Assyrian king

“ The Assyrian Empire had now reached its widest limits. Elam had fallen after a long and arduous struggle. Shushan, its capital, was razed to the ground, and the three last Elamite kings were bound to the yoke of Assur-bani-pal's chariot, and made to drag their conqueror through the streets of Nineveh. The Kedarites and other nomad tribes of Northern Arabia were also chastised, the land of the Minni was overrun, and the Armenians of Van begged for an alliance with the Assyrian king. ”

“ Therefore, Egypt by promises of help encouraged the states of Palestine to revolt against Assyria. In 711 B.C. the Philistine towns of Ashdod and Gath did actually rebel. It was only by going about in the garb of the captive, proclaiming in this objective way what would be the consequence if Judah rebelled against Assyria, that Isaiah was able to arrest the attention of the nation and save it from fatally compromising itself. When the great Assyrian king, Sargon, died in 705 B.C. the temptations to rebel were too strong to be resisted. ”

“ These kings of Assyria thought themselves the greatest and strongest beings in the world; they thought that their might was right, and that they might conquer, and ravage, and plunder and oppress every country round them for thousands of miles, without being punished. They thought that they could overcome the true God of Judæa, as they had conquered the empty idols and false gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Iva. But Isaiah saw that they were wrong. He told his countrymen: “These Assyrian kings are strong, but there is a stronger King than they, Jehovah the Lord of all the earth. ”

“ It was carried to battle with the king, so that wherever the king was, there was the national god of war. The heavily-bearded Assyrians were a fiercer and more war-like people than the mild shaven Babylonians, who were ever influenced by Sumerian modes of thought. The Assyrian temperament is reflected in its art, which at its best is characterized by vigorous realism and brilliant ferocity. ”

“ Cities were walled by the labor of Assyrian soldiers, and were temporarily protected by Assyrian fortifications. While such demonstrations had a lasting effect on the western states, the Assyrian king, on his part, was deeply impressed by one thing, and this omened ill for their future; the people of this region cared more to protect their commerce than their country. They valued the protection of their wares above the honor and independence of their respective states. ”

“ It would also seem that Azariah of Judah took part in the attempt to get rid of Assyrian influence, and though this was fully recognized by Tiglath-pileser, the Assyrian king to all appearance did not come into direct contact with his country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each of its four sides is divided into five compartments of sculpture representing the tribute brought to the Assyrian King by vassal princes, Jehu of Israel being among the number. Shalmaneser, whose annals and conquests are recorded upon it, was the son of Assur-natsir-pal, and died in 823 B.C., after a reign of thirty-five years. A translation of the inscription was one of the first achievements of Assyrian decipherment, and was made by Sir. ”

“ In Egypt he completed the work which his father Esar-haddon had begun, and established the Assyrian dominion for some years, not only at Sais and at Memphis, but at Thebes. In Asia Minor he carried the Assyrian arms far beyond any former king, conquering large tracts which had never before been invaded, and extending the reputation of his greatness to the extreme western limits of the continent. Against his northern neighbors he contended with unusual success, and towards the close of his reign he reckoned, not only the Minni, but the Urarda, or true Armenians, among his tributaries. ”

“ Three years of merciless conflict with obstinate and warlike mountain tribes had severely tried the Assyrian army, if it had not worn out the sovereign; the survivors of so many battles were in sore need of a well-merited repose, the gaps left by death had to be filled, and both infantry and chariotry needed the re-modelling of their corps. The fourth year of the king’s reign, therefore, was employed almost entirely in this work of reorganisation; we find only the record of a raid of a few weeks against the Akhlamî and other nomadic Aramæans situated beyond the Mesopotamian steppes. ”

“ At all events he gives 30 years of reign to Sin-muballidh instead of the 20 assigned to him in a list of dates drawn up at the time of Ammi-zadok’s accession, 55 years to Khammurabi instead of 43, and 35 years to Samsu-iluna instead of 38, while he omits altogether the seven years’ reign of the Assyrian king Tukulti-In-aristi at Babylon. ”

