Chapter III: Sargon of Assyria (722-705 B.c.) (1)

_Sargon as a warrior and as a builder._

Whether Sargon was even remotely connected with the royal line, is a question which for the present must remain unanswered. He mentions in one of his inscriptions the three hundred princes who had preceded him in the government of Assyria, and three lines further on he refers to the kings his ancestors, but he never mentions his own father by name, and this omission seems to prove that he was not a direct descendant of Shalmaneser V., nor of Tiglath-pileser III. nor indeed of any of their immediate predecessors. It is, however, probable, if not certain, that he could claim some sort of kinship with them, though more or less remote. It was customary for the sovereigns of Nineveh to give their daughters in marriage to important officials or lords of their court, and owing to the constant contraction of such alliances through several centuries, there was hardly a noble family but had some royal blood in its veins; and that of Sargon was probably no exception to the rule. His genealogy was traced by the chroniclers, through several hundred generations of princes, to the semi-mythical heroes who had founded the city of Assur; but as Assur-nazir-pal and his descendants had claimed Bel-kapkapi and Sulili as the founders of their race, the Sargonids chose a different tradition, and drew their descent from Belbâni, son of Adasi. The cause and incidents of the revolution which raised Sargon to the throne are unknown, but we may surmise that the policy adopted with regard to Karduniash was a factor in the case. Tiglath-pileser had hardly entered Babylon before the fascination of the city, the charm of its associations, and the sacred character of the legends which hallowed it, seized upon his imagination; he returned to it twice in the space of two years to take the hands of Bel, and Shalmaneser V. much preferred it to Calah or Nineveh as a place of residence. The Assyrians doubtless soon became jealous of the favour shown by their princes to their ancient enemy, and their discontent must have doubtless conduced to their decision to raise a new monarch to the throne. The Babylonians, on the other hand, seem to have realised that the change in the dynasty presaged a disadvantageous alteration of government; for as soon as the news reached them a movement was set on foot and search made for a rival claimant to set up in opposition to Sargon.*

* The succession of events, as indicated in _Pinches
Babylonian Chronicle_, seems indeed to imply that the
Babylonians waited to ascertain the disposition of the new
king before they decided what line to adopt. In fact,
Shalmaneser died in the month Tebeth, and Sargon ascended
the throne at Assur in the same month, and it was only in
the month Nisân that Mero-dach-baladan was proclaimed king.
The three months intervening between the accession of Sargon
and that of Merodach-baladan evidently represent a period of
indecision., when it was not yet known if the king would
follow the policy of his predecessors with regard to
Babylon, or adopt a different attitude towards her.

Of all the nations who had in turn occupied the plains of the Lower Euphrates and the marshes bordering on Arabia, the Kaldâ alone had retained their full vitality. They were constantly recruited by immigrants from their kinsfolk of the desert, and the continual infiltration of these semi-barbarous elements kept the race from becoming enervated by contact with the indigenous population, and more than compensated for the losses in their ranks occasioned by war. The invasion of Tiglath-pileser and the consequent deportations of prisoners had decimated the tribes of Bît-Shilâni, Bît-Shaali, and Bît-Amuhkâni, the principalities of the Kaldâ which lay nearest to Babylonian territory, and which had borne the brunt of attack in the preceding period; but their weakness brought into notice a power better equipped for warfare, whose situation in their rear had as a rule hitherto preserved it from contact with the Assyrians, namely, Bît-Yakîn. The continual deposit of alluvial soil at the mouths of the rivers had greatly altered the coastline from the earliest historic times downwards. The ancient estuary was partly filled up, especially on the western side, where the Euphrates enters the Persian Gulf: a narrow barrier of sand and silt extended between the marshes of Arabia and Susiana, at the spot where the streams of fresh water met the tidal waters of the sea, and all that was left of the ancient gulf was a vast lagoon, or, as the dwellers on the banks called it, a kind of brackish river, _Nâr marratum_. Bît-Yakîn occupied the southern and western portions of this district, from the mouth of the Tigris to the edge of the desert. The aspect of the country was constantly changing, and presented no distinctive features; it was a region difficult to attack and easy to defend; it consisted first of a spongy plain, saturated with water, with scattered artificial mounds on which stood the clustered huts of the villages; between this plain and the shore stretched a labyrinth of fens and peat-bogs, irregularly divided by canals and channels freshly formed each year in flood-time, meres strewn with floating islets, immense reed-beds where the neighbouring peasants took refuge from attack, and into which no one would venture to penetrate without hiring some friendly native as a guide. In this fenland dwelt the Kaldâ in their low, small conical huts of reeds, somewhat resembling giant beehives, and in all respects similar to those which the Bedawin of Irak inhabit at the present day.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief reproduced in
Layard.

Dur-Yakîn, their capital, was probably situated on the borders of the gulf, near the Euphrates, in such a position as to command the mouths of the river. Merodach-baladan, who was King of Bît-Yakîn at the time of Sargons accession, had become subject to Assyria in 729 B.C., and had paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser, but he was nevertheless the most powerful chieftain who had borne rule over the Chaldæans since the death of Ukînzîr.*

* Dur-Yakîn was situated on the shores of the Persian gulf,
as is proved by a passage in the _Bull Inscription_, where
it is stated that Sargon threw into the sea the corpses of
the soldiers killed during the siege; the neighbourhood of
the Euphrates is implied in the text of the _Inscription des
Fastes_, and the _Annals_, where the measures taken by
Merodach-baladan to defend his capital are described. The
name of Bît-Yakîn, and probably also that of Dur-Yakin, have
been preserved to us in the name of Aginis or Aginnê, the
name of a city mentioned by Strabo, and by the historians of
Alexander. Its site is uncertain, but can be located near
the present town of Kornah.

