip was garrisoned by Assyrian troops, it would seem that five years later the states of Carchemish, Kummukh, Milid, Samalla, Hattina and Gurgum[966]still acknowledged, however unwillingly, the suzerainty of their all-powerful neighbour, and their respective kings attended a conference at his bidding. Aleppo alone stood aloof, and was persuaded accordingly by force of arms. Satisfied apparently with their submission and attitude, the Assyrian king determined to try conclusions with the Aramæan power seated at Damascus. The Hittites of Hamath, Quë, and the Taurus fought against him in the great battle which ensued at Qarqar.[967]The issue was indecisive, but the Assyrian, as the attacker, lost prestige by his lack of success. Carchemish and other vassal states promptly refusedto renew their tribute. Shalmaneser was a whole year suppressing this rebellion, and thereafter found it desirable to send an expedition to the frontier each year to maintain his authority.
Thus far, it is clear, the incursions of the Assyrians into the Hittite territory had been rather of the nature of raids for booty and the exaction of tribute; no serious effort had been made as yet to bring the states within the direct government of Assyria, and the operations had been confined practically to the north of Syria. There is a record of 850B.C.from which it may be thought that a first blow was now aimed at the central Hittite states.[968]In the next year, however, after the Assyrian forces had passed Carchemish and reached the Amanus, and then turning southward had held Hattina to ransom, a league of twelve Hittite kings in the vicinity of Hamath seems to have barred their further progress. These kings are no more mentioned, and possibly their territory was absorbed by Damascus, which had obviously gained influence after the battle of Qarqar. The King of Hamath, however, paid homage to the Assyrian when he once more entered the valley of the Orontes in 842B.C.
Turning for a moment from the affairs of Syria, the kingdom of Tabal was for the first time invaded in 838B.C., and the Assyrian claims to have reduced twenty-four of its chieftains to subjection. In Quë the king, Kati, was dethroned and replaced by another named Kirri; while further west Tarsus also fell into the Assyrian hands. At this stage Shalmaneser gave up his military command; for a while the Hittitestates had respite, and some of them, like the Hattina, resumed an attitude of independence.
Submergence of the Hittite States in the Eighth CenturyB.C.
Submergence of the Hittite States in the Eighth CenturyB.C.
Meanwhile, however, the Vannic kings had been steadily gaining strength and now found themselves powerful enough to more than hold their own. Erelong they began to cause the Assyrians considerable inquietude on their northern frontier, and about 804B.C.Menuas drove back the Assyrians and attacked the Hittites. Crossing the Euphrates the Urartians exacted tribute from Malatia.[969]The events of the next generation are obscure; but in 776 the Hittite tribes of Syria, notably those under the Amanus, took advantage of the discomfiture of the Assyrians at the hands of the new Urartian king, Argistis of Ararat, to throw off their allegiance; and within a few years most of them were free of the Assyrian yoke. But their freedom was transient. Argistis looms in the historyof these times as a great conqueror, and the Hittite states on his immediate frontier, including not only Malatia and Kummukh, but possibly a great part of Tabal, yielded to his authority. After a temporary withdrawal, it would seem, the whole of northern Syria was swiftly brought within the domain of the new power. In 758B.C.the kingdom of Malatia, which under Khite-ruadas had regained a momentary independence, was invaded once more by the hardy mountaineers: the capital, as well as fourteen castles and a hundred towns, fell into their hands.[970]By 756B.C.Marash also had probably fallen, for the conquests of the Vannic power extended as far south as had the Assyrian, and the Hittite states of northern Syria were all forced into allegiance. Previous to the year 744B.C.at any rate, when the Assyrian king, Tiglath-PileserIII., with a reinvigorated army, prepared to repel the invaders, Carchemish, Gurgum, Kummukh, Unki and Quë all acknowledged the suzerainty of Sharduris.[971]
