THE STORY OF SENNANACHERIB

THE STORY OF SENNANACHERIB




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Sennacherib's Siege of Jerusalem

Sennacherib, KING OF ASSYRIA

Sennacherib decided not to attack the city of Jerusalem it until the rest of the Judean kingdom had been subjugated: with this object in view he pitched his camp before Lachish, whence he could keep a watch over the main routes from Egypt where they crossed the frontier, and then scattered his forces over the land of Judah, delivering it up to pillage in a systematic manner. He took forty-six walled towns, and numberless strongholds and villages, demolishing the walls and leading into captivity 200,150 persons of all ages and conditions, together with their household goods, their horses, asses, mules, camels, oxen, and sheep;** it was a war as disastrous in its effects as that which terminated in the fall of Samaria, or which led to the final captivity in Babylon.***

* Isa. xxii. 8-11.

     * An allusion to the sojourn of Sennacherib near Lachish is
     found in 2 Kings xviii. 14-17; xix. 8, and in Isa. xxxvi. 2;
     xxxvii. 8

     *** It seems that the Jewish historian Demetrios considered
     the captivities under Nebuchadrezzar and Sennacherib to be
     on the same footing.

The work of destruction accomplished, the Rabshakeh brought up all his forces and threw up a complete circle of earthworks round Jerusalem: Hezekiah found himself shut up in his capital "like a bird in a cage." The inhabitants soon became accustomed to this isolated life, but Isaiah was indignant at seeing them indifferent to their calamities, and inveighed against them with angry eloquence: "What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops? O thou that art full of shoutings, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; thy slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle. All thy rulers fled away together, they are made prisoners without drawing the bow; they are come hither from afar for safety, and all that meet together here shall be taken together."* 

     * [The R.V. gives this passage as follows: "They were bound
     by the archers: all that were found of thee were bound
     together, they fled afar

 The danger was urgent; the Assyrians were massed in their entrenchments
with their auxiliaries ranged behind them to support them: "Elam bare
the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the
shield (for the assault). And it came to pass that thy choicest valleys
were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at thy
gate, and he took away the covering of Judah." 

In those days, therefore, Jahveh, without pity for His people, called them to "weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: and behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die. And the Lord of hosts revealed Himself in mine ears, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts."* The prophet threw the blame on the courtiers especially Shebna, who still hoped for succour from the Egyptians, and kept up the king's illusions on this point. He threatened him with the divine anger; he depicted him as seized by Jahveh, rolled and kneaded into a lump, "and tossed like a ball into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, thou shame of thy lord's house. And I will thrust thee from thy office, and from thy station he shall pull thee down!"** Meanwhile, day after day elapsed, and Pharaoh did not hasten to the rescue. Hezekiah's eyes were opened; he dismissed Shebna, and degraded him to the position of scribe, and set Eliakim in his place in the Council of State.***
* Isa. xxii. 1-14. ** Isa. xxii. 15-19. ***In the duplicate narrative of these negotiations with the Assyrian generals, Shebna is in fact considered as a mere scribe, while Eliakim is the prefect of the king's house (2 Kings xviii. 18, 37; xix. 2: Isa. xxxvi. 3, 22; xxxvii. 2). Isaiah's influence revived, and he persuaded the king to sue for peace while yet there was time.
Sennacherib was encamped at Lachish; but the Tartan and his two lieutenants received the overtures of peace, and proposed a parley near the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller's field. Hezekiah did not venture to go in person to the meeting-place; he sent Eliakirn, the new prefect of the palace, Shebna, and the chancellor Joah, the chief cupbearer, and tradition relates that the Assyrian addressed them in severe terms in his master's name: "Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? Behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it: so is Pharaoh, King of Egypt, to all that trust on him." Then, as he continued to declaim in a loud voice, so that the crowds gathered on the wall could hear him, the delegates besought him to speak in Aramaic, which they understood, but "speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall!" Instead, however, of granting their request, the Assyrian general advanced towards the spectators and addressed them in Hebrew: "Hear ye the words of the great king, the King of Assyria. Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he shall not be able to deliver you: neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us: this city shall not be given into the hand of the King of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the King of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern; until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us!" The specified conditions were less hard than might have been feared.*
* The Hebrew version of these events is recorded in 2 Kings xviii. 13-37; xix., and in Isa. xxxvi., xxxvii., with only one important divergence, namely, the absence from Isaiah of verses 14-16 of 2 Kings xviii. This particular passage, in which the name of the king has a peculiar form, is a detached fragment of an older document, perhaps the official annals of the kingdom, whose contents agreed with the facts recorded in the Assyrian text. The rest is borrowed from the cycle of prophetic narratives, and contains two different versions of the same events. The first comprises 2 Kings xviii. 13, 17-37; xix. l-9a, 36&-37, where Sennacherib is represented as despatching a verbal message to Hezekiah by the Tartan and his captains. The second consists merely of 2 Kings xix. 96-36a, and in this has been inserted a long prophecy of Isaiah's (xix. 21-31) which has but a vague connection with the rest of the narrative. In this Sennacherib defied Hezekiah in a letter, which the Jewish king spread before the Lord, and shortly afterwards received a reply through the prophet. The two versions were combined towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century, by the compiler of the Book of Kings, and passed thence into the collection of the prophecies attributed to Isaiah. The Jewish king was to give up his wives and daughters as hostages, to pledge himself to pay a regular tribute, and disburse immediately a ransom of thirty talents of gold, and eight hundred talents of silver: he could only make up this large sum by emptying the royal and sacred treasuries, and taking down the plates of gold with which merely a short while before he had adorned the doors and lintels of the temple. Padî was released from his long captivity, reseated on his throne, and received several Jewish towns as an indemnity: other portions of territory were bestowed upon Mitinti of Ashdod and Zillibel of Graza as a reward for their loyalty.*
* The sequence of events is not very well observed in the Assyrian text, and the liberation of Padî is inserted in 11. 8-11, before the account of the war with Hezekiah. It seems very unlikely that the King of Judah would have released his prisoner before his treaty with Sennacherib; the Assyrian scribe, wishing to bring together all the facts relating to Ekron, anticipated this event. Hebrew tradition fixed the ransom at the lowest figure, 300 talents of silver instead of the 800 given in the Assyrian document (2 Kings xviii. 14), and authorities have tried to reconcile this divergence by speculating on the different values represented by a talent in different countries and epochs. 