It was this prince whom the Babylonians chose to succeed Shalmaneser V. He presented himself before the city, was received with acclamation, and prepared without delay to repulse any hostilities on the part of the Assyrians.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph in Peters.

He found a well-disposed ally in Elani. From very ancient times the masters of Susa had aspired to the possession of Mesopotamia or the suzerainty over it, and fortune had several times favoured their ambitious designs. On one occasion they had pressed forward their victorious arms as far as the Mediterranean, and from that time forward, though the theatre of their operations was more restricted, they had never renounced the right to interfere in Babylonian affairs, and indeed, not long previously, one of them had reigned for a period of seven years in Babylon in the interval between two dynasties. Our information with regard to the order of succession and the history of these energetic and warlike monarchs is as yet very scanty; their names even are for the most part lost, and only approximate dates can be assigned to those of whom we catch glimpses from time to time.* Khumban-numena, the earliest of whom we have any record, exercised a doubtful authority, from Anshân to Susa, somewhere about the fourteenth century B.C., and built a temple to the god Kirisha in his capital, Liyan.**

* These names are in the majority of cases found written on
stamped and baked bricks. They were first compared with the
names contained in the Annals of Sargon and his successors,
and assimilated to those of the princes who were
contemporary with Sennacherib and Assur-bani-pal; then they
were referred to the time of the great Elamite empire, and
one of them was identified with that Kudur-Nakhunta who had
pillaged Uruk 1635 years before Assur-bani-pal. Finally,
they were brought down again to an intermediate period, more
precisely, to the fourteenth or thirteenth century B.C. This
last date appears to be justified, at least as the highest
permissible, by the mention of Durkurigalzu, in a text of
Undasgal.

** Jensen was the first to recognise that Liyan was a place-
name, and the inscriptions of Shilkhak-Inshusinak add that
Liyan was the capital of the kingdom; perhaps it was the
name of a part of Susa. Khumban-numena has left us no
monuments of his own, but he is mentioned on those of his
son.

His son Undasgal carried on the works begun by his father, but that is all the information the inscriptions afford concerning him, and the mist of oblivion which for a moment lifted and allowed us to discern dimly the outlines of this sovereign, closes in again and hides everything from our view for the succeeding forty or fifty years.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Marcel
Dieulafoy.

About the thirteenth century a gleam once more pierces the darkness, and a race of warlike and pious kings emerges into view--Khalludush-In-shushinak, his son Shutruk-nakhunta, the latters two sons, Kutur-nakhunta and Shilkhak-Inshu-shinak,* and then perhaps a certain Kutir-khuban.

* The order of succession of these princes is proved by the
genealogies with which their bricks are covered. Jensen has
shown that we ought to read Khalludush-Inshushinak and
Shilkhak-Inshushinak, instead of the shorter forms
Khalludush and Shilkhak read previously.

The inscriptions on their bricks boast of their power, their piety, and their inexhaustible wealth. One after another they repaired and enlarged the temple built by Khumban-numena at Liyan, erected sanctuaries and palaces at Susa, fortified their royal citadel, and ruled over Habardîp and the Cossæans as well as over Anshân and Elam. They vigorously contested the possession of the countries on the right bank of the Tigris with the Babylonians, and Shutruk-nakhunta even succeeded in conquering Babylon itself. He deprived Zamâmâ-shumiddin, the last but one of the Cossæan kings, of his sceptre and his life, placed his own son Kutur-nakhunta on the throne, and when the vanquished Babylonians set up Bel-nadinshumu as a rival sovereign, he laid waste Karduniash with fire and sword. After the death of Bel-nadinshumu, the Pashê princes continued to offer resistance, but at first without success. Shutruk-nakhunta had taken away from the temple of Esagilla the famous statue of Bel-Merodach, whose hands had to be taken by each newly elected king of Babylon, and had carried it off in his waggons to Elam, together with much spoil from the cities on the Euphrates.*

* The name of the king is destroyed on the Babylonian
document, but the mention of Kutur-nakhunta as his son
obliges us, till further information comes to light, to
recognise in him the Shutruk-nakhunta of the bricks of Susa,
who also had a son Kutur-nakhunta. This would confirm the
restoration of Shutruk-nakhunta as the name of a sovereign
who boasts, in a mutilated inscription, that he had pushed
his victories as far as the Tigris, and even up to the
Euphrates.

Nebuchadrezzar I. brought the statue back to Babylon after many vicissitudes, and at the same time recovered most of his lost provinces, but he had to leave at Susa the bulk of the trophies which had been collected there in course of the successful wars. One of these represented the ancient hero Naram-sin standing, mace in hand, on the summit of a hill, while his soldiers forced their way up the slopes, driving before them the routed hosfcs of Susa. Shutruk-nakhunta left the figures and names untouched, but carved in one corner of the bas-relief a dedicatory inscription, transforming this ancient proof of Babylonian victories over Elam into a trophy of Blamite victories over Babylon.

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Morgan.

His descendants would assuredly have brought Mesopotamia into lasting subjection, had not the feudal organisation of their empire tolerated the existence of contemporary local dynasties, the members of which often disputed the supreme authority with the rightful king. The dynasty which ruled Habardîp* seems to have had its seat of government at Tarrisha in the, valley of Malamîr.**

* The prince represented on the bas-reliefs gives himself
the title Apirra, the name of Apîr, Apirti, or Habardîp.

** Tarrisha is the name of a town, doubtless the capital of
the fief of Malamîr; it is probably represented by the
considerable ruins which Layard identified as the remains of
the Sassanid city of Aidej.