“ The wine that has come for the king our lord is very considerable. Where shall we put it?”
A good deal of the correspondence relates to the [pg 222] importation of horses from Eastern Asia Minor for the stables of the Assyrian King. The following is a specimen of what they are like: “To the king my lord, thy servant Nebo-sum-iddin: Salutation to the king my lord; for ever and ever may Nebo and Merodach be gracious to the king my lord. Thirteen horses from the land of Kusa, 3 foals from the land of Kusa—in all 16 draught-horses; 14 stallions ”

“ Assur-bani-pal. Assur-bani-pal succeeded him as king of Assyria and its empire, while his brother, Samas-sum-yukin, was made viceroy of Babylonia. The arrangement was evidently intended to flatter the Babylonians by giving them once more the semblance of independence. But it failed to work. Samas-sum-yukin became more Babylonian than his subjects; the viceroy claimed to be the successor of the monarchs whose empire had once stretched to the Mediterranean; even the Sumerian language was revived as the official tongue, and a revolt broke out which shook the Assyrian empire to its foundations. ”

“ In b.c. 675 the Assyrian army started for the banks of the Nile. Four years later Memphis was taken on the 22nd of Tammuz, or June, and Tirhakah, the Egyptian king, compelled to fly first to Thebes, and then into Ethiopia. Egypt was divided into twenty satrapies, governed partly by Assyrians, partly by native princes, whose conduct was watched by Assyrian garrisons. On his return to Assyria Esar-haddon associated Assur-bani-pal, the eldest of his four sons, in the government on the 12th of Iyyar, or April, b.c. ”

“ The dynasty of Pashê: Nebuchadrezzar I., his disputes with Elam, his defeat by Assurrîshishî—The legend of the first Assyrian empire, Ninos and Semiramis—The Assyrians and their political constitution: the limmu, the king and his divine character, his hunting and his wars—The Assyrian army: the infantry and chariotry, the crossing of rivers, mode of marching in the plains and in the mountain districts—Camps, battles, sieges; cruelty shown to the vanquished, the destruction of towns and the removal of the inhabitants, the ephemeral character of the Assyrian conquests. ”

“ A work still remains, belonging to the reign of this king, from which it appears that the peculiar character of Assyrian mimetic art was already fixed in his time, the style of representation being exactly such as prevailed at the most flourishing period, and the workmanship, apparently, not very inferior. ”

“ Son of Sennacherib, 24 King of multitudes, King of Assyria; 25 who to Assur and Beltis, Nebo and Tasmit trusts. 26 Thy kingdom, O light of the gods.
[Footnote 1: The Assyrian mistranslates, "I hurl into the deep."]
[Footnote 2: The Assyrian mistranslates "I" for "thou."]
[Footnote 3: "Sadi" in Assyrian, literally "mountain" or "rock," and apparently connected with the Hebrew "Shaddai," as in the phrase "El Shad-dai," "God Almighty."] ”

“ The empire of Assyria was again extended in all directions, and the palaces, temples and Assur-nazir-pal III.other buildings raised by him bear witness to a considerable development of wealth and art. Calah became the favourite residence of a monarch who was distinguished even among Assyrian conquerors for his revolting cruelties. His son Shalmaneser II. had a long reign of 35 years, during which the Assyrian capital was converted into a sort of armed camp. Each year the Assyrian armies marched out of it to plunder and destroy. ”

“ In the first place, there is observable in each a strong and marked prominency of the religious principle. Inscriptions of Assyrian kings begin and end, almost without exception, with praises, invocations, and prayers to the principal objects of their adoration. All the monarch’s successes, all his conquests and victories, and even his good fortune in the chase, are ascribed continually to the protection and favor of guardian deities. Wherever he goes, he takes care to “set up the emblems of Asshur,” or of “the great gods;” ”

“ XLI The son of Ashur-ris-ili, the powerful King, the subduer of foreign countries, he who has reduced all the lands of the Magian world.
XLII The grandson of Mutaggil-Nabu, whom Ashur, the great Lord, aided according to the wishes of his heart and established in strength in the government of Assyria.
XLIII The glorious offspring of Ashur-dapur-Il, who held the sceptre of dominion, and ruled over the people of Bel; who in all the works of his hand and the deeds of his life placed his reliance on the great gods, and thus obtained a prosperous and long life. ”