Hezekiah issued from the struggle with his territory curtailed and his kingdom devastated; the last obstacle which stood in the way of the Assyrians' victorious advance fell with him, and Sennacherib could now push forward with perfect safety towards the Nile. He had, indeed, already planned an attack on Egypt, and had reached the isthmus, when a mysterious accident arrested his further progress. The conflict on the plains of Altaku had been severe; and the army, already seriously diminished by its victory, had been still further weakened during the campaign in Judæa, and possibly the excesses indulged in by the soldiery had developed in them the germs of one of those terrible epidemics which had devastated Western Asia several times in the course of the century: whatever may have been the cause, half the army was destroyed by pestilence before it reached the frontier of the Delta, and Sennacherib led back the shattered remnants of his force to Nineveh.*

     * The Assyrian texts are silent about this catastrophe, and
     the sacred books of the Hebrews seem to refer it to the camp
     at Libnah in Palestine (2 Kings xix. 8-35); the Egyptian
     legend related by Herodotus seems to prove that it took
     place near the Egyptian frontier. Josephus takes the king as
     far as Pelusium, and describes the destruction of the
     Assyrian army as taking place in the camp before this town.
     He may have been misled by the meaning "mud," which attaches
     to the name of Libnah as well as to that of Pelusium. Oppert
     upheld his opinion, and identified the Libnah of the
     biblical narrative with the Pelusium of Herodotus. It is
     probable that each of the two nations referred the scene of
     the miracle to a different locality.

The Hebrews did not hesitate to ascribe the event to the vengeance of Jahveh, and to make it a subject of thankfulness. They related that before their brutal conqueror quitted the country he had sent a parting message to Hezekiah: "Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the King of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezepk, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar? Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?" Hezekiah, having received this letter of defiance, laid it in the temple before Jahveh, and prostrated himself in prayer: the response came to him through the mouth of Isaiah. "Thus saith the Lord concerning the King of Assyria, He shall not come unto this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with a shield, nor cast a mount against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come unto this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for Mine own sake and for My servant David's sake. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred four-score and five thousand: and when men arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses."*

     * 2 Kings xix. 8-35; Isa. xxxvii. 8-36; this is the second
     tradition of which mention has been made, but already
     amalgamated with the first to form the narrative as it now
     stands.

The Egyptians considered the event no less miraculous than did the Hebrews, and one of their popular tales ascribed the prodigy to Phtah, the god of Memphis. Sethon, the high priest of Phtah, lived in a time of national distress, and the warrior class, whom he had deprived of some of its privileges, refused to take up arms in his behalf. He repaired, therefore, to the temple to implore divine assistance, and, falling asleep, was visited by a dream. The god appeared to him, and promised to send him some auxiliaries who should ensure him success. He enlisted such of the Egyptians as were willing to follow him, shopkeepers, fullers, and sutlers, and led them to Pelusium to resist the threatened invasion. In the night a legion of field-mice came forth, whence no one knew, and, noiselessly spreading throughout the camp of the Assyrians, gnawed the quivers, the bowstrings, and the straps of the bucklers in such a way that, on the morrow, the enemy, finding themselves disarmed, fled after a mere pretence at resistance, and suffered severe losses. A statue was long shown in the temple at Memphis portraying this Sethon: he was represented holding a mouse in his hand, and the inscription bade men reverence the god who had wrought this miracle.*

     * The statue with which this legend has been connected, must
     have represented a king offering the image of a mouse
     crouching on a basket, like the cynocephalus on the
     hieroglyphic sign which denotes centuries, or the frog of
     the goddess Hiqît. Historians have desired to recognise in
     Sethon a King Zêt of the XXIIIth dynasty, or even Shabîtoku
     of the XXVth dynasty; Krall identified him with Satni in the
     demotic story of Satni-Umois.