Three hundred figures carved singly or in groups on the rocks of Kul-Firaun portray its princes and their ministers in every posture of adoration, but most of them have no accompanying inscription. One large bas relief, however, forms an exception, and from its legend we learn the name of Khanni, son of Takhkhi-khîkhutur.*

* The name of Khanni has been explained by Sayce as _the
desirable_, and that of his father, Takhkhi-khîkhutur, as
_help this thy servant_.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Babin and Houssay.

This prince, even if possessed of no royal protocol, was none the less a powerful and wealthy personage. His figure dominates the picture, the central space of which it completely fills;* his expression is calm, but somewhat severe. His head is covered by a low cap, from which long locks escape and flow over his shoulders; the hair on his face is symmetrically curled above the level of his mouth, and terminates in a pointed beard. The figure is clothed from head to foot in a stiff robe and mantle adorned with tufted fringes, and borders of embroidered rosettes; a girdle at the waist completes the misleading resemblance to the gala-dress of a Nine vite, monarch. The hands are crossed on the breast in an attitude of contemplation, while the prince gazes thoughtfully at a sacrifice which is being offered on his behalf. At the bottom of the picture stands a small altar, behind which a priest in a short tunic seems to be accomplishing some cérémonial rite, while two men are cutting the throat of a ram. Higher up the heads of three rams lie beside their headless trunks, which are resting on the ground, feet in the air, while a servant brandishes a short sword with which he is about to decapitate the fourth beast. Above these, again, three musicians march in procession, one playing on a harp, another on a five-stringed lyre, and the third on a tambourine. An attendant holding a bow, and the minister Shutsururazi, stand quietly waiting till the sacrifice is accomplished. The long text which runs across several of the figures is doubtless a prayer, and contains the names of peoples and princes mingled with those of deities.

* Perrot and Chipiez, misled by the analogy of the Hittite
bas-relief at Ibriz, took the largest figure for the image
of a god. The inscription engraved on the robe, _U Khanni
shak Takkhi-khikutur_, I am Khanni, son of Takhkhi-
khîkhutur, leaves no doubt that the figure represents the
prince himself, and not a divinity.

The memory of these provincial chiefs would be revived, and more of their monuments discovered, if the mountains and inaccessible valleys of ancient Elam could be thoroughly explored: it is evident, from the small portion of their history which has been brought to light, that they must have been great sources of trouble to the dynasties which reigned in Susa, and that their revolts must often have jeopardised the safety of the empire, in spite of the assistance afforded by the Aramæans from the tenth or eleventh centuries onwards. All the semi-nomadic tribes which densely peopled the banks of the Tigris, and whose advance towards the north had been temporarily favoured by the weakness of Assyria--the Gambulu, the Pukudu, the Eutu, and the Itua--had a natural tendency to join forces with Elam for the purpose of raiding the wealthy cities of Chaldæa, and this alliance, or subjection, as it might be more properly termed, always insured them against any reprisals on the part of their victims. The unknown king who dwelt at Susa in 745 B.C. committed the error of allowing Tiglath-pileser to crush these allies. Khumban-igash, who succeeded this misguided monarch in 742 B.C., did not take up arms to defend Bit-Amuk-kâni and the other states of the Kaldâ from 731 to 729, but experience must have taught him that he had made a mistake in remaining an unmoved spectator of their misfortunes; for when Merodach-baladan, in quest of allies, applied to him, he unhesitatingly promised him his support.*

* The date of his accession is furnished by the passage in
_Pinches Babylonian Chronicle_, where it is stated that he
ascended the throne of Elam in the fifth year of Nabonazir.
The Assyrian and Babylonian scribes assimilated the Susian
_b_ to the _m_, and also suppressed the initial aspirate of
the Elamite name, writing generally Umman-igash for Khumban-
igash.

Assyria and Elam had hitherto seldom encountered one another on the field of battle. A wide barrier of semi-barbarous states had for a long time held them apart, and they would have had to cross the territory of the Babylonians or the Cossæans before coming into contact with each other. Tiglath-pileser I., however, had come into conflict with the northern districts of Elam towards the end of the twelfth century B.C., and more recently the campaigns of Assur-nazir-pal, Shalmaneser III., and Rammân-nirâri had frequently brought these sovereigns into contact with tribes under the influence of Susa; but the wildness and poverty of the country, and the difficulties it offered to the manoeuvres of large armies, had always prevented the Assyrian generals from advancing far into its mountainous regions.* The annexation of Aramæan territory beyond the Tigris, and the conquest of Babylon by Tiglath-pileser III., at length broke through the barrier and brought the two powers face to face at a point where they could come into conflict without being impeded by almost insurmountable natural obstacles, namely, in the plains of the Umliash and the united basins of the Lower Ulai and the Uknu. Ten years experience had probably sufficed to convince Khumban-igash of the dangers to which the neighbourhood of the Assyrians exposed his subjects. The vigilant watch which the new-comers kept over their frontier rendered raiding less easy; and if one of the border chieftains were inclined to harry, as of old, an unlucky Babylonian or Cossæan village, he ran the risk of an encounter with a well-armed force, or of being plundered in turn by way of reprisal.

* Sargon declares distinctly that Merodach-baladan had
invoked the aid of Khumban-igash.

