The History of Antiquity Volume Iii Part 1

The History of Antiquity.

Vol. III.

by Max Duncker.

a.s.sYRIA.

CHAPTER I.

THE CAMPAIGNS OF TIGLATH PILESAR II.

In the course of the ninth century B.C. the power of a.s.syria had made considerable progress. In addition to the ancient dependencies on the upper Zab and the upper Tigris, in Armenia and Mesopotamia, the princ.i.p.alities and cities on the middle Euphrates had been reduced, the region of the Ama.n.u.s had been won. Cilicia had been trodden by a.s.syrian armies, Damascus was humbled, Syria had felt the weight of the arms of a.s.syria in a number of campaigns; the kingdom of Israel and the cities of the Phenicians had repeatedly brought their tribute to the warlike princes of Nineveh; at length even the cities of the Philistines and the Edomites could not escape a similar payment. Tiglath Pilesar I. had seen the great sea of the West, the Mediterranean; three centuries later Bin-nirar III. received the tribute of all the harbour cities of the Syrian coast, the great centres of trade on this sea. Nor was it to the West only that the power of the a.s.syrians advanced. Shalmanesar II. and Bin-nirar III. gained the supremacy over Babylon, the ancient mother-country of a.s.syria. Each offered sacrifices at Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha; while to the North-west the power of a.s.syria extended beyond Media as far as the sh.o.r.es of the Caspian Sea.

The successors of Bin-nirar III. were not able to sustain their power at this height. Shalmanesar III. (781-771 B.C.) had again to fight against Damascus and Hadrach (in the neighbourhood of Damascus[1]); in his short reign of ten years he marched six times against the land of Ararat (Urarti). a.s.sur-danil III. (771-753 B.C.), the successor of Shalmanesar III., also fought against Hadrach and Arpad (now Tel Erfad, near Hamath[2]). He had, moreover, to suppress disturbances which had broken out on the upper Zab in Arrapachitis (Arapha), and in the land of Guzan (Gauzanitis) on the Chaboras. In the reign of a.s.sur-nirar II. (753-745 B.C.) there were risings in a.s.syria, even in Chalah, the metropolis.[3]

But the prince who succeeded a.s.sur-nirar II. on the throne of a.s.syria, Tiglath Pilesar II., was able not merely to raise the kingdom to the position which it had occupied under Shalmanesar II. and Bin-nirar III., but to make it a predominant power over a still wider circuit.

The armies of Shalmanesar II. had invaded Media; among the tribute brought to him by the land of Mushri we found camels with two humps, buffaloes, (yaks) and elephants. After a successful campaign against Babylon, which he undertook immediately after his accession, Tiglath Pilesar led his army to the table-land of Iran, and forced his way to the East.[4] A tablet discovered at Chalah, which gives a summary of Tiglath Pilesar's achievements from the first to the seventeenth year of his reign, mentions the districts subjugated in this direction. It is a long list, beginning with the land of Namri.[5] The districts of Parsua, Zikruti, Nisaa, and Arakuttu are mentioned,[6] and the enumeration concludes with districts in the wilds of Media.[7] The king defeated the numerous warriors of this region; "60,500 of their people, children, horses, a.s.ses, mules, oxen, and sheep without number I carried away."[8]

Such are the words of the inscription, which proceeds: "I took possession of the land of Namri anew, and the land of Parsua." With these regions thirteen districts already mentioned are again enumerated.