The disaster was a terrible one: Sennacherib's triumphant advance was suddenly checked, and he was forced to return to Asia when the goal of his ambition was almost reached. The loss of a single army, however much to be deplored, was not irreparable, since Assyria could furnish her sovereign with a second force as numerous as that which lay buried in the desert on the road to Egypt, but it was uncertain what effect the news of the calamity and the sight of the survivors might have on the minds of his subjects and rivals. The latter took no immediate action, and the secret joy which they must have experienced did not blind them to the real facts of the case; for though the power of Assyria was shaken, she was still stronger than any one of them severally, or even than all of them together, and to attack her or rebel against her now, was to court defeat with as much certainty as in past days. The Pharaoh kept himself behind his rivers; the military science and skill which had baffled his generals on the field of Altaku did not inspire him with any desire to reappear on the plains of Palestine. Hezekiah, King of Judah, had emptied his treasury to furnish his ransom, his strongholds had capitulated one by one, and his territory, diminished by the loss of some of the towns of the Shephelah, was little botter than a waste of smoking ruins. He thought himself fortunate to have preserved his power under the suzerainty of Assyria, and his sole aim for many years was to refill his treasury, reconstitute his army, and re-establish his kingdom. The Philistine and Nabatasan princes, and the chiefs of Moab, Ammon, and Idumsea, had nothing to gain by war, being too feeble to have any chance of success without the help of Judah, Tyre, and Egypt. The Syrians maintained a peaceful attitude, which was certainly their wisest policy; and during the following quarter of a century they loyally obeyed their governors, and gave Sennacherib no cause to revisit them. It was fortunate for him that they did so, for the peoples of the North and East, the Kaldâ, and, above all, the Elamites, were the cause of much trouble, and exclusively occupied his attention during several years. The inhabitants of Bît-Yakîn, urged on either by their natural restlessness or by the news of the misfortune which had befallen their enemy, determined once more to try the fortunes of war. Incited by Marduk-ushezlb,* one of their princes, and by Merodach-baladan, these people of the marshes intrigued with the courts of Babylon and Susa, and were emboldened to turn against the Assyrian garrisons stationed in their midst to preserve order. Sennacherib's vengeance fell first on Marduk-ushezîb, who fled from his stronghold of Bîttutu after sustaining a short siege. Merodach-baladan, deserted by his accomplice, put the statues of his gods and his royal treasures on board his fleet, and embarking with his followers, crossed the lagoon, and effected a landing in the district of Nagîtu, in Susian territory, beyond the mouth of the Ulaî.** Sennacherib entered Bît-Yakîn without striking a blow, and completed the destruction of the half-deserted town; he next proceeded to demolish the other cities one after the other, carrying off into captivity all the men and cattle who fell in his way. 

 The Elamites, disconcerted by the rapidity of his action, allowed him to crush their allies unopposed; and as they had not openly intervened, the conqueror refrained from calling them to account for their intrigues. Babylon paid the penalty for all: its sovereign, Belibni, who had failed to make the sacred authority of the suzerain respected in the city, and who, perhaps, had taken some part in the conspiracy, was with his family deported to Nineveh, and his vacant throne was given to Assur-nadin-shumu, a younger son of Sargon (699 B.C.)

 Order was once more restored in Karduniash, but Sennacherib felt that its submission would be neither sincere nor permanent, so long as Merodach-baladan was hovering on its frontier possessed of an army, a fleet, and a supply of treasure, and prepared to enter the lists as soon as circumstances seemed favourable to his cause. Sennacherib resolved, therefore, to cross the head of the Persian Gulf and deal him such a blow as would once for all end the contest; but troubles which broke out on the Urartian frontier as soon as he returned forced, him to put off his project. The tribes of Tumurru, who had placed their strongholds like eyries among the peaks of Nipur, had been making frequent descents on the plains of the Tigris, which they had ravaged unchecked by any fear of Assyrian power. Sennacherib formed an entrenched camp at the foot of their mountain retreat, and there left the greater part of his army, while he set out on an adventurous expedition with a picked body of infantry and cavalry. Over ravines and torrents, up rough and difficult slopes, they made their way, the king himself being conveyed in a litter, as there were no roads practicable for his royal chariot; he even deigned to walk when the hillsides were too steep for his bearers to carry him; he climbed like a goat, slept on the bare rocks, drank putrid water from a leathern bottle, and after many hardships at length came up with the enemy. He burnt their villages, and carried off herds of cattle and troops of captives; but this exploit was more a satisfaction of his vanity than a distinct advantage gained, for the pillaging of the plains of the Tigris probably recommenced as soon as the king had quitted the country. The same year he pushed as far as Dayaîni, here similar tactics were employed. Constructing a camp in the neighbourhood of Mount Anara and Mount Uppa, he forced his way to the capital, Ukki, traversing a complicated network of gorges and forests which had hitherto been considered impenetrable. The king, Manîya, fled; Ukki was taken by assault and pillaged, the spoil obtained from it slightly exceeding that from Tumurru (699 B.C.). Shortly afterwards the province of Tulgarimmê revolted in concert with the Tabal: Sennacherib overcame the allied forces, and led his victorious regiments through the defiles of the Taurus


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 This was a necessary precaution, for the whole of Asia Minor was just
then stirred by the inrush of new nations which were devastating the
country, and the effect of these convulsions was beginning to be felt
in the country to the south of the central plain, at the foot of the
Taurus, and on the frontiers of the Assyrian empire. Barbarian hordes,
attracted by the fame of the ancient Hittite sanctuaries in the upper
basin of the Euphrates and the Araxes, had descended now and again to
measure their strength against the advanced posts of Assyria or Urartu,
but had subsequently withdrawn and disappeared beyond the Halys. Their
movements may at this time have been so aggressive as to arouse
serious anxiety in the minds of the Ninevite rulers; it is certain
that Sennacherib, though apparently hindered by no revolt, delayed the
execution of the projects he had formed against Merodach-baladan for
three years; and it is possible his inaction may be attributed to the
fear of some complication arising on his north-western frontier. He did
not carry out his scheme till 695 B.C., when all danger in that quarter
had passed away. The enterprise was a difficult one, for Nagîtu and
the neighbouring districts were dependencies of Susa, and could not be
reached by land without a violation of Blamite neutrality, which would
almost inevitably lead to a conflict. Shutruk-nakhunta was no longer
alive. In the very year in which his rival had set up Assur-nâdin-shumu
as King of Karduniash, a revolution had broken out in Elam, which was in
all probability connected with the events then taking place in Babylon.
His subjects were angry with him for having failed to send timely
succour to his allies the Kaldâ, and for having allowed Bît-Yakîn to be
destroyed: his own brother Khalludush sided with the malcontents, threw
Shutruk-nakhunta into prison, and proclaimed himself king. This time the
Ninevites, thinking that Elam was certain to intervene, sought how they
might finally overpower Merodach-baladan before this interference
could prove effectual. The feudal constitution of the Blamite monarchy
rendered, as we know, the mobilisation of the army at the opening of
a war a long and difficult task: weeks might easily elapse before the
first and second grades of feudatory nobility could join the royal
troops and form a combined army capable of striking an important
blow. This was a cause of dangerous inferiority in a conflict with the
Assyrians, the chief part of whose forces, bivouacking close to the
capital during the winter months, could leave their quarters and set
out on a campaign at little more than a day's notice; the kings of Elam
minimised the danger by keeping sufficient troops under arms on their
northern and western frontiers to meet any emergency, but an attack by
sea seemed to them so unlikely that they had not, for a long time past,
thought of protecting their coast-line. The ancient Chaldæan cities,
Uru, Bagash, Uruk, and Bridu had possessed fleets on the Persian Gulf;
but the times were long past when they used to send to procure stone and
wood from the countries of Magan and Melukhkha, and the seas which they
had ruled were now traversed only by merchant vessels or fishing-boats.
Besides this, the condition of the estuary seemed to prohibit all attack
from that side. The space between Bît-Yakîn and the long line of dunes
or mud-banks which blocked the entrance to it was not so much a gulf as
a lagoon of uncertain and shifting extent; the water flowed only in
the middle, being stagnant near the shores; the whole expanse was
irregularly dotted over with mud-banks, and its service was constantly
altered by the alluvial soil brought down by the Tigris, the Euphrates,
the Ulaî, and the Uknu. The navigation of this lagoon was dangerous,
for the relative positions of the channels and shallows were constantly
shifting, and vessels of deep draught often ran aground in passing from
one end of it to the other.