An irregular but abundant source of revenue was thus curtailed, without taking into consideration the wars to which such incidents must perforce lead sooner or later. Even unaided the Elamites considered themselves capable of repelling any attack; allied with the Babylonians or the Kaldâ, they felt certain of victory in any circumstances. Sargon realised this fact almost as fully as did the Elamites themselves; as soon, therefore, as his spies had forewarned him that an invasion was imminent, he resolved to take the initiative and crush his enemies singly before they Succeeded in uniting their forces. Khumban-igash had advanced as far as the walls of Durîlu, a stronghold which commanded the Umliash, and he there awaited the advent of his allies before laying siege to the town: it was, however, the Assyrian army which came to meet him and offered him battle. The conflict was a sanguinary one, as became an engagement between such valiant foes, and both sides claimed the victory. The Assyrians maintained then-ground, forcing the Elamites to evacuate their positions, and tarried some weeks longer to chastise those of their Aramæan subjects who had made common cause with the enemy: they carried away the Tumuna, who had given up their sheikh into the hands of the emissaries of the Kaldâ, and transported the whole tribe, without Merodach-baladan making any attempt to save his allies, although his army had not as yet struck a single blow.*

* The history of this first campaign against Merodach-
baladan, which is found in a mutilated condition in the
_Annals of Sargon_, exists nowhere else in a complete form,
but the facts are very concisely referred to in the _Fastes_
and in the _Cylinders_. The general sequence of events is
indicated by _Pinches Babylonian Chronicle_, but the author
places them in 720 B.C., the second year of Merodach-
baladan, contrary to the testimony of the _Annals_, and
attributes the victory to the Elamites in the battle of
Durîlu, in deference to Babylonian patriotism. The course of
events after the battle of Durflu seems to prove clearly
that the Assyrians remained masters of the field.

Having accomplished this act of vengeance, the Assyrians suspended operations and returned to Nineveh to repair their losses, probably intending to make a great effort to regain the whole of Babylonia in the ensuing year. Grave events which occurred elsewhere prevented them, however, from carrying this ambitious project into effect. The fame of their war against Elam had spread abroad in the Western provinces of the empire, and doubtless exaggerated accounts circulated with regard to the battle of Durîlu had roused the spirit of dissatisfaction in the west. Sargon had scarcely seated himself securely on a throne to which he was not the direct heir, when he was menaced by Elam and repudiated by Chaldæa, and it remained to be seen whether his resources would prove equal to maintaining the integrity of his empire, or whether the example set by Merodach-baladan would not speedily be imitated by all who groaned under the Assyrian yoke. Since the decline of Damascus and Arpad, Hamath had again taken a prominent place in Northern Syria: prompt submission had saved this city from destruction in the time of Tiglath-pileser III., and it had since prospered under the foreign rule; it was, therefore, on Hamath that all hopes of deliverance still cherished by rulers and people now centred. A low-born fellow, a smith named Iaubîdi, rose in rebellion against the prince of Hamath for being mean-spirited enough to pay tribute, proclaimed himself king, and in the space of a few months revived under his own leadership the coalition which Hadadezer and Rezon II. had formed in days gone by. Arpad and Bît-Agusi, Zimyra and Northern Phoenicia, Damascus and its dependencies, all expelled their Assyrian garrisons, and Samaria, though still suffering from its overthrow, summoned up courage to rid itself of its governor. Meanwhile, Hannon of Gaza, recently reinstated in his city by Egyptian support, was carrying on negotiations with a view to persuading Egypt to interfere in the affairs of Syria. The last of the Tanite Pharaohs, Psamuti, was just dead, and Bocchoris, who had long been undisputed master of the Delta, had now ventured to assume the diadem openly (722 B.C.), a usurpation which the Ethiopians, fully engaged in the Thebaid and on the Upper Nile, seemed to regard with equanimity. As soon as the petty kings and feudal lords had recognised his suzerainty, Bocchoris «listened favourably to the entreaties of Hannon, and promised to send an army to Gaza under the command of his general Shabê. Sargon, threatened with the loss of the entire western half of his empire, desisted for a time from his designs on Babylon, Khumban-igash was wise enough to refrain from provoking an enemy who left him in peace, and Merodach-baladan did not dare to enter the lists without the support of his confederate: the victory of Durîlu, though it had not succeeded in gaining a province for Nineveh, had at least secured the south-eastern frontier from attack, at all events for so long as it should please Sargon to remain at a distance.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Flandin.

The league formed by Hamath had not much power of cohesion. Iaubîdi had assembled his forces and the contingents of his allies at the town of Qarqar as Hadadezer had done before: he was completely defeated, taken prisoner, and flayed alive. His kingdom was annexed to the Assyrian empire, Qarqar was burnt to the ground, the fortifications of Hamath were demolished, and the city obliged to furnish a force of two hundred charioteers and six hundred horsemen, probably recruited from among the families of the upper classes, to serve as hostages as well as auxiliaries. Arpad, Zimyra, Damascus, Samaria, all succumbed without serious opposition, and the citizens who had been most seriously compromised in the revolt paid for their disaffection with their lives. This success confirmed the neighbouring states of Tyre, Sidon, Judah, Ammon, and Moab in their allegiance, which had shown signs of wavering since the commencement of hostilities; but Gaza remained unsubdued, and caused the more uneasiness because it was perceived that behind her was arrayed all the majesty of the Pharaoh. The Egyptians, slow to bestir themselves, had not yet crossed the Isthmus when the Assyrians appeared beneath the walls of Gaza: Hannon, worsted in a preliminary skirmish, retreated on Raphia, where Shabê, the Egyptian general, had at length arrived, and the decisive battle took place before this town. It was the first time that the archers and charioteers of the Nile valley had measured forces with the pikemen and cavalry of that of the Tigris; the engagement was hotly contested, but the generals and soldiers of Bocchoris, fighting according to antiquated methods of warfare, gave way before the onset of the Assyrian ranks, who were better equipped and better led. Shabê fled like a shepherd whose sheep had been stolen, Hannon was taken prisoner and loaded with chains, and Raphia fell into the hands of the conqueror; the inhabitants who survived the sack of their city were driven into captivity to the number of 9033 men, with their flocks and household goods. The manifest superiority of Assyria was evident from the first encounter, but the contest had been so fierce and the result so doubtful that Sargon did not consider it prudent to press his advantage. He judged rightly that these troops, whom he had not dispersed without considerable effort, constituted merely an advanced guard. 4 Egypt was not like the petty kingdoms of Syria or Asia Minor, which had but one army apiece, and could not risk more than one pitched battle. Though Shabês force was routed, others would not fail to take its place and contend as fiercely for the possession of the country, and even if the Assyrians should succeed in dislodging them and curbing the power of Bocchoris, the fall of Sais or Memphis, far from putting an end to the war, would only raise fresh complications. Above Memphis stretched the valley of the Nile, bristling with fortresses, Khininsu, Oxyrhynchus, Hermopolis, Siut, Thinis, and Thebes, the famous city of Amon, enthroned on the banks of the river, whose very name still evoked in the minds of the Asiatics a vivid remembrance of all its triumphal glories.*