"Zikruti in rugged Media I added to the land of a.s.syria; the cities I built up anew; in them I placed warriors of a.s.shur, my lord, and people whom my hand had taken captive. I received the tribute of Media, of Ellip, and all the princes of the mountains to Bikni; horses, a.s.ses, mules, oxen, sheep without number. My general, a.s.surdainani, I sent into rugged Media towards the rising of the sun. He brought back 5000 horses, oxen, sheep without number."[9]

According to this inscription Tiglath Pilesar, on his first campaign against Iran, which we may place, on the authority of the list of rulers, in the year 745 or 744 B.C.,[10] though he failed to reach Bactria and the Indus, forced his way into the eastern regions of Iran as far as the further sh.o.r.e of lake Hamun. The meaning of the names Nisaa, Zikruti, and Arakuttu is hardly doubtful. Nisaa must denote the region or district of Nisaea in the east of Media. Zikruti,[11] which is mentioned together with Nisaea, may be the name of the Sagartians of Herodotus, the Acagarta of the inscriptions of the Achaemenids, a race mentioned by Herodotus among the tribes of the Persians; they were settled or wandered to the east of the latter. Arakuttu gives us the Semitic form of the name of the Harauvati of the Persian inscriptions, the Haravati of the Avesta, the Arachoti of the Greeks. The Arachoti were settled in the river-valley of the Arachotus (now Arghandab), which falls into lake Hamun, to the east of the river. But Tiglath Pilesar did not maintain his supremacy on the table-land of Iran to this extent. In the enumeration of the conquered districts of the second campaign the names Nisaa and Arakuttu are wanting, while Zikruti, Parsua, and Madai (Media), and the tribute of Media, which must therefore have been obtained by a new campaign of the general of Tiglath Pilesar, are brought into prominence. The second campaign of the king was therefore limited to the western regions of Iran. At a later time, in the ninth year of his reign (737 _B.C._), he once more marched into the land of Media.[12] A second inscription says, in summary, that Tiglath Pilesar imposed tribute on the "land of Parsua" and the "city of Zikruti," which was dependent on the land of the Medes, and on the princes of the land of Media as far as the land of Bikni.[13]

When Tiglath Pilesar ascended the throne Nabona.s.sar (747-734 B.C.) had been king of Babylon for two years, according to the canon of Ptolemy.

Babylonia no longer possessed the extent of country once given to her by Hammurabi, and which we may ascribe to her during the numerous wars carried on with a.s.syria from the middle of the fifteenth century, and even at the date of Shalmanesar II. and Bin-nirar III. Either through the preponderance which a.s.syria had obtained over Babylon after the middle of the ninth century, or from other causes, we find several independent princ.i.p.alities on the lower course of the Euphrates after the middle of the eighth century; the a.s.syrian inscriptions mention as such, Bit Sahalla, Bit Silan, Bit Dakkur, Bit Amukan, and Bit Yakin at the mouth of the Euphrates, on the sh.o.r.e of the Persian Gulf. So far as we can discover from the monuments, Tiglath Pilesar was at war with Babylonia in the very first year of his reign.[14] Dur Kurigalzu, the old border fortress of Babylon against a.s.syria, Sippara, and other cities of the land of Kardunias on the river or ca.n.a.l Ukni, are mentioned, and the priests of Bit Saggatu or Bit Zida, _i.e._ of the chief temples of Babylon and Borsippa, together with the priest of Nergal, who bring gifts to Tiglath Pilesar; we hear of 10 talents of gold, and 1000 talents of silver, received by Tiglath Pilesar in the first year of his reign.[15] In the summary of his achievements (on the tablet of Chalah) the king says that he has taken Dur Kurigalzu, that he has offered sacrifice at Sippara, Nipur, Babylon, Borsippa, Kutha, and Ur, that in the beginning of his reign he ruled from Dur Kurigalzu to Nipur.[16] The king of Babylon, against whom he fought and whom he compelled to open the gates of his fortresses and of Babylon, is not mentioned by Tiglath Pilesar. We must a.s.sume, from the canon of Ptolemy, that it was Nabona.s.sar who bowed himself before the weight of the arms of a.s.syria. Yet the obedience of Babylon was not secured. Fragments of the detailed annals of Tiglath Pilesar inform us that his general again fought against the Babylonians, that he himself again conquered a city which the Babylonians had taken, that in the region of Tel a.s.sur he sacrificed to Merodach the G.o.d of Tel a.s.sur.[17] An inscription of Chalah narrates that Tiglath Pilesar laid waste Bit Amukan and Bit Sahalla, and took their kings Nabu-sabzi and Zakiru prisoners; that he besieged king Kinziru in Sapiya (Sape), his capital, and added to a.s.syria Pillutu on the border of a.s.syria and Elam; that he received the tributes of the kings of the Chaldaeans, of Balasu, the son of Dakkuri, of Nadin of Larrak, and Merodach Baladan, the son of Yakin, the king of the sea coast.[18] The large tablet tells us more at length. "Pillutu on the borders of Elam I added to a.s.syria; the Chaldaeans I removed from thence and placed in the midst of a.s.syria. The warriors of Nabu-sabzi, the son of Silani, I defeated under the walls of his city of Sarrapani, and I crucified him before the great gate of his city. Five thousand five hundred of his people I took captive; his sons, his daughters, his G.o.ds I carried away: his city and the cities round about it I destroyed and burnt. Zakiru, the son of Sahalli, and his chieftains I captured; I put them in irons and brought them to a.s.syria; 5400 of the people of Bit Sahalla I captured; I laid waste all the districts of Bit Sahalla and united them to a.s.syria. The numerous army of Kinziru, the son of Amukan, I defeated before the great gate of his city, Sapiya; I besieged him and overthrew all his cities. Bit Silan, Bit Amukan, Bit Sahalla, I have laid waste throughout their whole extent; I received the tribute of Balasu, the son of Dakkuri, and of Nadin of Larrak; Merodach Baladan, the son of Yakin, the king of the sea-coast, was overcome by the fear of a.s.shur, my lord: he came to Sapiya and kissed my feet, and I received his tribute."[19]