Sennacherib decided to march his force to the mouth of the Euphrates, and, embarking it there, to bring it to bear suddenly on the portion of Elamite territory nearest to Nagîtu: if all went well, he would thus have time to crush the rising power of Merodach-baladan and regain his own port of departure before Khalludush could muster a sufficient army to render efficient succour to his vassal.

More than a year was consumed in preparations. The united cities of Chaldæa being unable to furnish the transports required to convey such a large host across the Nar-Marratum, it was necessary to construct a fleet, and to do so in such a way that the enemy should have no suspicion of danger. Sennacherib accordingly set up his dockyards at Tul-barsîp on the Euphrates and at Nineveh on the Tigris, and Syrian shipwrights built him a fleet of vessels after two distinct types. Some were galleys identical in build and equipment with those which the Mediterranean natives used for their traffic with distant lands. The others followed the old Babylonian model, with stem and stern both raised, the bows being sometimes distinguished by the carving of a horse's head, which justified the name of sea-horse given to a vessel of this kind. They had no masts, but propelling power was provided by two banks of oars one above the other, as in the galleys. The two divisions of the fleet were ready at the beginning of 694 B.C., and it was arranged that they should meet at Bît-Dakkuri, to the south of Babylon. 










By following the course of the Tigris to its mouth it would have had
to skirt the coast of Elam for a considerable distance, and would
inevitably have aroused the suspicions of Khalludush; the passage of
such a strong squadron must have revealed to him the importance of the
enterprise, and put him on his guard. The vessels therefore stayed their
course at Upi, where they were drawn ashore and transported on rollers
across the narrow isthmus which separates the Tigris from the Arakhtu
canal, on which they were then relaunched. Either the canal had not been
well kept, or else it never had the necessary depth at certain places;
but the crews managed to overcome all obstacles and rejoined their
comrades in due time. Sennacherib was ready waiting for them with all
his troops—foot-soldiers, charioteers, and horsemen—and with supplies
of food for the men, and of barley and oats for the horses; as soon as
the last contingent had arrived, he gave the signal for departure, and
all advanced together, the army marching along the southern bank, the
fleet descending the current, to the little port of Bab-Salimeti, some
twelve miles below the mouth of the river.
 
 
 
 There they halted in order to proceed to the final embarcation, but at
the last moment their inexperience of the sea nearly compromised the
success of the expedition. Even if they were not absolutely ignorant of
the ebb and flow of the tide, they certainly did not know how dangerous
the spring tide could prove at the equinox under the influence of a
south wind. The rising tide then comes into conflict with the volume
of water brought down by the stream, and in the encounter the banks are
broken down, and sometimes large districts are inundated: this is what
happened that year, to the terror of the Assyrians. Their camp was
invaded and completely flooded by the waves; the king and his soldiers
took refuge in haste on the galleys, where they were kept prisoners
for five days "as in a huge cage." As soon as the waters abated, they
completed their preparations and started on their voyage. At the point
where the Euphrates enters the lagoon, Sennacherib pushed forward to the
front of the line, and, standing in the bows of his flag-ship, offered a
sacrifice to Eâ, the god of the Ocean. Having made a solemn libation, he
threw into the water a gold model of a ship, a golden fish, and an
image of the god himself, likewise in gold; this ceremony performed, he
returned to the port of Bab-Salimeti with his guard, while the bulk
of his forces continued their voyage eastward. The passage took place
without mishap, but they could not disembark on the shore of the
gulf itself, which was unapproachable by reason of the deposits of
semi-liquid mud which girdled it; they therefore put into the mouth
of the Ulaî, and ascended the river till they reached a spot where the
slimy reed-beds gave place to firm ground, which permitted them to draw
their ships to land
 
 

The inhabitants assembled hastily at sight of the enemy, and the news, spreading through the neighbouring tribes, brought together for their defence a confused crowd of archers, chariots, and horsemen. The Assyrians, leaping into the stream and climbing up the bank, easily overpowered these undisciplined troops.