* Thebes was at that time known among the Semites by its
popular name of _the city of Amon_--which the Hebrew writers
transcribed as Nô-Amon (_Nahum_ iii. 8) or Nô alone (Jer.
xlvi. 25; Ezek. xxx. 14, 15, 16), and the Assyrians by Ni.

Thebes itself formed merely one stage in the journey towards Syene, Ethiopia, Napata, and the unknown regions of Africa which popular imagination filled with barbarous races or savage monsters, and however far an alien army might penetrate in a southerly direction, it would still meet with the language, customs, and divinities of Egypt--an Egypt whose boundary seemed to recede as the invader advanced, and which was ever ready to oppose the enemy with fresh forces whenever its troops had suffered from his attacks. Sargon, having reached Kaphia, halted on the very threshold of the unexplored realm whose portals stood ajar ready to admit him: the same vague disquietude which had checked the conquering career of the Pharaohs on the borders of Asia now stayed his advance, and bade him turn back as he was on the point of entering Africa. He had repulsed the threatened invasion, and as a result of his victory the princes and towns which had invoked the aid of the foreigner lay at his mercy; he proceeded, therefore, to reorganise the provinces of Philistia and Israel, and received the homage of Judah and her dependencies. Ahaz, while all the neighbouring states were in revolt, had not wavered in his allegiance; the pacific counsels of Isaiah had once more prevailed over the influence of the party which looked for safety in an alliance with Egypt.*

* Sargon probably alludes to homage received at this time,
when he styles himself the subduer of far-off Judah. It
is not certain that Ahaz was still King of Judah; it was for
a long time admitted that Hezekiah was already king when
these events took place, in accordance with 2 Kings xviii.
9, 10, where it is stated that Samaria was destroyed in the
sixth year of Hezekiah. I consider, in agreement with
several historians, that the date of Sennacheribs invasion
of Judah must have remained more firmly fixed in the minds
of the Jewish historians than that of the taking of Samaria,
and as 2 Kings xviii. 13 places this invasion in the
fourteenth year of Hezekiah, which corresponds, as we shall
see, to the third year of Sennacherib, or 702 B.C., it seems
better to place the accession of Hezekiah about 715, and
prolong the reign of Ahaz till after the campaign of Sargon
against Hannon of Gaza.

The whole country from the Orontes to the mountains of Seir and the river of Egypt was again reduced to obedience, and set itself by peaceful labours to repair the misfortunes which had befallen it during the previous quarter of a century. Sargon returned to his capital, but fate did not yet allow him to renew his projects against Babylon. Barely did an insurrection break out in any part of the country on the accession of a new king at Nineveh without awaking echoes in the distant provinces of the empire. The report of a revolt in Chaldæa roused a slumbering dissatisfaction among the Syrians, and finally led them into open rebellion: the episodes of the Syrian campaign, narrated in Armenia or on the slopes of the Taurus with the thousand embellishments suggested by the rancour of the narrators, excited the minds of the inhabitants and soon rendered an outbreak inevitable. The danger would have been serious if the suppressed hatred of all had found vent at the same moment, and if insurrections in five or six different parts of his empire had to be faced by the sovereign simultaneously; but as a rule these local wars broke out without any concentrated plan, and in localities too remote from each other to permit of any possible co-operation between the assailants; each chief, before attempting to assert his independence, seemed to wait until the Assyrians had had ample time to crush the rebel who first took the field, having done which they could turn the whole of their forces against the latest foe. Thus Iaubîdi did not risk a campaign till the fall of Elam and Karduniash had been already decided on the field of Durilu; in the same way, the nations of the North and East refrained from entering the lists till they had allowed Sargon time to destroy the league of Hamath and repel the attack of Bharaoh.

They were secretly incited to rebellion by a power which played nearly the same part with regard to them that Egypt had played in Southern Syria. Urartu had received a serious rebuff in 735 B.C., and the burning of Dhuspas had put an end to its ascendency, but the victory had been effected at the cost of so much bloodshed that Tiglath-pileser was not inclined to risk losing the advantage already gained by pushing it too far: he withdrew, therefore, without concluding a treaty, and did not return, being convinced that no further hostilities would be attempted till the vanquished enemy had recovered from his defeat. He was justified in his anticipations, for Sharduris died about 730, without having again taken up arms, and his son Busas I. had left Shalmaneser V. unmolested:* but the accession of Sargon and the revolts which harassed him had awakened in Busas the warlike instincts of his race, and the moment appeared advantageous for abandoning his policy of inactivity.

* The name of this king is usually written Ursa in the
Assyrian inscriptions, but the _Annals of Sargon_ give in
each case the form Rusa, in accordance with which Sayce had
already identified the Assyrian form Ursa or Rusa with the
form Rusas found on some Urartian monuments. Belck and
Lehmann have discovered several monuments of this Rusas I.,
son of Sharduris.