The canon of Ptolemy represents Nadius as succeeding Nabona.s.sar of Babylon in the year 733 B.C. Is the Nabu-sabzi of Bit Silan whom Tiglath Pilesar defeats near the city of Sarrapani the king Nadius of the canon; and ought his name to be altered in the canon to Nabius? According to the canon Nadius reigned only two years (733, 732 B.C.); the campaign of Tiglath Pilesar, which ended in the conquest and execution of Nabu-sabzi, must therefore have taken place in the year 732 B.C. After the conquest of Nabu-sabzi, as the inscriptions told us, Tiglath Pilesar subjugates Kinziru of Bit Amukan, when he had besieged Sapiya, his capital; in this city he receives the homage of Merodach Baladan. The list of rulers places the campaign against Sapiya in the year 731 B.C.

In the canon of Ptolemy, Nadius is succeeded by a joint rule: from the year 731 to 727 B.C. Chinzirus and Porus reign over Babylon. Is the Kinziru of Bit Amukan the Chinzirus of the canon?

After the subjugation of Merodach Baladan, king of the sea-coast, _i.e._ the coast of the Persian Gulf, Tiglath Pilesar's dominion extended over the whole region of the Euphrates. He a.s.sures us that "he laid waste the land of Chaldaea throughout its whole extent," and "received tribute from all the Chaldaeans;" that "he possessed the whole land of Kardunias (Babylonia), and was lord over it;"[20] and with perfect truth, for an inscription of king Sargon tells us, that Bit Amukan, Bit Dakkur, Bit Silan, Bit Sahalla, Bit Yakin form the whole of the land of the Chaldaeans.[21] Tiglath Pilesar calls himself "king of a.s.shur, king of Babylon, king of Sumir and Accad;" he claims the full t.i.tle of the kings of Babylon. The names of the princ.i.p.alities of Chaldaea are obviously taken from their dynasties. Nabu-sabzi is called the son of Silan, and his land Bit Silan; Merodach Baladan is the son of Yakin, and his land is Bit Yakin. Shalmanesar II., as we saw (Vol. II. p. 239), spoke of Israel as Bit Omri, _i.e._ the house of Omri. The Chinzirus of the canon of Ptolemy enables us to a.s.sume that Tiglath Pilesar after the defeat of Kinziru of Bit Amukan placed this Kinziru as a va.s.sal-king or viceroy over Babylon, a proceeding which recurs often enough in the proceedings of the kings of a.s.shur towards conquered princ.i.p.alities and lands.

