The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World Volume II Part 22

What right the new monarch put forward, what position he had previously held, what special circ.u.mstances, beyond the mere absence of the rightful king, facilitated his attempts, are matters on which the monuments throw no light, and on which we must therefore be content to be ignorant. All that we can see is, that either personal merit or official rank and position must have enabled him to establish himself; for he certainly did not derive any a.s.sistance from his birth, which must have been mediocre, if not actually obscure. It is the custom of the Babylonian and a.s.syrian kings to glory in their ancestry, and when the father has occupied a decently high position, the son declares his sire's name and rank at the commencement of each inscription, but Sargon never, in any record, names his father, nor makes the slightest allusion to his birth and descent, unless it be in vague phrases, wherein he calls the former kings of a.s.syria, and even those of Babylonia, his ancestors. Such expressions seem to be mere words of course, having no historical value: and it would be a mistake even to conclude from them that the new king intended seriously to claim the connection of kindred with the monarchs of former times.

It has been thought indeed, that Sargon, instead of cloaking his usurpation under some decent plea of right, took a pride in boldly avowing it. The name Sargon has been supposed to be one which he adopted as his royal t.i.tle at the time of his establishment upon the throne, intending by the adoption to make it generally known that he had acquired the crown, not by birth or just claim, but by his own will and the consent of the people. Sargon, or Sar-gina, as the native name is read, means "the firm" or "well-established king," and (it has been argued) "shows the usurper." The name is certainly unlike the general run of a.s.syria royal t.i.tles; but still, as it is one which is found to have been previously borne by at least one private person in a.s.syria, it is perhaps best to suppose that it was the monarch's real original appellation, and not a.s.sumed when he came to the throne; in which case no argument can be founded upon it.

Military success is the best means of confirming a doubtful t.i.tle to the leaders.h.i.+p of a warlike nation. No sooner, therefore, was Sargon accepted by the Ninevites as king than he commenced a series of expeditions, which at once furnished employment to unquiet spirits, and gave the prestige of military glory to his own name. He warred successively in Susiana, in Syria, on the borders of Egypt, in the tract beyond Ama.n.u.s, in Melitene and southern Armenia, in Kurdistan, in Media, and in Babylonia. During the first fifteen years of his reign, the s.p.a.ce which his annals cover, he kept his subjects employed in a continual series of important expeditions, never giving himself, nor allowing them, a single year of repose. Immediately upon his accession he marched into Susiana, where he defeated Hum-banigas, the Elamitie king, and Merodach-Baladan, the old adversary of Tiglath-Pileser, who had revolted and established himself as king over Babylonia. Neither monarch was, however, reduced to subjection, though an important victory was gained, and many captives taken, who were transported into the country of the Hitt.i.tes, In the same year, B.C. 722, he received the submission of Samaria, which surrendered, probably, to his generals, after it had been besieged two full years. He punished the city by depriving it of the qualified independence which it had enjoyed hitherto, appointing instead of a native king an a.s.syrian officer to be its governor, and further carrying off as slaves 27,280 of the inhabitants. On the remainder, however, he contented himself with re-imposing the rate of tribute to which the town had been liable before its revolt.--The next year, B.C.

721, he was forced to march in person into Syria in order to meet and quell a dangerous revolt. Yahu-bid (or Ilu-bid), king of Hamath--a usurper like Sargon himself--had rebelled, and had persuaded the cities of Arpad Zimira, Damascus, and Samaria to cast in their lot with his, and to form a confederacy, by which it was imagined that effectual resistance might be offered to the a.s.syrian arms. Not content merely to stand on the defensive in their several towns, the allies took to the field; and a battle was fought at Kar-kar or Garrrar (perhaps one of the many Aroers), where the superiority of the a.s.syrian troops was once more proved, and Sargon gained a complete victory over his enemies. Yahu-bid himself was taken and beheaded; and the chiefs of the revolt in the other towns were also put to death.