The remembrance of the successful exploits of Menuas and Argistis still lived in the minds of his people, and more than one of his generals had entered upon their military careers at a time when, from Arpad and Carchemish to the country of the Medes, quite a third of the territory now annexed to Assyria had been subject to the king of Urartu; Eusas, therefore, doubtless placed before himself the possibility of reconquering the lost provinces, and even winning, by a stroke of fortune, more than had been by a stroke of fortune wrested from his father. He began by intriguing with such princes as were weary of the Assyrian rule, among the Mannai, in Zikartu,* among the Tabal, and even among the Khâti.

* Zikruti, Zikirtu, Zikartu, may probably be identified with
the Sagartians of Herodotus.

Iranzu, who was at that time reigning over the Mannai, refused to listen to the suggestions of his neighbour, but two of his towns, Shuandakhul and Durdukka, deserted him in 719 B.C., and ranged themselves under Mitâtti, chief of the Zikartu, while about the same time the strongholds of Sukkia, Bala, and Abitikna, which were on the borders of Urartu, broke the ties which had long bound them to Assyria, and concluded a treaty of alliance with Rusas. Sargon was not deceived as to the meaning of these events, and at once realised that this movement was not one of those local agitations which broke out at intervals in one or other of his provinces. His officers and spies must have kept him informed of the machinations of Eusas and of the revolutions which the migrations of the last thirty years had provoked among the peoples of the Iranian table-land. A new race had arisen in their rear, that of the Cimmerians and Scythians, which, issuing in irresistible waves from the gorges of the Caucasus, threatened to overwhelm the whole ancient world of the East. The stream, after a moments vacillation, took a westerly direction, and flooded Asia Minor from one end to the other. Some tribes, however, which had detached themselves from the main movement sought an outlet towards the south-east, on to the rich plains of the Araxes and the country around Lake Urumiah. The native races, pressed in the rear by these barbarians, and hemmed in on either side and in front by Urartu and Assyria, were forced into closer proximity, and, conscious of their individual weakness, had begun to form themselves into three distinct groups, varying considerably in compactness,--the Medes in the south, Misianda in the north, with Zikartu between them. Zikartu was at that time the best organised of these nascent states, and its king, Mitâtti, was not deficient either in military talent or political sagacity. The people over whom he ruled were, moreover, impregnated with the civilisation of Mesopotamia, and by constantly meeting the Assyrians in battle they had adopted the general principles of their equipment, organisation, and military tactics. The vigour of his soldiers and the warlike ardour which inspired them rendered his armies formidable even to leaders as experienced, and warriors as hardened, as the officers and soldiers of Nineveh. Mitâtti had strongly garrisoned the two rebel cities, and trusted that if the Assyrians were unable to recapture them without delay, other towns would not be long in following their example; Iranzu would, no doubt, be expelled, his place would be taken by a hostile chief, and the Mannai, joining hands with Urartu on the right and Zikartu on the left, would, with these two states, form a compact coalition, whose combined forces would menace the northern frontier of the empire from the Zagros to the Taurus.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the facsimile by Flandin.

Sargon, putting all the available Assyrian forces into the field, hurled them against the rebels, and this display of power had the desired effect upon the neighbouring kingdoms: Busas and Mitâtti did not dare to interfere, the two cities were taken by assault, burnt and razed to the ground, and the inhabitants of the surrounding districts of Sukkia, Bala, and Abitikna were driven into exile among the Khâti. The next year, however, the war thus checked on the Iranian table-land broke out in the north-west, in the mountains of Cilicia. A Tabal chief, Kiakku of Shinukhta, refused to pay his tribute (718). Sargon seized him and destroyed his city; his family and adherents, 7500 persons in all, were carried away captives to Assyria, and his principality was given to a rival chief, Mattî of Atuna, on a promise from the latter of an increased amount of tribute.*

* The name of Atuna is a variant of the name Tuna, which is
found in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III., and Tuna
recalls the name of the old city of Tyana, or that of Tynna
or Tunna, near Tyana, in the Taurus. Shinukhta, not far from
Atuna, must be the capital of a district situated on the
Karmalas or the Saros, on the borders of Cilicia or
Cataonia.

In 717 B.C. more serious dangers openly declared themselves. The Khâti had not forgotten that they had once been the allies of Urartu, and that their king, Pisiris, together with Matîlu of Agusi, had fought for Sharduris against Tiglath-pileser III. Pisiris conspired with Mita, chief of the Mushki, and proclaimed his independence; but vengeance swiftly and surely overtook him. He succumbed before his accomplice had time to come to his assistance, and was sent to join Kiakku and his adherents in prison, while the districts which he had ruled were incorporated into Assyrian territory, and Carchemish became the seat of an Assyrian prefect who ranked among the _limmi_ from whom successive years took their names. The fall of Pisiris made no impression on his contemporaries. They had witnessed the collapse of so many great powers--Elam, Urartu, Egypt--that the misfortunes of so insignificant a personage awakened but little interest; and yet with him foundered one of the most glorious wrecks of the ancient world. For more than a century the Khâti had been the dominant power in North-western Asia, and had successfully withstood the power of Thebes; crushed by the Peoples of the Sea, hemmed in and encroached upon by the rising wave of Aramæan invasion, they had yet disputed their territory step by step with the Assyrian generals, and the area over which they spread can be traced by the monuments and inscriptions scattered over Cilicia, Lycaonia, Cappadocia, and Northern Syria as far as the basins of the Orontes and the Litâny. So lasting had proved their influence on all around them, and so fresh was the memory of their greatness, that it would have seemed but natural that their vitality should survive this last blow, and that they should enjoy a prosperous future which should vie with their past. But events proved that their national life was dead, and that no recuperative power remained: as soon as Sargon had overthrown their last prince, their tribes became merged in the general body of Aramæans, and their very name ere long vanished from the pages of history.