The details of the struggle for Syria between two foreign powers can hardly be regarded as Hittite history. The Hittite strength was already gone; their kingdoms in Syria and the Taurus had been broken, ravaged, and weakened by the scourge of constant wars; while in Asia Minor a similar but more vital struggle, all unknown to history, was being waged between the advancing Phrygians and the chief Hittite kingdoms of the interior. All hope of general union was at an end. Yet in the records of the Syrian side of these affairs, it is wonderful to see how thespirit of independence lived on in the old Hittite centres, ready at any time to break out in open rebellion. No ordinary military punishments seemed able to crush it. In 743, Tiglath-Pileser met and routed the great confederate army of Sharduris, with whom fought the Hittite contingents from Agusi, Gurgum, Kummukh, and Malatia.[972]The issue was decisive and momentous. Both kings led their armies in person, and the Assyrian record[973]states that 73,000 of the enemy were slain in battle. Yet undismayed, Matîlu of Agusi, the centre of which was Arpad, seems to have asserted his freedom and to have resisted the Assyrian for nearly three years, when he was overcome and slain in 740B.C.The downfall of Arpad and the death of its king were not without a reactive effect upon the other states, so that the kings of Kummukh, Gurgum, Carchemish, and Quë came to the victors to humbly tender their formal submission. The Hattina still held out, but the Assyrian moved on their capital, Kinalua, which was carried by assault; and in order to avoid further disturbance in these rebellious quarters, both Agusi and Unki were hereafter administered by Assyrian officers and garrisoned by Assyrian troops. The policy thus initiated, coupled with that of deportation of the natives in large numbers, proved more fateful to the Hittites than the long series of punitive expeditions sent against them.
Samalla was next in arms. Profiting by the absence of the Assyrian forces on their own north-eastern frontiers, Azriyahu, who appears to have been a native prince, laid claim to the throne, though it was occupied byPanammuII.,[974]a Semitic ruler who had been set up by the Assyrian king. Tiglath-Pileser hastened back to restore order, laying waste Kullani[975]on his way. He then passed southwards up the valley of the Orontes, ravaging as he went. Hamath yielded, and the kings of Carchemish, Malatia, and Tabal, with others, were convinced by these exploits that it was their best policy to tender their complete submission and to send their tribute. The Assyrian supremacy was now complete, and it was demonstrated by an arduous expedition which penetrated to the walls of the Urartian capital, in the mountains of the north. The Vannic power was broken, and thereafter its warriors only appear like those of the Hittites, in a series of vain struggles against the greater power that was steadily overwhelming them. In 732B.C.the fall of Damascus at last laid open the way to the founding of the greatest Assyrian empire.
Our tale is nearly told; the inevitable issue is traceable in a bare statement of the chief events of a dozen years. A last combine in 720B.C.of the Hittites of Tabal and Carchemish, reinforced by the Urartians, only tended to precipitate the end. In 718 the troops of Sargon passed northwards through the Cilician gates,[976]beyond which Tyana no longer represented thechief Hittite centre, but was now a frontier stronghold of the Phrygian Midas.[977]This monarch was obviously perplexed by the Assyrian advance, and made overtures to Pisiris of Carchemish, who openly revolted. But Midas failed him: his kingdom became an Assyrian colony, and the greatest Hittite stronghold of Syria, that had so long retained a semblance of real independence amid the submergence of the states around, was now garrisoned with Assyrian soldiers.[978]The Tabal were again in arms in 713B.C., though the rebel leader was a protégé of Assyria.[979]He was duly punished, and his fief was annexed to the Cilician province. Following an incursion led by Tarkhunazi of Malatia, the eastern portion of the Tabal, around Comana, was in 712B.C.fortified as an Assyrian frontier state, with five forts on the Urartian side, two towards the north, and three as protection against the Phrygians. The kingdom of Malatia itself was in 710 put under the rule of Mutallu of Kummukh, and the whole mountain region was renamed Tulgarimme. Gurgum, with its stout fortress of Marash, was the last to succumb. For something like thirty years its last king, Tarkhulara, had retained his throne by diplomatic presents and submission first to the Urartian, and then to the Assyrian. Upon the outbreak of local hostilities, however, in 709, this state also was created an Assyrian province, and with that event the last element of Hittite freedom disappeared.