Having thus crushed the rebellion and re-established tranquillity throughout Syria, Sargon turned his arms towards the extreme south, and attacked Gaza, which was a dependency of Egypt. The exact condition of Egypt at this time is open to some doubt. According to Manetho's numbers, the twenty-fifth or Ethiopian dynasty had not yet begun to reign. Bocchoris the Saite occupied the throne, a humane but weak prince, of a contemptible presence, and perhaps afflicted with blindness. No doubt such a prince would tempt the attack of a powerful neighbor; and, so for, probability might seem to be in favor of the Manethonian dates. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that Egypt had lately taken an aggressive att.i.tude, incompatible with a time of weakness: she had intermeddled between the a.s.syrian crown and its va.s.sals, by entering into a league with Hoshea: and she had extended her dominion over a portion of Philistia, thereby provoking a collision with the Great Power of the East. Again, it is worthy of note that the name of the Pharaoh who had dealings with Hoshea, if it does not seen at first sight very closely to resemble the Egyptian Shebek, is, at any rate, a possible representative of that word, while no etymological skill can force it into agreement with any other name in this portion of the Egyptian lists. Further, it is to be remarked that at this point of the a.s.syrian annals, a Shebek appears in them, holding a position of great authority in Egypt, though not dignified with the t.i.tle of king.

These facts furnish strong grounds for believing that the Manethonian chronology, which can be proved to be in many points incorrect, has placed the accession of the Ethiopians somewhat too late, and that that event occurred really as early as B.C. 725 or B.C. 730.

At the same time, it must be allowed that all difficulty is not removed by this supposition. The Shebek _Sibahe_ (or _Sibaki_) of the a.s.syrian record bears an inferior t.i.tle, and not that of king. He is also, apparently, contemporary with another authority in Egypt, who is recognized by Sargon as the true "Pharaoh," or native ruler. Further, it is not till eight or nine years later that any mention is made of Ethiopia as having an authority over Egypt or as in any way brought into contact with Sargon. The proper conclusion from these facts seems to be that the Ethiopians established themselves gradually; that in B.C. 720, Shebek or Sabaco, though master of a portion of Egypt, had not a.s.sumed the royal t.i.tle, which was still borne by a native prince of little power--Bocchoris, or Scthos--who held his court somewhere in the Delta; and that it was not till about the year B.C. 712 that this shadowy kingdom pa.s.sed away, that the Ethiopian rule was extended over the whole of Egypt, and that Sabaco a.s.sumed the full rank of an independent monarch.

If this be the true solution of the difficulty which has here presented itself, we must conclude that the first actual collision between the powers of Egypt and a.s.syria took place at a time very unfavorable to the former. Egypt was, in fact, divided against itself, the fertile tract of the Delta being under one king, the long valley of the Nile under another. If war was not actually going on, jealousy and suspicion, at any rate, must have held the two sovereigns apart; and the a.s.syrian monarch, coming at such a time of intestine feud, must have found it comparatively easy to gain a triumph in this quarter.

The armies of the two great powers met at the city of Rapikh, which seems to be the Raphia of the Greeks and Romans, and consequently the modern _Refah_ a position upon the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, about half-way between Gaza and the Wady-el-Arish, or "River of Egypt." Here the forces of the Philistines, under Khanun, king of Gaza, and those of Shebek, the Tar-dan (or perhaps the Sultan) of Egypt, had effected a junction, and awaited the approach of the invader. Sargon, having arrived, immediately engaged the allied army, and succeeded in defeating it completely, capturing Khanun, and forcing Shebek to seek safety in flight. Khanun was deprived of his crown and carried off to a.s.syria by the conqueror.

Such was the result of the first combat between the two great powers of Asia and Africa. It was an omen of the future, though it was scarcely a fair trial of strength. The battle of Raphia foreshadowed truly enough the position which Egypt would hold among the nations from the time that she ceased to be isolated, and was forced to enter into the struggle for preeminence, and even for existence, with the great kingdoms of the neighboring continent. With rare and brief exceptions, Egypt has from the time of Sargon succ.u.mbed to the superior might of whatever power has been dominant in Western Asia, owning it for lord, and submitting, with a good or bad grace, to a position involving a greater or less degree of dependence. Tributary to the later a.s.syrian princes, and again, probably, to Nebuchadnezzar, she had scarcely recovered her independence when she fell under the dominion of Persia. Never successful, notwithstanding all her struggles, in thoroughly shaking off this hated yoke, she did but exchange her Persian for Greek masters, when the empire of Cyrus perished. Since then, Greeks, Romans, Saracens, and Turks have, each in their turn, been masters of the Egyptian race, which has paid the usual penalty of precocity in the early exhaustion of its powers.

After the victories of Aroer and Raphia, the a.s.syrian monarch appears to have been engaged for some years in wars of comparatively slight interest towards the north and the north-east. It was not till B.C. 715, five years after his first fight with the Egyptians, that he again made an expedition towards the south-west, and so came once more into contact with nations to whose fortunes we are not wholly indifferent. His chief efforts on this occasion were directed against the peninsula of Arabia.