Up to this time Eusas had not directly interfered in these quarrels between the suzerain and his vassals: he may have incited the latter to revolt, but he had avoided compromising himself, and was waiting till the Mannai had decided to make common cause with him before showing his hand openly. Ever since the skirmish of the year 719, Mitâtti had actively striven to tempt the Mannai from their allegiance, but his intrigues had hitherto proved of no avail against the staunch fidelity first of Irânzu and then of Azâ, who had succeeded the latter about 718. At the beginning of the year 716 Mitâtti was more successful; the Mannai, seduced at length by his promises and those of Eusas, assembled on Mount Uaush, murdered their king, and leaving his corpse unburied, hastened to place themselves under the command of Bagadatti, regent of Umildîsh. Sargon hurried to the spot, seized Bagadatti, and had him flayed alive on Mount Uaush, which had just witnessed the murder of Azâ, and exposed the mass of bleeding flesh before the gaze of the people to demonstrate the fate reserved for his enemies. But though he had acted speedily he was too late, and the fate of their chief, far from discouraging his subjects, confirmed them in their rebellion. They had placed upon the throne Ullusunu, the brother of Azâ, and this prince had immediately concluded an alliance with Eusas, Mitâtti, and the people of Andia; his example was soon followed by other Eastern chiefs, Assurlî of Karallu and Itti of Allabria, whereupon, as the spirit of revolt spread from one to another, most of the districts lately laid under tribute by Tiglath-pileser took up arms--Niksama, Bîtsagbati, Bîtkhirmâmi, Kilam-bâfci, Armangu, and even the parts around Kharkhar, and Ellipi, with its reigning sovereign Dalta. The general insurrection dreaded by Sargon, and which Eusas had for five years been fomenting, had, despite all the efforts of the Assyrian government, at last broken out, and the whole frontier was ablaze from the borders of Elam to those of the Mushku. Sargon turned his attention to where danger was most urgent; he made a descent on the territory of the Mannai, and laid it waste as a swarm of locusts might have done; he burnt their capital, Izirtu, demolished the fortifications of Zibia and Armaîd, and took Ullusunu captive, but, instead of condemning him to death, he restored to him his liberty and his crown on condition of his paying a regular tribute. This act of clemency, in contrast with the pitiless severity shown at the beginning of the insurrection, instantly produced the good effects he expected: the Mannai laid down their arms and swore allegiance to the conqueror, and their defection broke up the coalition. Sargon did not give the revolted provinces time to recover from the dismay into which his first victories had thrown them, but marched rapidly to the south, and crushed them severally; commencing with Andia, where he took 4200 prisoners with their cattle, he next attacked Zikartu, whose king, Mitâtti, took refuge in the mountains and thus escaped death at the hands of the executioner. Assurlî of Karalla had a similar fate to Bagadatti, and was flayed alive. Itti of Allabria, with half of his subjects, was carried away to Hamath. The towns of Niksama and Shurgadia were annexed to the province of Parsuash. The town of Kishîsim was reduced to ashes, and its king, Belsharuzur, together with the treasures of his palace, was carried away to Nineveh. Kharkhar succumbed after a short siege, received a new population, and was henceforward known as Kar-Sharrukîn; Dalta was restored to favour, and retained his dominion intact. Never had so great a danger been so ably or so courageously averted. It was not without good reason that, after his victory over the Mannai, Sargon, instead of attacking Busas, the most obstinate of his foes, turned against the Medes. Bllipi, Parsuash, and Kharkhar, comprising half the countries which had joined in the insurrection, were on the borders of Elam or had frequent relations with that state, and it is impossible to conjecture what turn affairs might have taken had Elam been induced to join their league, and had the Elamite armies, in conjunction with those of Merodach-baladan, unexpectedly fallen upon the Assyrian rear by the valleys of the Tigris or the Turnât.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the facsimile by Plandin. The
figures resembling stags horns, which crown three of the
upper towers, are tongues of flame, as was indicated by the
red colouring which still remained on them when the bas-
relief was discovered.

Had the Elamites, however, entertained a desire to mingle in the fray, the promptness with which Sargon had re-established order must have given them cause to reflect and induced them to maintain their neutrality. The year which had opened so inauspiciously thus ended in victory, though the situation was still fraught with danger. The agitation which had originated in the east and northeast in 716 reached the north-west in 715, and spread as far as the borders of Southern Syria. Rusas had employed the winter in secret negotiations with the Mannai, and had won over one of their principal chiefs, a certain Dayaukku, whose name seems to be identical with that which the Greeks transliterated as Deiokes.*

* The identity of the name Dayaukku with that of Deiokes is
admitted by all historians.

As soon as spring had returned he entered the territory of Ullusunu, and occupied twenty-two strongholds, which were probably betrayed into his hands by Dayaukku. While this was taking place Mita of Mushki invaded Cilicia, and the Arab tribes of the Idumsean desert--the Thamudites, the Ibadites, the Marsimanu, and Khayapâ--were emboldened to carry their marauding expeditions into Assyrian territory. The Assyrian monarch was thus called on to conduct three distinct wars simultaneously in three different directions; he was, moreover, surrounded by wavering subjects whom terror alone held to their allegiance, and whom the slightest imprudence or the least reverse might turn into open foes.