The canon of Ptolemy does not make Chinzirus the sole king of Babylon.

From 731 B.C. to 727 B.C. Chinzirus and Porus are said to have reigned together--a joint sovereignty, of which this is the only instance in the canon. Strikingly enough their two reigns end in the same year, and this, 727 B.C. is the very year in which, according to the a.s.syrian canon, Tiglath Pilesar's reign is brought to a close. In the excerpt from Berosus' list of the kings of Babylon, given by Polyhistor, of which Eusebius has preserved some very scanty fragments, the 45 kings who reigned over Babylon for 526 years are followed by "a king of the Chaldaeans, whose name was Phul."[22] If the Babylonians named Tiglath Pilesar Phul in their list of kings, and if Porus in the canon of Ptolemy is a mistake for Polus (Pul), the Babylonians, in order to conceal their dependence on a.s.syria, must have placed their countryman before the stranger, the va.s.sal king before the real king in their series of rulers.

The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that Phul of a.s.shur marched against Israel; Menahem of Israel paid Phul a tribute of 1000 talents of silver, and the king of a.s.syria returned into his land. Then Ahaz of Judah sent messengers to king Tiglath Pilesar of a.s.shur to save him out of the hand of Rezin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Israel. Pekah had put to death Pekahiah, the son of Menahem, after a reign of two years, and seated himself on the throne. Tiglath Pilesar listened to Ahaz and came and carried away a part of the Israelites to a.s.syria, and Hoshea set on foot a conspiracy and slew Pekah and became king in his place.[23] The inscriptions of Tiglath Pilesar mention among the princes who brought him tribute "Minihimmi (Menahem) of Samirina (Samaria),"[24] and also "Jauhazi (Ahaz) of Judah;"[25] a fragment informs us that Tiglath Pilesar reached the borders of Bit Omri, _i.e._ of Israel (Vol. II. p.

239). "Pakaha (Pekah) their king they had slain;" so Tiglath Pilesar continues in this fragment, "I put Husi (Hoshea) to be king over them."[26] The inscription also speaks, in this place, of sending or carrying away to a.s.syria, but it is in such a mutilated condition that more accurate knowledge is impossible. Still it is abundantly clear from this fragment that the king of a.s.syria, who received tribute from Menahem of Israel and then marched against Israel when Pekah had ascended the throne, was one and the same prince, Tiglath Pilesar. We might a.s.sume a double payment of tribute on the part of Menahem, a payment to Phul and a second payment to Tiglath Pilesar, but this is met by the fact that the monuments of a.s.syria know no king of the name of Phul, and the continuity of the lists of a.s.syrian Eponyms does not allow us to insert a king of the name of Phul between Tiglath Pilesar and his predecessor a.s.sur-nirar II. The error of the Book of Kings in ascribing the first campaign against Menahem of Israel to Phul, and the second, in support of Ahaz against Pekah of Israel, to Tiglath Pilesar, is most easily explained, if we admit the hypothesis given above,[27] that the Babylonians gave the name Phul to Tiglath Pilesar as their supreme king.

Tiglath Pilesar held the western regions of the table-land of Iran in dependence. He ruled as king over Babylonia, over the whole region of the Euphrates down to the borders of Elam and the sh.o.r.e of the Persian Gulf; and in the North also he led the armies of a.s.syria to victorious campaigns. His tablets tell us that he incorporated with a.s.syria the land of Nairi, _i.e._ the region between the upper Zab and the upper Tigris, that he defeated king Sarduarri of Ararat (Urarti), who had rebelled against him, took his camp and besieged him in his city of Turuspa; that he set up "an image of his majesty" there, and laid waste the land of Ararat far and wide.[28] Afterwards Sarduarri and Sulumal of Milid (Melitene) and Kustaspi of k.u.mmukh (Gumathene), each trusting to the power of the other, rebelled; these he defeated, and took captives to the number of 72,950 men. In the middle of the battle Sarduarri rode away: he (Tiglath Pilesar) took the seal from his neck, his neck-band, his royal chariot, and his couch, and dedicated them to Istar of Nineveh.[29] The inscriptions further inform us that Kustaspi of k.u.mmukh, Sulumal of Milid, and Va.s.surmi of Tubal gave tribute to Tiglath Pilesar, and when Va.s.surmi was negligent in the service of a.s.syria and did not appear before his face, Tiglath Pilesar sent his chief captain against him and set up Chulli to be king of Tubal in Va.s.surmi's place.[30] The list of rulers puts the first war of Tiglath Pilesar in the year 743 B.C., the second campaign against Ararat and the princes leagued with him in the year 735 B.C.