The wandering tribes of the desert, tempted by the weak condition to which the a.s.syrian conquest had reduced Samaria, made raids, it appears, into the territory at their pleasure, and carried off plunder. Sargon determined to chastise these predatory bands, and made an expedition into the interior, where "he subdued the uncultivated plains of the remote Arabia, which had never before given tribute to a.s.syria," and brought under subjection the Thamudites, and several other Arab tribes, carrying off a certain number and settling them in Samaria itself, which thenceforth contained an Arab element in its population. Such an effect was produced on the surrounding nations by the success of this inroad, that their princes hastened to propitiate Sargon's favor by sending emba.s.sies, and excepting the position of a.s.syrian tributaries. The reigning Pharaoh, whoever he may have been, It-hamar, king of the Sabaeans, and Tsamsi, queen of the Arabs, thus humbled themselves, sending presents, and probably entering into engagements which bound them for the future.

Four years later (B.C. 711) Sargon led a third expedition into these parts, regarding it as important to punish the misconduct of the people of Ashdod. Ashdod had probably submitted after the battle of Raphia, and had been allowed to retain its native prince, Azuri. This prince, after awhile, revolted, withheld his tribute, and proceeded to foment rebellion against a.s.syria among the neighboring monarchs; whereupon Sargon deposed him, and made his brother Akhimit king in his place. The people of Ashdod, however, rejected the authority of Akhimit, and chose a certain Yaman, or Yavan, to rule over them, who strengthened himself by alliances with the other Philistine cities, with Judaea, and with Edom. Immediately upon learning this. Sargon a.s.sembled his army, and proceeded to Ashdod to punish the rebels; but, before his arrival, Yaman had fled away, and "escaped to the dependencies of Egypt, which" (it is said) "were under the rule of Ethiopia." Ashdod itself, trusting in the strength from which it derived its name, resisted; but Sargon laid siege to it and in a little time forced it to surrender. Yaman fled to Egypt, but his wife and children were captured and, together with the bulk of the inhabitants, were transported into a.s.syria, while their place was supplied by a number of persons who had been made prisoners in Sargon's eastern wars. An a.s.syrian governor was set over the town.

The submission of Ethiopia followed. Ashdod, like Samaria, had probably been encouraged to revolt by promises of foreign aid. Sargon's old antagonist, Shebek, had recently brought the whole of Egypt under his authority, and perhaps thought the time had come when he might venture once more to measure his strength against the a.s.syrians. But Sargon's rapid movements and easy capture of the strong Ashdod terrified him, and produced a change of his intentions. Instead of marching into Philistia and fighting a battle, he sent a suppliant emba.s.sy, surrendered Yaman, and deprecated Sargon's wrath. The a.s.syrian monarch boasts that the king of Meroe, who dwelt in the desert, and had never sent amba.s.sadors to any of the kings his predecessors, was led by the fear of his majesty to direct his steps towards a.s.syria and humbly bow down before him.

At the opposite extremity of his empire, Sargon soon after-wards gained victories which were of equal or greater importance. Having completely reduced Syria, humiliated Egypt, and struck terror into the tribes of the north and east, he determined on a great expedition against Babylon.

Merodach-Baladan had now been twelve years in quiet possession of the kingdom. He had established his court at Babylon, and, suspecting that the ambition of Sargon would lead him to attempt the conquest of the south he had made preparations for resistance by entering into close alliance with the Susianians under Sutruk-Nakhunta on the one hand, and with the Aramaean tribes above Babylonia on the other. Still, when Sargon advanced against him, instead of giving him battle, or even awaiting him behind the walls of the capital, he at once took to flight.

Leaving garrisons in the more important of the inland towns, and committing their defence to his generals, he himself hastened down to his own city of Beth-lakin, which was on the Euphrates, near its mouth, and, summoning the Aramaeans to his a.s.sistance, prepared for a vigorous resistance in the immediate vicinity of his native place. Posting himself in the plain in front of the city, and protecting his front and left flank with a deep ditch, which he filled with water from the Euphrates, he awaited the advance of Sargon, who soon appeared at the head of his troops, and lost no time in beginning the attack. We cannot follow with any precision the exact operations of the battle, but it appears that Sargon fell upon the Babylonian troops, defeated them, and drove them into their own d.y.k.e, in which many of therm were drowned, at the same time separating them from their allies, who, on seeing the disaster, took to flight, and succeeded in making their escape.