In the mountains of Taurus, in the kingdom ofTabal, the smouldering fire might still burst from time to time[980]into a flame. But the Cimmerian hordes put out that spark, as they had done for the Urartu, and did in due time for the Muski; and before they could be driven back the course of history was changed. The story of the Hittites was ended; ‘Meshech and Tubal’[981]were destroyed, and ‘the Land of the Hittites’ became a memory of the past.[982]
MAP OF HITTITE SITES IN ASIA MINOR AND N. SYRIA.
MAP OF HITTITE SITES IN ASIA MINOR AND N. SYRIA.
2000B.C.[983]Settlements in southern Syria; overthrow of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon (p. 323). Horse and chariot used in Asia Minor (p. 320).
1400B.C.[983]Hatti kings established at Boghaz-Keui (p. 326).
1380B.C.[983]Subbi-luliuma annexes N. Syria (p. 330) and invades Mesopotamia (p. 331).
1370B.C.[983]Amorite vassalage (p. 336); Treaty with Egypt (p. 337); Mitanni a protectorate (p. 338).
Empire in Asia Minor and N. Syria.
Palace[984]on Beuyuk-Kaleh at Boghaz-Keui; local palaces at Eyuk and Malatia; sculptures of Fraktin and (?) Sipylus (p. 339).
1350B.C.[983]Reign of Arandas. 1340B.C.[983]Accession of Mursil (p. 341).
1330B.C.[984]Lower palace at Boghaz-Keui constructed (p. 342).
1320B.C.[983]Assyria takes Mesopotamia and Malatia (p. 342).
1310B.C.[983]Egypt reconquers N. Syria (p. 343).
1295B.C.[984]Accession of Mutallu (p. 343).
1288B.C.,[983]Battle of Kadesh (p. 343).
1271B.C.Hattusil concludes treaty with Egypt (p. 347). Diplomatic relations with Babylonia (p. 350).[984]Sculptures of Iasily Kaya, Giaour-Kalesi, and Kara-Bel (p. 366). [? Fortifications of Boghaz-Keui constructed] Hittite cities at Hamath, Aleppo, Carchemish, Sinjerli, Sakje-Geuzi, Marash, Malatia, Comana; confederate states in western and southern Asia Minor.
1258B.C.Hittite king (? Dudkhalia) visits the Pharaoh (p. 351).
1220B.C.[983]Arnuanta, cadastral survey (p. 352).
1200B.C.[983]Invasions by the Muski-Phrygians; fall of the Hatti and (?) Boghaz-Keui (p. 368).
1170B.C.[983]Muski reach the Assyrian frontier; 1120, repelled (p. 368).
1120B.C.et seqq.Assyrian invasions of N. Syria and Taurus (p. 369).
1000B.C.[983]to 900B.C.Revival of the Hittite kingdoms.[984]Sculptures of Bor, Ivrîz, Eyuk, Malatia, Marash, Sinjerli, Sakje-Geuzi; inscriptions of Bulghar-Madên and Karaburna (p. 373). Road opened through Cilician Gates (p. 366). Palace reconstructed at Boghaz-Keui; Amazon sculpture (p. 372).
885B.C.Invasions by Assyria as far as (838) Tabal and Tarsus (p. 384).
750B.C.[983]N. Syria and Taurus subject to the Vannic kings (p. 386).[984]Plateau of Asia Minor subject to Phrygia.
743B.C.Assyrian supremacy re-established (p. 387).
718B.C.Fall of Carchemish; Assyrian troops enter Asia Minor (p. 388).
712B.C.Tabal (Taurus) conquered; 709, fall of Marash (p. 389).