They captured at the first onset Nagîtu, Nagîtu-Dibîna, Khilmu, Pillatu, and Khupapânu; and raiding the Kaldâ, forced them on board the fleet with their gods, their families, their flocks, and household possessions, and beat a hurried retreat with their booty. Merodach-baladan himself and his children once more escaped their clutches, but the State he had tried to create was annihilated, and his power utterly crushed. Sennacherib received his generals with great demonstrations of joy at Bab-Salimeti, and carried the spoil in triumph to Nineveh. Khalludush, exasperated by the affront put upon him, instantly retaliated by invading Karduniash, where he pushed forward as far as Sippara, pillaging and destroying the inhabitants without opposition. The Babylonians who had accompanied Merodach-baladan into exile, returned in the train of the Elamites, and, secretly stealing back to their homes, stirred up a general revolt: Assur-nâdin-shumu, taken prisoner by his own subjects, was put in chains and despatched to Susa, his throne being bestowed on a Babylonian named Nergal-ushezîb,* who at once took the field (694 B.C.). 



 His preliminary efforts were successful: he ravaged the frontier along the Turnât with the help of the Elamites, and took by assault the city of Nipur, which refused to desert the cause of Sennacherib (693 B.C.). Meanwhile the Assyrian generals had captured Uruk (Erech) on the 1st of Tisri, after the retreat of Khalludush; and having sacked the city, were retreating northwards with their spoil when they were defeated on the 7th near Nipur by Nergal-ushezîb. He had already rescued the statues of the gods and the treasure, when his horse fell in the midst of the fray, and he could not disengage himself. His vanquished foes led him captive to Nineveh, where Sennacherib exposed him in chains at the principal gateway of his palace: the Babylonians, who owed to him their latest success, summoned a Kaldu prince, Mushezîb-marduk, son of Gahut, to take command. He hastened to comply, and with the assistance of Blamite troops offered such a determined resistance to all attack, that he was finally left in undisturbed possession of his kingdom (692 B.C.): the actual result to Assyria, therefore, of the ephemeral victory gained by the fleet had been the loss of Babylon. 


 
 
 
 A revolution in Elam speedily afforded Assyria an opportunity for
revenge. When Nergal-ushezîb was taken prisoner, the people of Susa,
dissatisfied with the want of activity displayed by Khalludush,
conspired to depose him: on hearing, therefore, the news of the
revolutions in Chaldæa, they rose in revolt on the 26th of Tisri, and,
besieging him in his palace, put him to death, and elected a certain
Kutur-nakhunta as his successor. Sennacherib, without a moment's
hesitation, crossed the frontier at Durîlu, before order was
re-established at Susa, and recovered, after very slight resistance,
Baza and Bît-khaîri which Shutruk-nakhunta had taken from Sargon. This
preliminary success laid the lower plain of Susiana at his mercy, and he
ravaged it pitilessly from Baza to Bît-bunaki. "Thirty-four strongholds
and the townships depending on them, whose number is unequalled, I
besieged and took by assault, their inhabitants I led into captivity, I
demolished them and reduced them to ashes: I caused the smoke of their
burning to rise into the wide heaven, like the smoke of one great
sacrifice." Kutur-nakhunta, still insecurely seated on the throne of
Susa, retreated with his army towards Khaîdalu, in the almost unexplored
regions which bordered the Banian plateau,* and entrenched himself
strongly in the heart of the mountains.

 
 
 The season was already well advanced when the Assyrians set out on this
expedition, and November set in while they were ravaging the plain:
but the weather was still so fine that Sennacherib determined to take
advantage of it to march upon Madaktu. Hardly had he scaled the heights
when winter fell upon him with its accompaniment of cold and squally
weather. "Violent storms broke out, it rained and snowed incessantly,
the torrents and streams overflowed their banks," so that hostilities
had to be suspended and the troops ordered back to Nineveh. The effect
produced, however, by these bold measures was in no way diminished:
though Kutur-nakhunta had not had the necessary time to prepare for the
contest, he was nevertheless discredited among his subjects for failing
to bring them out of it with glory, and three months after the retreat
of the Assyrians he was assassinated in a riot on the 20th of Ab, 692
B.C.
 
 
 His younger brother, Ummân-minânu, assumed the crown, and though his
enemies disdainfully refused to credit him with either prudence or
judgment, he soon restored his kingdom to such a formidable degree of
power that Mushezîb-marduk thought the opportunity a favourable one for
striking a blow at Assyria, from which she could never recover. Elam had
plenty of troops, but was deficient in the resources necessary to pay
the men and their chiefs, and to induce the tribes of the table-land
to furnish their contingents. Mushezîb-marduk, therefore, emptied the
sacred treasury of E-sagilla, and sent the gold and silver of Bel and
Zarpanit to Ummân-minânu with a message which ran thus: "Assemble thine
army, and prepare thy camp, come to Babylon and strengthen our hands,
for thou art our help." The Elamite asked nothing better than to avenge
the provinces so cruelly harassed, and the cities consumed in the course
of the last campaign: he summoned all his nobles, from the least to the
greatest, and enlisted the help of the troops of Parsuas, Ellipi, and
Anzân, the Aramaean Puqudu and Gambulu of the Tigris, as well as
the Aramæans of the Euphrates, and the peoples of Bît-Adini and
Bît-Amukkâni, who had rallied round Sam una, son of Merodach-baladan,
and joined forces with the soldiers of Mushezîb-marduk in Babylon.
"Like an invasion of countless locusts swooping down upon the land, they
assembled, resolved to give me battle, and the dust of their feet rose
before me, like a thick cloud which darkens the copper-coloured dome of
the sky." The conflict took place near the township of Khalulê, on the
banks of the Tigris, not far from the confluence of this river with the
Turnât
 