Merodach-Baladan, abandoning his camp, threw himself with the poor remains of his army into Beth-Yakin, which Saigon then besieged and took. The Babylonian monarch fell into the hands of his rival, who plundered his palace and burnt his city, but generously spared his life.

He was not, however, allowed to retain his kingdom, the government of which was a.s.sumed by Sargon himself, who is the Arcea.n.u.s of Ptolemy's Canon.

The submission of Babylonia was followed by the reduction of the Aramaeans, and the conquest of at least a portion of Susiana. To the Susianin territory Sargon transported the Comnumkha from the Upper Tigris, placing the mixed population under a governor, whom he made dependent on the viceroy of Babylon.

The a.s.syrian dominion was thus firmly established on the sh.o.r.es of the Persian Gulf. The power of Babylon was broken. Henceforth the a.s.syrian rule is maintained over the whole of Chaldaea and Babylonia, with few and brief interruptions, to the close of the Empire. The reluctant victim struggles in his captor's grasp, and now and then for a short s.p.a.ce shakes it off; but only to be seized again with a fiercer gripe, until at length his struggles cease, and he resigns himself to a fate which he has come to regard as inevitable. During the last fifty years of the Empire, from B.C. 650 to B.C. 625, the province of Babylon was almost as tranquil as any other.

The pride of Sargon received at this time a gratification which he is not able to conceal, in the homage which was paid to him by sovereigns who had only heard of his fame, and who were safe from the attacks of his armies. While he held his court at Babylon, in the year B.C. 708 or 707, he gave audience to two emba.s.sies from two opposite quarters, both sent by islanders dwelling (as he expresses it) "in the middle of the seas" that washed the outer skirts of his dominions. Upir, king of Asmun, who ruled over an island in the Persian Gulf,--Khareg, perhaps, or Bahrein,--sent messengers, who bore to the Great King the tribute of the far East. Seven Cyprian monarchs, chiefs of a country which lay "at the distance of seven days from the coast, in the sea of the setting sun," offered him by their envoys the treasures of the West. The very act of bringing presents implied submission; and the Cypriots not only thus admitted his suzerainty, but consented to receive at his hands and to bear back to their country a more evident token of subjection. This was an effigy of the Great King carved in the usual form, and accompanied with an inscription recording his name and t.i.tles, which was set up at Idalium, nearly in the centre of the island, and made known to the Cypriots the form and appearance of the sovereign whom it was not likely that they would ever see.

The expeditions of Sargon to the north and north-east had results less splendid than those which he undertook to the south-west and the south; but it may be doubted whether they did not more severely try his military skill and the valor of his soldiers. The mountain tribes of Zagros, Taurus, and Niphates,--Medes, Armaenians, Tibarini, Moschi, etc.,--were probably far braver men and far better soldiers than the levies of Egypt, Susiana, and Babylon. Experience, moreover, had by this time taught the tribes the wisdom of uniting against the common foe, and we find Ambris the Tibareni in in alliance with Mita the Moschian, and Urza the Armenian, when he ventures to revolt against Sargon. The submission of the northern tribes was with difficulty obtained by a long and fierce struggle, which--so far as one belligerent was concerned --terminated in a compromise. Ambris was deposed, and his country placed under an a.s.syrian governor; Mita consented, after many years of resistance, to pay a tribute; Urza was defeated, and committed suicide, but the general pacification of the north was not effected until a treaty was made with the king of Van, and his good-will purchased by the cession to him of a considerable tract of country which the a.s.syrians had previously taken from Urza.

On the side of Media the resistance offered to the arms of Sargon seems to have been slighter, and he was consequently able to obtain a far more complete success. Having rapidly overrun the country, he seized a number of the towns and "annexed them to a.s.syria," or, in other words, reduced a great portion of Media into the form of a province. He also built in one part of the country a number of fortified posts. He then imposed a tribute on the natives, consisting entirely of horses, which were perhaps required to be of the famous Nisaean breed.

After his fourteenth year, B.C. 708, Sargon ceased to lead out his troops in person, employing instead the services of his generals. In the year B.C. 707 a disputed succession gave him an opportunity of interference in Illib, a small country bordering on Susiana. Nibi, one of the two pretenders to the throne, had applied for aid to Sutruk-Nakhunta, king of Elam, who held his court at Susa, and had received the promise of his favor and protection. Upon this, the other claimant, who was named Ispabara, made application to Sargon, and was readily received into alliance, Sargon sent to his a.s.sistance "seven captains with seven armies," who engaged the troops of Sutruk-Naklnurta, defeated them, and established Ispabara on the throne? In the following year, however, Sutruk-Nakhunta recovered his laurels, invading a.s.syria in his turn, and capturing cities which he added to the kingdom of Susiana.