Sargon resolutely faced the enemy at all three points of attack. As in the previous year, he reserved for himself the position where danger was most threatening, directing the operations against the Mannai. He captured one by one the twenty-two strongholds of Ullusunu which Rusas had seized, and laying hands on Dayaukku, sent him and his family into exile to Hamath. This display of energy determined Ianzu of Naîri to receive the Assyrian monarch courteously within the royal residence of Khubushkia and to supply him with horses, cattle, sheep, and goats in token of homage. Proceeding from thence in an oblique direction, Sargon reached Andia and took prisoner its king Tilusînas. Having by this exploit reduced the province of Mannai to order, he restored the twenty-two towns to Ullusunu, and halting some days in Izirtu, erected there a statue of himself, according to his custom, as a visible witness of Assyrian supremacy, having done which, he retraced his steps to the south-east. The province of Kharkhar, which had been reduced to subjection only a few months previously, was already in open revolt, and the district of Kar-Sharrukîn alone remained faithful to its governor: Sargon had to reconquer it completely, town by town, imposing on the four citadels of Kishislu, Kindâu, Bît-Bagaiâ, and Zaria the new names of Kar-Nabu, Kar-Sin, Kar-Rammânu, and Kar-Ishtar, besides increasing the fortifications of Kar-Sharrukîn. The Medes once more acknowledged his suzerainty, and twenty-two of their chiefs came to tender the oath of allegiance at his feet; two or three districts which remained insubordinate were given up to pillage as far as Bît-Khambân, and the inhabitants of Kimirra were sent into captivity. The eastern campaign was thus brought to a most successful issue, fortune, meanwhile, having also favoured the Assyrian arms in the other menaced quarters. Mita, after pushing forward at one point as far as the Mediterranean, had been driven back into the mountains by the prefect of Kuî, and the Bedâwin of the south had sustained a serious reverse.

These latter were mere barbarians, ignorant of the arts of reading and writing, and hitherto unconquered by any foreign power: their survivors were removed to Samaria, where captives from Hamath had already been established, and where they were soon joined by further exiles from Babylon.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the facsimile by Flandin. The
tongues of flame which issue from the towers still bore
traces of red and yellow colouring when the bas-relief was
discovered.

This episode had greater effect than its importance warranted; or perhaps the majority of the neighbouring states made it a convenient pretext for congratulating Sargon on his victories over more serious enemies. He received gifts from Shamshiê, the Arabian queen who had formerly fought against Tiglath-pileser, from Itamar the Saboan, and the sheikhs of the desert, from the kings of the Mediterranean sea-board, and from the Pharaoh himself. Bocchoris had died after a troublous reign of seven years.*

* The two dynasties of Tanis and Sais may be for the present
reconstituted as follows:--

His real character is unknown, but as he left a deep impression on the memories of his people, it is natural to conclude that he displayed, at times, both ability and energy. Many legends in which the miraculous element prevailed were soon in circulation concerning him. He was, according to these accounts, weak in body and insignificant in appearance, but made up for these defects by mental ability and sound judgment. He was credited with having been simple in his mode of life, and was renowned as one of the six great legislators produced by Egypt. A law concerning debt and the legal rates of interest, was attributed to him; he was also famed for the uprightness of his judgments, which were regarded as due to divine inspiration. Isis had bestowed on him a serpent, which, coiling itself round his head when he sat on the judgment-seat, covered him with its shadow, and admonished him not to forget for a moment the inflexible principles of equity and truth.

Neither Tafnakhti nor any of the local sovereigns mentioned on the stele of Piônkhi wore comprised in the official computation; there is, therefore, no reason to add them to this list.

A collection of the decisions he was reputed to have delivered in famous cases existed in the Græco-Roman period, and one of them is quoted at length: he had very ingeniously condemned a courtesan to touch the shadow of a purse as payment for the shadowy favours she had bestowed in a dream on her lover.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.

An Alexandrian poet, Pancrates, versified the accounts of this juridical collection,* and the artists of the Imperial epoch drew from it motives for mural decoration; they portrayed the king pronouncing judgment between two mothers who disputed possession of an infant, between two beggars laying claim to the same cloak, and between three men asserting each of them his right to a wallet full of food.**

* Pancrates lived in the time of Hadrian, and Athenæus, who
has preserved his memory for us, quotes the first book of
his Bocchoreidion.

** Considerable remains of this decorative cycle have been
discovered at Pompeii and at Rome, in a series of frescoes,
in which Lumbroso and E. Lowy recognise the features of the
legends of Bocchoris; the dispute between the two mothers
recalls the famous judgment of Solomon (1 Kings iii. 16-28).

A less favourable tradition represents the king as an avaricious and irreligious sovereign: he is said one day to have conceived the sacrilegious desire to bring about a conflict between an ordinary bull and the Mnevis adored at Heliopolis. The gods, doubtless angered by his crimes, are recorded to have called into being a lamb with eight feet, which, suddenly breaking into articulate speech, predicted that Upper and Lower Egypt would be disgraced by the rule of a stranger.*

* This legend, preserved by Manetho and Ulian is also known
from the fragments of a demotic papyrus at Vienna, which
contains the prophecy of the lamb.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.

The monuments of his reign which have come down to us tell us nothing of his deeds; we can only conjecture that after the defeat sustained by his generals at Raphia, the discords which had ruined the preceding dynasties again broke out with renewed violence. Indeed, if he succeeded in preserving his crown for several years longer, he owed the fact more to the feebleness of the Ethiopians than to his own vigour: no sooner did an enterprising prince appear at Barkal and demand that he should render an account of his usurpation, than his power came to an end. Kashto having died about 716,* his son Shabaku, the Sabaco of the Greeks, inherited the throne, and his daughter Amenertas the priesthood and principality of Thebes, in right of her mother Shapenuapît.

* The date of the accession of Sabaco is here fixed at 716-
715, because I follow the version of the lists of Manetho,
which gives twelve years as the reign of that prince; an
inscription from Hammamât mentions his twelfth year.