The civilization of Babylonia and Assyria

Its remains, language, history, religion, commerce, law, art, and literature

by Morris Jastrow | 1915 | 168,585 words

This work attempts to present a study of the unprecedented civilizations that flourished in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley many thousands of years ago. Spreading northward into present-day Turkey and Iran, the land known by the Greeks as Mesopotamia flourished until just before the Christian era....

It is not until the beginning of the ninth century that indications of a renaissance of Assyrian power become marked. With the advent of Tukulti-Ninib II (c. 889-884 B.C.) a new era begins, marked by a steady growth till the climax of Assyrian glory is reached, some two centuries later.

We find Tukulti-Ninib undertaking, after a long interval, one of those campaigns against the mountaineers to the northeast which brings him up to Lake Urmiyeh in the northeast, and Commagene in the northwest. His son, Ashurnasirpal III (885-860 B.C.), far outdistances the father in achievements.

He inaugurates his reign by a campaign against the lands to the northeast and northwest of a far more systematic character than the campaigns of his father, with the result that in a few years the entire territory comes within his control. A large booty is secured, heavy tribute levied, and we find the king transcending all predecessors in the ruthless manner in which he burned and pillaged settlements as he went along.

All this, however, could not prevent the outbreak of rebellions in the conquered territory which the Assyrian governors appointed by the king were powerless to master, and so in the reigns of Ashurnasirpal and his successors campaign follows upon campaign with almost monotonous regularity against the same districts to the north, northeast and northwest, varied by endeavors to force the non-assimilated Bedouin groups, classed as Akhlami and Suti, along the Euphrates to the southwest of Assyria, back into the desert lands beyond.

Remarkably successful in conquest by virtue of the overwhelming force of her attack, Assyria showed herself even in her best days weak in establishing a definite control and in maintaining order in the conquered provinces. She failed in the organizing power which made Rome for so long the mistress of the world.

Shalmaneser III (c. 858-824 B.C.) leads in person annual campaigns for an uninterrupted period of twenty-six years. The resources at the command of the king must have been nigh inexhaustible to provide for such a record, even if we make due allowance for exaggerations in the number of the forces encountered and in the enumeration of the men, horses, camels, chariots, etc., captured.

The reign of Shalmaneser III is of special interest because it marks the beginning of the period which brings Syria and Palestine at the mercy of the Assyrian power. [1] The northern Hebrejv kingdom joins in a combination with Phoenician cities, with Damascus and Hamath and with the groups in the Taurus range to oppose the Assyrian advance.

At Karkar on the Orontes a great battle was fought in 854 B.C., which ended in a victory for Assyria. This state of affairs, however, lasted for a century and more before this portion of the ancient world finally succumbed, worn out by the drain on the resources and vitality of the petty states whose rivalry with one another prevented the formation of a permanently united kingdom which might have withstood the Assyrian onslaught.

In Assyria, on the other hand, the chief stumbling block in the way of equable progress, in addition to her inability to maintain order in her widely extended dominions, were the frequent internal rebellions precisely as in the south. Shalmaneser himself had to suffer the pain and humiliation of seeing one of his own sons, Ashurdaninapal, lead an uprising against him a few years before his death.

Shamshi-Adad IV, however, succeeded in overcoming his brother and in securing an undisputed hold on the throne, though his reign was of short duration just twelve years. Naturally, the internal disturbances had given all the provinces the desired opportunity to throw off the Assyrian yoke, and even Babylonia made attempts to regain her independence. Accordingly, we find Shamshi-Adad obliged to go over the same territory again to the north and south, to the northeast, northwest, and even to the southwest in a series of campaigns for the purpose of regaining Assyria's lost prestige.

We can pass rapidly over the next century, during which the rulers of Assyria on the whole maintained the strength of their kingdom and manifested the same weaknesses as their predecessors, and come to Tiglath-pileser IV, a usurper who in 745 B.C. inaugurates an era which gives to Assyria its most famous rulers Shalmaneser V, Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanapal. With him Assyria enters upon the last but also the most glorious phase of her history.

PLATE XXV

Fig. 1 (left), The Annals of Ashurbanapal. King of Assyria (668-626 B.C.)
Fig. 2 (top), Clay Cylinder of Cyrus with account of the capture of Babylon (539 B.C.)

Profiting by the abundant experience of the past, the rulers of the dynasty founded by Tiglathpileser perfected the organization of the Assyrian army to a degree which still arouses the admiration of students of military strategy of our own days.

With Tiglathpileser the last step in the subjection of Babylonia to Assyria is taken through the direct assumption in its affairs by the kings of Assyria, who, no longer trusting the government to Babylonians, appointed by them, either themselves act as the governore "lieutenants of the god Bel" as they designate themselves or name a son or a brother as the ruler of the southern province, as which Babylonia is from this time on reckoned. Several expeditions were needed to bring about a reassertion of Assyrian supremacy in the troublesome districts to the east and southeast.

In both Babylonia and in districts to the east of Assyria, Tiglathpileser adopted on a larger scale the policy of settling colonists from parts of Assyria, and in return to transport portions of the population to other countries. In this way the rulers hoped to remove unruly elements and to secure by a mixture of the natives with loyal Assyrians, or with those who had no special interest in the district to which they were transported a more amenable populace.

Hardly less difficult was Tiglathpileser 's task in the lands to the north, including the northeast and northwest. Here, after the reign of Shalmaneser III, Assyria had steadily lost ground until new independent kingdoms had been formed by combinations of native groups, among which the kingdom of Urartu developed noteworthy strength. The difficulties of the situation were increased by the other combinations of states in the interior of Syria and Palestine and along the Phoenician coast, formed to resist the tribute imposed upon these districts by Assyria.

The Assyrian king was obliged once more to turn his attention to Syria and Palestine, with the result that the northern Hebrew kingdom became practically a province of Assyria, while Judæ's position was only a trifle less precarious, because its king had voluntarily submitted to become tributary to Assyria. The eighteen years of Tiglath-pileser's reign (745-727 B.C.) were thus filled with events of great importance.

By his more systematic efforts actually to govern distant provinces reconquered by him, as by his policy above outlined [2] to remove causes of fomentation among conquered peoples, he gave a more permanent character to the results of his many campaigns in Syria, Palestine, and in lands to the north and northeast. Less permanent were the efforts to control the east and southeast, and it was from this quarter Media and Elam that his successors had much to endure.

Of his son who ruled as Shalmaneser V for only five years (727-722 B.C.), we know little beyond his success in putting an end completely to the northern Hebrew kingdom which, relying perhaps upon-help from Egypt, had refused the payment of tribute to Assyria. Before the capital, Samaria, actually fell, Shalmaneser died, succeeded by an usurper who on seizing the throne adopted as his name Sargoii associated as will be recalled with a most glorious dynasty of past ages. [3]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

See the illustration above, Plate VI.

[2]:

Above, p. 175. See also p. 135.

[3]:

Above, p. 133.

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