 At this point the Turnât, flowing through the plain, divides into
several branches, which ramify again and again, and form a kind of delta
extending from the ruins of Nayân to those of Reshadeh. During the whole
of the day the engagement between the two hosts raged on this unstable
soil, and their leaders themselves sold their lives dearly in the
struggle. Sennacherib invoked the help of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nebo,
Bel, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela, and the gods heard
his prayers. "Like a lion I raged, I donned my harness, I covered my
head with my casque, the badge of war; my powerful battle-chariot, which
mows down the rebels, I ascended it in haste in the rage of my heart;
the strong bow which Assur entrusted to me, I seized it, and the
javelin, destroyer of life, I grasped it: the whole host of obdurate
rebels I charged, shining like silver or like the day, and I roared as
Kammân roareth." Khumba-undash, the Elamite general, was killed in one
of the first encounters, and many of his officers perished around him,
"of those who wore golden daggers at their belts, and bracelets of
gold on their wrists." They fell one after the other, "like fat bulls
chained" for the sacrifice, or like sheep, and their blood flowed on the
broad plain as the water after a violent storm: the horses plunged in it
up to their knees, and the body of the royal chariot was reddened with
it. A son of Merodach-baladan, Nabu-shumishkun, was taken prisoner, but
Ummân-minânu and Mushezîb-marduk escaped unhurt from the fatal field. It
seems as if fortune had at last decided in favour of the Assyrians, and
they proclaimed the fact loudly, but their success was not so evident as
to preclude their adversaries also claiming the victory with some show
of truth. In any case, the losses on both sides were so considerable as
to force the two belligerents to suspend operations; they returned each
to his capital, and matters remained much as they had been before the
battle took place.
 
 Years might have elapsed before Sennacherib could have ventured to
recommence hostilities: he was not deluded by the exaggerated estimate
of his victory in the accounts given by his court historians, and he
recognised the fact that the issue of the struggle must be uncertain
as long as the alliance subsisted between Elam and Chaldæa. But fortune
came to his aid sooner than he had expected. Ummân-minânu was not
absolute in his dominions any more than his predecessors had been,
and the losses he had sustained at Khalulê, without obtaining any
compensating advantages in the form of prisoners or spoil, had lowered
him in the estimation of his vassals; Mushezîb-marduk, on the other
hand, had emptied his treasuries, and though Karduniash was wealthy,
it was hardly able, after such a short interval, to provide further
subsidies to purchase the assistance of the mountain tribes.
Sennacherib's emissaries kept him well informed of all that occurred
in the enemy's court, and he accordingly took the field again at the
beginning of 689 B.C., and on this occasion circumstances seemed likely
to combine to give him an easy victory.
 
 
 Mushezîb-marduk shut himself up in Babylon, not doubting that the
Elamites would hasten to his succour as soon as they should hear of his
distress; but his expectation was not fulfilled. Ummân-minânu was struck
down by apoplexy, on the 15th of Nisân, and though his illness did not
at once terminate fatally, he was left paralysed with distorted mouth,
and loss of speech, incapable of action, and almost unfit to govern.
His seizure put a stop to his warlike preparations: and his ministers,
preoccupied with the urgent question of the succession to the throne,
had no desire to provoke a conflict with Assyria, the issue of which
could not be foretold: they therefore left their ally to defend his own
interests as best he might. Babylon, reduced to rely entirely on its
own resources, does not seem to have held out long, and perhaps the
remembrance of the treatment it had received on former occasions may
account for the very slight resistance it now offered. The Assyrian
kings who had from time to time conquered Babylon, had always treated
it with great consideration. They had looked upon it as a sacred city,
whose caprices and outbreaks must always be pardoned; it was only with
infinite precautions that they had imposed their commands upon it, and
even when they had felt that severity was desirable, they had restrained
themselves in using it, and humoured the idiosyncrasies of the
inhabitants. Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V., and Sargon had all
preferred to be legally crowned as sovereigns of Babylon instead
of remaining merely its masters by right of conquest, and though
Sennacherib had refused compliance with the traditions by which his
predecessors had submitted to be bound, he had behaved with unwonted
lenity after quelling the two previous revolts. He now recognised that
his clemency had been shown in vain, and his small stock of patience was
completely exhausted just when fate threw the rebellious city into his
power. If the inhabitants had expected to be once more let off easily,
their illusions were speedily dissipated: they were slain by the sword
as if they had been ordinary foes, such as Jews, Tibarenians, or Kaldâ
of Bît-Yakîn, and they were spared none of the horrors which custom then
permitted the stronger to inflict upon the weaker. For several days the
pitiless massacre lasted. Young and old, all who fell into the hands of
the soldiery, perished by the sword; piles of corpses filled the streets
and the approaches to the temples, especially the avenue of winged bulls
which led to E-sagilla, and, even after the first fury of carnage had
been appeased, it was only to be succeeded by more organised pillage.
Mushezîb-marduk was sent into exile with his family, and immense convoys
of prisoners and spoil followed him. The treasures carried off from
the royal palace, the temples, and the houses of the rich nobles were
divided among the conquerors: they comprised gold, silver, precious
stones, costly stuffs, and provisions of all sorts. The sacred edifices
were sacked, the images hacked to pieces or carried off to Nineveh:
Bel-Marduk, introduced into the sanctuary of Assur, became subordinate
to the rival deity amid a crowd of strange gods. In the inmost recess
of a chapel were discovered some ancient statues of Kammân and Shala
of E-kallati, which Marduk-nâdin-akhê had carried off in the time of
Tiglath-pileser I., and these were brought back in triumph to their own
land, after an absence of four hundred and eighteen years. The buildings
themselves suffered a like fate to that of their owners and their gods.
"The city and its houses, from foundation to roof, I destroyed them,
I demolished them, I burnt them with fire; walls, gateways, sacred
chapels, and the towers of earth and tiles, I laid them all low and cast
them into the Arakhtu." The incessant revolts of the people justified
this wholesale destruction. Babylon, as we have said before, was too
powerful to be reduced for long to the second rank in a Mesopotamian
empire: as soon as fate established the seat of empire in the districts
bordering on the Euphrates and the middle course of the Tigris,
its well-chosen situation, its size, its riches, the extent of its
population, the number of its temples, and the beauty of its palaces,
all conspired to make it the capital of the country. In vain Assur,
Calah, or Nineveh thrust themselves into the foremost rank, and by a
strenuous effort made their princes rulers of Babylon; in a short time
Babylon replenished her treasury, found allies, soldiers, and leaders,
and in spite of reverses of fortune soon regained the upper hand. The
only treatment which could effectually destroy her ascendency was that
of leaving in her not one brick upon another, thus preventing her from
being re-peopled for several generations, since a new city could not
at once spring up from the ashes of the old; until she had been utterly
destroyed her conquerors had still reason to fear her. This fact
Sennacherib, or his councillors, knew well. If he merits any reproach,
it is not for having seized the opportunity of destroying the city which
Babylon offered him, but rather for not having persevered in his design
to the end, and reduced her to a mere name. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ===============================
 