“ Records of irrigation works and military operations successfully undertaken by Assyrian kings remain to this day on the face of the mountains to the north and east of Assyria. The kings of one great mountain race that had its capital at Van borrowed from the Assyrians this method of recording their achievements, and, adopting the Assyrian character, have left numerous rock-inscriptions in their own language in the mountains of Armenia and Kurdistan. In some instances the action of rain and frost has nearly if not quite obliterated the record, and a few have been defaced by the hand of man. ”

“ I, Assur-nasir-pal, great King, mighty King, King of legions, King of Assyria, 126 son of Tuklat-Adar great and mighty King, King of legions, King of Assyria, noble warrior, in the strength of Assur his Lord walked, and whose equal among the Kings 127 of the four regions exists not ”

“ Shalmaneser was the founder of Calah, and his annals, which have recently been discovered at Assur, show how widely extended the Assyrian empire already was. Campaign after campaign was carried on against the Hittites and the wild tribes of the north-west, and Assyrian colonists were settled in Cappadocia. His son Tukulti-In-aristi conquered Babylon, putting its king Bitilyasu to death, and thereby made Assyria the mistress of the oriental world. Assyria had taken the place of Babylonia. ”

“ Here in Akkad the first Semitic empire was founded, Semitic conquerors or settlers spread from Sippara to Susa, Khana to the east of the Tigris was occupied by “West Semitic” tribes, and “out of” Babylonia “went forth the Assyrian.” As in Assyria, so too in the states of Babylonia the patesi or high-priest of the god preceded the king. The state had grown up around a sanctuary, the god of which was nominally its ruler, the human patesi being his viceregent. In course of time many of the high-priests assumed the functions and title of king ”

“ From the earliest age of Babylonian history he was skilled in making household furniture, which was often of a highly artistic description. On a seal-cylinder, now in the British Museum, the King is represented as seated on a chair which, like those of ancient Egypt, rested on the feet of oxen, and similarly artistic couches and chests, inlaid with ivory or gold, were often to be met with in the houses of the rich. The Assyrian sculptures show to what perfection the art of the joiner had attained at the [pg 135] time when Nineveh was the mistress of the civilized world. ”

“ Cretans and sea raiders,378; Hebrews and, 388; "mother right" in, 418; sacred pigeons in, 428; fosters revolt against Sargon II, 457; Pharaoh and Piru of Mutsri, 458 and n.; Sennacherib defeats army of, 465; intrigues against Assyria, 465, 471; as Assyrian province, 475; Ashur-bani-pal and, 482, 484; Assyrian yoke shaken off, 486; Scythians on frontier of, 488; after Assyria's fall, 489; Hophra plots against Nebuchadrezzar II, 491. El ́ah, King of Israel, 405. Elam, prehistoric pottery of, 5, 263; copper from, 130; British influence in 357; caravan routes of, 361. ”

“ It will be seen from the inscription that the campaigns of Assur-nasir-pal took place in the mountains of Armenia, in Commagene and the provinces of the Pontus, inhabited by the Moschi [Footnote: The Mesek of Psalm cxx. 5.] and other tribes. He probably advanced into Media and a portion of western Persia. The countries on the banks of the Euphrates submitted to his arms, and in one of his expeditions he vanquished Nabu-bal-iddin, King of Babylon. ”

“ I besieged and took Ashdod and the town of Gimtu-Asdudim; [22] I carried away captive Iaman's gods, his wife, his sons, his daughters, his money, and the contents of his palace, together with the inhabitants of his country. I built these towns anew and placed in them the men that my arm had conquered.
34 I placed my Lieutenant as Governor over them, and I treated them as Assyrians. They never again became guilty of impiety.
35 The King of Libya [23] lives in the middle of the desert, in an inaccessible place, at (a month's) journey. ”