In all his wars Sargon largely employed the system of whole-sale deportation. The Israelites were removed from Samaria, and planted partly in Gozan or Mygdonia, and partly in the cities recently taken from the Medes. Hamath and Damascus were peopled with captives from Armenia and other regions of the north. A portion of the Tibareni were carried captive to a.s.syria, and a.s.syrians were established in the Tibarenian country. Vast numbers of the inhabitants of the Zagros range were also transported to a.s.syria; Babylonians, Cuthaeans, Sepharvites, Arabians, and others, were placed in Samaria; men from the extreme east (perhaps Media) in Ashdod. The Commukha were removed from the extreme north to Susiana; and Chaldaeans were brought from the extreme south to supply their place. Everywhere Sargon changed the abodes of his subjects, his aim being, as it would seem, to weaken the stronger races by dispersion, and to destroy the spirit of the weaker ones by severing at a blow all the links which attach a patriotic people to the country it has long inhabited. The practice had not been unknown to previous monarchs, but it had never been employed by any so generally or on so grand a scale as it was by this king.

From this sketch of Sargon's wars, we may now proceed to a brief consideration of his great works. The magnificent palace which he erected at Khorsabad was by far the most important of his constructions.

Compared with the later, and even with the earlier buildings of a similar kind erected by other kings, it was not remarkable for its size.

But its ornamentation was unsurpa.s.sed by that of any a.s.syrian edifice, with the single exception of the great palace of a.s.shur-bani-pal at Koyunjik. Covered with sculptures, both internally and externally, generally in two lines, one over the other, and, above this, adorned with enamelled bricks, arranged in elegant and tasteful patterns; approached by n.o.ble flights of steps and through splendid propylaea; having the advantage, moreover, of standing by itself, and of not being interfered with by any other edifice, it had peculiar beauties of its own, and may be p.r.o.nounced in many respects the most interesting of the a.s.syrian building's. United to this palace was a town enclosed by strong walls, which formed a square two thousand yards each way. Allowing fifty square yards to each individual, this s.p.a.ce would have been capable of accommodating 80,000 persons. The town, like the palace, seems to have been entirely built by Sargon, who imposed on it his own name, an appellation which it retained beyond the time of the Arab conquest.

It is not easy to understand the exact object of Sargon in building himself this new residence. Dur-Sargina was not the Windsor or Versailles of a.s.syria--a place to which the sovereign could retire for country air and amus.e.m.e.nts from the bustle and heat of the metropolis.

It was: as we have said, a town, and a town of considerable size, being very little lees than half as large as Nineveh itself. It is true that it possessed the advantage of a nearer vicinity to the mountains than Nineveh: and had Sargon been, like several of his predecessors, a mighty hunter, we might have supposed that the greater facility of obtaining sport in the woods and valleys of the Zagros chain formed the attraction which led him to prefer the region where he built his town to the banks of the Tigris. But all the evidence that we possess seems to show that this monarch was dest.i.tute of any love for the chase; and seemingly we must attribute his change of abode either to mere caprice, or to a desire to be near the mountains for the sake of cooler water, purer air, and more varied scenery. It is no doubt true, as M. Oppert observes, that the royal palace at Nineveh was at this time in a ruinous state; but it could not have been more difficult or more expensive to repair it than to construct a new palace, a new mound, and a new town, on a fresh site.

Previously to the construction of the Khorsabad palace, Sargon resided at Caleb. He there repaired and renovated the great palace of a.s.shur-izir-pal, which had been allowed to fall to decay. At Nineveh he repaired the walls of the town, which were ruined in many places, and built a temple to Nebo and Merodach; while in Babylonia he improved the condition of the embankments, by which the distribution of the waters was directed and controlled. He appears to have been to a certain extent a patron of science, since a large number of the a.s.syrian scientific tablets are proved by the dates upon then: to have been written in his day.

The progress of mimetic art under Sargon is not striking but there are indications of an advance in several branches of industry, and of an improved taste in design and in ornamentation. Transparent gla.s.s seems now to have been first brought into used and intaglios to have been first cut upon hard stones. The furniture of the period is greatly superior in design to any previously represented, and the modelling of sword-hilts, maces, armlets, and other ornaments is peculiarly good. The enamelling of bricks was carried under Sargon to its greatest perfection: and the shape of vases, goblets, and boats shows a marked improvement upon the works of former times. The advance in animal forms, traceable in the sculptures of Tiglath-Pileser II., continues: and the drawing of horses' heads, in particular, leaves little to desire.