 In the midst of these costly and absorbing wars, we may well wonder how
Sennacherib found time and means to build villas or temples; yet he is
nevertheless, among the kings of Assyria, the monarch who has left us
the largest number of monuments. He restored a shrine of Nergal in the
small town of Tarbizi; he fortified the village of Alshi; and in 704
B.C. he founded a royal residence in the fortress of Kakzi, which
defended the approach to Calah from the south-east. He did not reside
much at Dur-Sharrukîn, neither did he complete the decoration of his
father's palace there: his pride as a victorious warrior suffered
when his surroundings reminded him of a more successful conqueror than
himself, and Calah itself was too full of memories of Tiglath-pileser
III. and the sovereigns of the eighth century for him to desire to
establish his court there. He preferred to reside at Nineveh, which
had been much neglected by his predecessors, and where the crumbling
edifices merely recalled the memory of long-vanished splendours
 
 He selected this city as his residence at the very beginning of his
reign, perhaps while he was still only crown prince, and began by
repairing its ancient fortifications; later on, when the success of
his earlier campaigns had furnished him with a sufficient supply of
prisoners, he undertook the restoration of the whole city, with its
avenues, streets, canals, quays, gardens, and aqueducts: the labour of
all the captives brought together from different quarters of his empire
was pressed into the execution of his plans—the Kaldâ, the Aramæans,
the Mannai, the people of Kuî, the Cilicians, the Philistines, and
the ïyrians; the provinces vied with each other in furnishing him with
materials without stint,—precious woods were procured from Syria,
marbles from Kapri-dargîla, alabaster from Balad, while Bît-Yakîn
provided the rushes to be laid between the courses of brickwork. The
river Tebilti, after causing the downfall of the royal mausolea and
"displaying to the light of day the coffins which they concealed," had
sapped the foundations of the palace of Assur-nazir-pal, and caused it
to fall in: a muddy pool now occupied the north-western quarter,
between the court of Ishtar and the lofty ziggurât of Assur. This pool
Sennacherib filled up, and regulated the course of the stream, providing
against the recurrence of such-accidents in future by building a
substructure of masonry, 454 cubits long by 289 wide, formed of large
blocks of stone cemented together by bitumen. On this he erected a
magnificent palace, a Bît-Khilâni in the Syrian style, with woodwork of
fragrant cedar and cypress overlaid with gold and silver, panellings
of sculptured marble and alabaster, and friezes and cornices in glazed
tiles of brilliant colouring: inspired by the goddess Nin-kurra, he
caused winged bulls of white alabaster and limestone statues of the gods
to be hewn in the quarries of Balad near Nineveh. He presided in person
at all these operations—at the raising of the soil, the making of the
substructures of the terrace, the transport of the colossal statues or
blocks and their subsequent erection; indeed, he was to be seen at every
turn, standing in Ids ebony and ivory chariot, drawn by a team of men.
When the building was finished, he was so delighted with its beauty that
he named it "the incomparable palace," and his admiration was shared
by his contemporaries; they were never wearied of extolling in glowing
terms the twelve bronze lions, the twelve winged bulls, and the
twenty-four statues of goddesses which kept watch over the entrance,
and for the construction of which a new method of rapid casting had been
invented. 
 
 
 
 
=============================================================== 


Formerly the erection of such edifices cost much in suffering to
the artificers employed on them, but Sennacherib brought his great
enterprise to a prompt completion without extravagant outlay or
unnecessary hardship inflicted on his workmen. He proceeded to annex
the neighbouring quarters of the city, relegating the inhabitants to the
suburbs while he laid out a great park on the land thus cleared; this
park was well planted with trees, like the heights of Amanus, and in
it flourished side by side all the forest growths indigenousnto the
Cilician mountains and the plains of Chaldæa. A lake, fed by a canal
leading from the Khuzur, supplied it with water, which was conducted in
streams and rills through the thickets, keeping them always fresh and
green. Vines trained on trellises afforded a grateful shade during the
sultry hours of the day; birds sang in the branches, herds of wild boar
and deer roamed through the coverts, in order that the prince might
enjoy the pleasures of the chase without quitting his own private
grounds
 
 