Of the successes of Tiglath Pilesar in Syria we shall hear below. When he received the tribute of Hamath, Byblus, and Israel before the ninth year of his reign, _i.e._ in the year 738 B.C., Zabibieh, the queen of the Arabs, also paid tribute.[31] When he had overthrown Damascus, Israel, and the Philistines (732 B.C.), he fought against Samsieh, the queen of the Arabians, in the region of Saba,[32] as we are told in a fragment of his annals, and took from her 30,000 camels, and 20,000 oxen. In the inscriptions which sum up the achievements of the king we are told that he subjugated the Nabatu (who must be sought to the south on the lower Euphrates), the Hagaranu (the Hagarites), the Pekudu (Pekod);[33] that the distant tribes of Tema (the Temanites) and Saba (the Sabaeans), on the borders of the setting sun, heard of his power, and submitted to him, brought gold, silver, and camels, and kissed his feet.[34] A fragment of the annals repeats this statement; on the borders of the land of the setting sun they heard of his power and his victories and submitted to him.[35] Hence it was not only migratory tribes in the neighbourhood of Syria and the lower Euphrates, like the Pekod and Hagarites, whom Tiglath Pilesar forced to recognise his supremacy and pay tribute: his armies must have advanced from Syria and the lower Euphrates to the interior of Arabia, if the Temanites (I. 324) and the tribes of the South, "on the borders of the setting sun," _i.e._ the tribes of the South-west, the Sabaeans, in "fear of his power and his victories," sent him tribute.

If the armies of a.s.syria reached no further than Deraeah in the interior of Arabia, it was still a vast stretch of country which they traversed in the eighteen years in which Tiglath Pilesar sat on the throne. Yet they also reached Lake Hamun and the land of the Arachoti in the East on the further side of the Persian Gulf. On the terrace of Chalah which supported the royal citadels Tiglath Pilesar built himself a palace to the south of the house of Shalmanesar II. It is the central palace of the explorers. The great inscription on one of the marble slabs found in the floor in the ruins tells us that he built his royal abode in the midst of Chalah for his glory; that he placed it higher above the bed of the Tigris than the palaces of his predecessors; that he adorned it with costly decorations, and placed in it the tributes of the kings of the Chatti, the princes of the Aramaeans and Chaldaeans, who had bowed their might at his feet[36] The inscription begins with the words, "Palace of Tiglath Pilesar the great king, the mighty king, the king of the nations, the king of a.s.syria, the high priest of Babylon, the king of Sumir and Accad, the king of the four quarters of the earth, the mighty warrior, who in the service of a.s.shur his lord has marched through the lands, swept over them like a storm, treated them as captives; the king, who, under the protection of a.s.shur, Samas, Merodach, the great G.o.ds, his lords, ruled from the sea of Bit Yakin as far as Bikni, and from the sea of the setting sun (_i.e._ the Mediterranean) as far as Muzur (Egypt)."[37] The second shorter inscription says in a similar manner: "Palace of Tiglath Pilesar the great king, the mighty king, the king of the nations, the king of a.s.syria, the king of Babylon, the king of Sumir and Accad, the king of the four quarters of the earth, the mighty warrior, who in the service of a.s.shur, his lord, has trodden to pieces like clay all who hated him, has washed them away like a flood and made them into shadows--the king who marched out under the protection of Nebo and Merodach, the great G.o.ds, and reigned from the sea of Bit Yakin to the land of Bikni, to the rising sun, and from the sea of the setting sun to Muzur, who possessed all lands from the setting to the rising and ruled over their kingdoms."[38] Of this proud palace but scanty ruins remain. One of the successors of Tiglath Pilesar, who ascended the throne of a.s.syria 46 years after him, caused the slabs on which Tiglath Pilesar had depicted his campaigns and victories together with the explanatory inscriptions above them, to be taken away, in order to have them smoothed, and placed when filled with pictures of his own achievements in the house which he built in the south-west corner of the terrace of Chalah. This successor died during the building of his house. This is clear from the fact that slabs and inscriptions of the palace of Tiglath Pilesar, intended for the new structure, have been found partly in the remains of the old building and partly in the new structure, with the defacement partially carried out.[39]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The older Zachariah mentions the land of Hadrach beside Damascus and Hamath, Zech. ix. 1, 2.

