Part XVI

Returning now to Babylonia, we have still to trace her history after the first serious conflicts with Assyria down to the close of the Cassite period. We have seen that the coming of the Cassites marks the beginning of a period of stagnation in the general culture, which after some time shows itself also in a political decline.

Unfortunately, owing to a gap in our knowledge of the events during the two centuries that followed upon Agum II, ^[1] we are not in a position to indicate exactly when the decline set in and we are left to conjecture as to the specific causes which brought it about. Difficulties in keeping the native population in check, particularly in the south, may be set down as an important factor, for both Sumerians and Akkadians must have chafed under the humiliation of being governed by foreign invaders.

The jealousy of Elam, seeking every opportunity of fomenting internal dissensions in the Euphrates Valley in the hope of profiting by the division, is a second factor, but one more fundamental was the general lowering of the niveau of culture through the mere presence of rulers who represented a cruder element one that had to be assimilated to a higher civilization. In the course of such a process the more refined element suffers a temporary eclipse.

It is significant as a general symptom of the weakness of the Cassite dynasty, especially from the sixteenth century on, that Babylonia was unable to oppose the Egyptian control over Palestine and the Phoenician coast.

The Hittites alone in northeastern Syria and in central Asia Minor offered resistance to the advance of Egyptian arms, while Babylonian kings seemed happy to be able to maintain friendly relations through interchange of gifts with the rulers on the Nile who were, as a matter of fact, their natural rivals and who had wrested from their control the important strip along the Mediterranean and extending inland to high table lands and to the desert region respectively. Babylonia thus seemed condemned to a policy of concentration to preserve her independence, without thought of extraterritorial extension.

She is not even well prepared for this more humble role, for the result of the numerous conflicts with Assyria, which began, as we saw, ^[2] in the reign of Karaindash (c. 1430 B.C.), is a steady growth of Assyrian territory by changes in the boundary lines between the north and the south, until, about two centuries later, Babylonia is forced to accept as her rulers the candidates selected by Assyrian kings. The south profits by the decline in the power of Assyria which sets in after the murder of. Tukulti-Ninib I, and through some of her rulers is able to avenge herself for the humiliation which she suffered at the hands of Assyria. In several successful counter attacks on Assyria, Babylonia regained some of the territory that she had been obliged to yield to Assyria.

At the same time, as a result of Assyrian interference in Babylonian affairs, the influence of the Semitic element of the population reasserted itself; and it is reasonable to conclude that the rivalry between Cassites and the native population, not completely assimilated despite the lapse of so many, centuries of coexistence side by side, finally led to a vigorous attempt on the part of the Semites to regain complete possession of their country. A momentous change, however, was impending in the south, for within four years after the death of Marduk-paliddin (c. 1199-1187 B.C.) the native chroniclers record the rise of a new dynasty in the land.

Our knowledge of Babylonian history for the succeeding two and one-half centuries is still quite fragmentary. Of only a few rulers who flourished during this period do we possess documents of a historical character; for the rest we are dependent upon incidental references in the annals or votive inscriptions of Assyrian kings and on short notices in official chronicles. With Enlil-nadin-akhi, the second member of the new dynasty, the chroniclers close the Cassite control and again record eleven kings of the Isin dynasty covering a period of 130 years. It is no longer a question of a Sumerian uprising, for that epoch is long since past.

The assimilation of Sumerians and Akkadians is an accomplished fact. To account for another Isin dynasty, we must assume that, during the closing years of the Cassite rule, native governors in some of the old centres once more made themselves independent, and that a combination of such petty states headed by Isin dealt the final blow which ended the foreign rule in the Euphrates Valley. The governors of Isin were acknowledged as the heads of the kingdom, and hence officially recognized as the basis for dating legal documents.

We have boundary stones dated in the reigns of several of these rulers from which we glean some facts connected with their reigns. So, for instance, Nebuchadnezzar I (c. 1140-1110 B.C.), apparently an usurper, gains some successes in expeditions against Elam. He also claims to have conquered the Lulubi, whose seat is to be sought in the Zagros range, and he even led his armies to the northwest, though his achievements here could not have been of any great moment. Nebuchadnezzar I takes the aggressive and attempts to win back Assyria, but is completely routed by Ashurrishishi.

Under Ashurrishishi's son, the active and energetic Tiglathpileser I (c. 1125-1100 B.C.), Assyria recovered her former prestige and again becomes the attacker of the south, threatening the very life and independence of Babylonia. The successors of Tiglathpileser were unable to maintain the position won, and accordingly we find, instead of a subjection of Babylonia to Assyria or a renewal of hostilities between the two kingdoms, an era of mutual good will setting in. How long this period of stability lasted is again involved in doubt, owing to a lack of historical documents.

Internal disturbances lead to the overthrow of the Isin dynasty (c. 1043 B.C.) and in its place we once more find rulers of the "sea land" asserting themselves and acknowledged as sovereigns over Babylonia for about twenty years. About 1020 B.C. we find another dynasty, likewise consisting of three rulers, ruling for about twenty years, and whose designation Bit-Bazi is as yet a puzzle. The entire period of forty years covered by these two dynasties must have been marked by rivalry among the old centres of Babylonia.

The old enemy to the east, Elam, taking advantage of the situation, overruns the Euphrates Valley in the twelfth and again in the eleventh century, and for six years the official chronicle records that an Elamitic sovereign (c. 1000 B.C.) occupied the throne. We know from other sources the extent to which Babylonia suffered from these incursions of Elamites, who, among other marks of devastation, carried a large number of the finest monuments of the country with them as trophies to their capital, Susa, where they were found in the course of excavations in our own days. ^[3]

The return of a native dynasty did not carry with it a renewal of sufficient strength to inaugurate another aggressive period during the succeeding centuries. Gradually but steadily Babylonia sinks to the position of more or less complete dependency upon Assyria. The degree of this dependency varies somewhat, according to the extent to which the reigning Assyrian king pursues a policy of vigorous opposition to endeavors on the part of the south to reassert itself, or seeks to conciliate Babylonia by allowing her as large liberties as are consistent with a protection of the interests of Assyria.

About the middle of the eighth century, Assyrian kings become de facto also the governors of Babylonia. The history of Babylonia thus becomes merged with that of Assyria, whose fortunes we must now briefly summarize from the time of the decline which set in again after the death of Tiglathpileser I, about 1100 B.C.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Above, p. 152.

[2]:

Above, p. 163.

[3]:

See de Morgan, Memoires de la Delegation en Perse, I, pp. 165- 182. See above, p. 113, note 88 ; 136, note 29, and p. 147.