The main part of these constructions was finished about 700 B.C., but
many details were left incomplete, and the work was still proceeding
after the court had long been in residence on the spot. Meanwhile a
smaller palace, as well as barracks and a depot for arms and provisions,
sprang up elsewhere. Eighteen aqueducts, carried across the country,
brought the water from the Muzri to the Khuzur, and secured an adequate
supply to the city; the Ninevites, who had hitherto relied upon
rain-water for the replenishing of their cisterns, awoke one day to
find themselves released from all anxiety on this score. An ancient and
semi-subterranean canal, which Assur-nazir-pal had constructed nearly
two centuries before, but which, owing to the neglect of his successors,
had become choked up, was cleaned out, enlarged and repaired, and made
capable of bringing water to their doors from the springs of Mount Tas,
in the same year as that in which the battle of Khalulê took place.* At
a later date, magnificent bas-reliefs, carved on the rock by order of
Esar-haddon, representing winged bulls, figures of the gods and of the
king, with explanatory inscriptions, marked the site of the springs,
and formed a kind of monumental façade to the ravine in which they took
their rise
 
 
 After the destruction of Babylon there is a pause in the history of
the conqueror, and with him in that of Assyria itself. It seems as
if Nineveh had been exhausted by the greatness of her effort, and
was stopping to take breath before setting out on a fresh career of
conquest: the other nations also, as if overwhelmed by the magnitude
of the catastrophe, appear to have henceforth despaired of their own
security, and sought only how to avoid whatever might rouse against them
the enmity of the master of the hour. His empire formed a compact and
solid block in their midst, on which no human force seemed capable of
making any impression. They had attacked it each in turn, or all at
once, Elam in the east, Urartu in the north, Egypt in the south-west,
and their efforts had not only miserably failed, but had for the most
part drawn down upon them disastrous reprisals. The people of Urartu
remained in gloomy inaction amidst their mountains, the Elamites had
lost their supremacy over half the Aramæan tribes, and if Egypt was as
yet inaccessible beyond the intervening deserts, she owed it less to the
strength of her armies than to the mysterious fatality at Libnah. In one
half-century the Assyrians had effectually and permanently disabled
the first of these kingdoms, and inflicted on the others such serious
injuries that they were slow in recovering from them. The fate of these
proud nations had intimidated the inferior states—Arabs, Medes, tribes
of Asia Minor, barbarous Cimmerians or Scythians,—all alike were
careful to repress their natural inclinations to rapine and plunder. If
occasionally their love of booty overpowered their prudence, and they
hazarded a raid on some defenceless village in the neighbouring border
territory, troops were hastily despatched from the nearest Assyrian
garrison, who speedily drove them back across the frontier, and pursuing
them into their own country, inflicted on them so severe a punishment
that they remained for some considerable time paralysed by awe and
terror. Assyria was the foremost kingdom of the East, and indeed of the
whole world, and the hegemony which she exercised over all the countries
within her reach cannot be accounted for solely by her military
superiority. Not only did she excel in the art of conquest, as many
before her had done—Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites, and Egyptians—but
she did what none of them had been able to accomplish; she exacted
lasting obedience from the conquered nations, ruling them with a firm
hand, and accustoming them to live on good terms with one another in
spite of diversity of race, and this with a light rein, with unfailing
tact, and apparently with but little effort. The system of deportation
so resolutely carried out by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon began to
produce effect, and up to this time the most happy results only were
discernible. The colonies which had been planted throughout the empire
from Palestine to Media, some of them two generations previously, others
within recent years, were becoming more and more acclimatised to their
new surroundings, on which they were producing the effect desired by
their conquerors; they were meant to hold in check the populations in
whose midst they had been set down, to act as a curb upon them, and also
to break up their national unity and thus gradually prepare them for
absorption into a wider fatherland, in which they would cease to be
exclusively Damascenes, Samaritans, Hittites, or Aramæans, since they
would become Assyrians and fellow-citizens of a mighty empire. The
provinces, brought at length under a regular system of government,
protected against external dangers and internal discord, by a
well-disciplined soldiery, and enjoying a peace and security they
had rarely known in the days of their independence, gradually became
accustomed to live in concord under the rule of a common sovereign, and
to feel themselves portions of a single empire. The speech of Assyria
was their official language, the gods of Assyria were associated with
their national gods in the prayers they offered up for the welfare of
the sovereign, and foreign nations with whom they were brought into
communication no longer distinguished between them and their conquerors,
calling their country Assyria, and regarding its inhabitants as
Assyrians. As is invariably the case, domestic peace and good
administration had caused a sudden development of wealth and commercial
activity. Although Nineveh and Calah never became such centres of trade
and industry as Babylon had been, yet the presence of the court and the
sovereign attracted thither merchants from all parts of the world.


 
 The Medes, reaching the capital by way of the passes of Kowândîz and
Suleimaniyeh, brought in the lapis-lazuli, precious stones, metals,
and woollen stuffs of Central Asia and the farthest East, while
the Phoenicians and even Greeks, who were already following in their
foot steps, came thither to sell in the à bazaars of Assyria the most
precious of the wares brought back by their merchant vessels from the
shores of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the farthest West. The
great cities of the triangle of Assyria were gradually supplanting all
the capitals of the ancient world, not excepting Memphis, and becoming
the centres of universal trade; unexcelled for centuries in the arts of
war, Assyria was in a fair way to become mistress also in the arts of
peace. A Jewish prophet thus described the empire at a later date: "The
Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing
shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick clouds.
The waters nourished him, the deep made him grow: therefore his stature
was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were
multiplied, and his branches became long by reason of many waters, when
he shot them forth. All the fowls of the heaven made their nests in his
boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring
forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus
was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his
root was by many waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide
him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the plane trees were
not as his branches; nor was any tree like unto him in beauty: so that
all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him."