[2] Fifteen miles to the north-west of Aleppo the ruin-heaps at Tel Erfad mark the site of the ancient Arpad; Kiepert, "Z.D.M.G." 25, 665.

[3] A doc.u.ment has been preserved from the reign of a.s.sur-nirar, belonging to the year 747 B.C., regarding the lease of a piece of land; Oppert et Menant, "Doc.u.m. Juridiq." p. 151.

[4] The list of rulers represents him as marching to the stream, _i.e._ to the Euphrates, immediately after his accession, and afterwards to the land of Namri, _i.e._ to the Zagrus.

[5] G. Smith reads Zimri.

[6] Nissi in G. Smith, "Disc." p. 260, but in frag. 4 Nissa.

[7] So according to G. Smith [who reads Likruti].

[8] Ll. 29-33 in G. Smith, "Disc." p. 260; Menant, "Annal." pp. 142, 143.

[9] Ll. 34-42, in G. Smith, "Disc." p. 261; Menant, _loc. cit._ 143. The words "I possessed anew" are wanting in G. Smith; cf. Lenormant, "Z.

aegypt. Sprache," 1870, s. 48 ff. The statement about the subjugation of Bit Hamban and the regions which follow, ll. 34-37, is repeated in the inscription in Layard, pp. 17, 18, l. 17; in Menant, _loc. cit._ 139.

The statement about the campaign of a.s.surdainani is repeated in frag. 4, p. 271 in G. Smith, _loc. cit._

[10] This gives 745-744 _B.C._: Bildanil. To the land of Namri; cf.

frag. 3 in G. Smith, "Disc." p. 269.

[11] Menant translates, "city of Zikruti;" G. Smith's rendering does not give this description in this pa.s.sage (p. 260), but on p. 271.

[12] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 279; Menant, _loc. cit._ p. 146.

[13] L. 17 in Menant, _loc. cit._ p. 139.

[14] Above, p. 2, _note 4._

[15] Frag. 1, 2 in G. Smith, "Disc." pp. 266, 267.

[16] Menant, _loc. cit._ p. 139.

[17] The list of rulers inserts a second campaign of Tiglath Pilesar to the land of the stream in the year 737 B.C.; frag. 8, 11. 18, 19, 52-55 in G. Smith, _loc. cit._ pp. 277, 280, 281.

[18] Ll. 12-19 in G. Smith, "Disc." pp. 255, 256.

[19] Ll. 14-28 in G. Smith, "Disc." pp. 258-260.

[20] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ pp. 255, 258.

[21] Oppert, "Dur Sarkayan," p. 20; Menant, "Annal." pp. 160, 181.

[22] Vol. II. p. 27; Euseb., "Chron." 1, p. 26, ed. Schone.

[23] 2 Kings xv. 19, 29; xvi. 7-9; 1 Chron. v. 26.

[24] G. Smith, "Disc." p. 277.

[25] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 263.