After reigning gloriously over a.s.syria for seventeen years, and for the last five of them over Babylonia also, Sargon died, leaving his crown to the most celebrated of all the a.s.syrian Monarchs, his son Sennacherib, who began to reign B.C. 705. The long notices which we possess of this monarch in the books of the Old Testament, his intimate connection with the Jews, the fact that he was the object of a preternatural exhibition of the Divine displeasure, and the remarkable circ.u.mstance that this miraculous interposition appears under a thin disguise in the records of the Greeks, have always attached an interest to his name which the kings of this remote period and distant region very rarely awaken. It has also happened, curiously enough, that the recent Mesopotamian researches have tended to give to Sennacherib a special prominence over other a.s.syrian monarchs, more particularly in this country, our great excavator having devoted his chief efforts to the disinterment of a palace of this king's construction, which has supplied to our National Collection almost one-half of its treasures. The result is, that while the other sovereigns who bore sway in a.s.syria are generally either wholly unknown, or float before the mind's eye as dim and shadowy forms, Sennacherib stands out to our apprehension as a living and breathing man, the impersonation of all that pride and greatness which we a.s.sign to the Ninevite kings, the living embodiment of a.s.syrian haughtiness, a.s.syrian violence, and a.s.syrian power. The task of setting forth the life and actions of this prince, which the course of the history now imposes on its compiler, if increased in interest, is augmented also in difficulty, by the grandeur of the ideal figure which has possession of men's minds.

The reign of Sennacherib lasted twenty-four years, from B.C. 705 to B.C.

681. The materials which we possess for his history consist of a record written in his fifteenth year, describing his military expeditions and his buildings up to that time; of the Scriptural notices to which reference has already been made; of some fragments of Polyhistor preserved by Eusebius; and of the well-known pa.s.sage of Herodotus which contains a mention of his name. From these doc.u.ments we shall be able to make out in some detail the chief actions of the earlier portion of his reign, but they fail to supply any account of his later years, unless we may a.s.sign to that portion of his life some facts mentioned by Polyhistor, to which there is no allusion in the native records.

It seems probable that troubles both abroad and at home greeted the new reign. The Canon of Ptolemy shows a two years' interregnum at Babylon (from B.C. 704 to B.C. 702) exactly coinciding with the first two years of Sennacherib. This would imply a revolt of Babylon from a.s.syria soon after his accession, and either a period of anarchy or rapid succession of pretenders, none of whom held the throne for so long a time as a twelvemonth. Polyhistor gives us certain details,from which we gather that there were at least three monarchs in the interval left blank by the Canon--first, a brother of Sennacherib, whose name is not given; secondly, a certain Hagisa, who wore the crown only a month; and, thirdly, Merodach-Baladan, who had escaped from captivity, and, having murdered Hagisa, resumed the throne of which Sargon had deprived him six or seven years before. Sennacherib must apparently have been so much engaged with his domestic affairs that he could not devote his attention to these Babylonian matters till the second year after his accession. In B.C. 703 he descended on the lower country and engaged the troops of Merodach-Baladan, which consisted in part of native Babylonians, in part of Susianians, sent to his a.s.sistance by the king of Elam. Over this army Sennacherib gained a complete victory near the city of Ibis, after which he took Babylon, and overran the whole of Chaldaea, plundering (according to his own account) seventy-six large towns and 420 villages.

Merodach-Baladan once more made his escape, flying probably to Susiana, where we afterwards find his sons living as refugees. Sennacherib, before quitting Babylon, appointed as tributary king an a.s.syrian named Belipni, who seems to be the Belibus of Ptolemy's Canon, and the Elibus of Polyhistor. On his return from Babylonia he invaded and ravaged the territory of the Aramaean tribes on the middle Euphrates--the Tumuna, Ruhua, Gambulu, Khindaru, and Pukudu (Pekod), the Nabatu or Nabathaeans, the Hagaranu or Hagarenes, and others, carrying into captivity more than 200,000 of the inhabitants, besides great numbers of horses, camels, a.s.ses, oxen, and sheep.

In the following year, B.C. 702, Sennacherib made war on the tribes in Zagros, forcing Ispabara, whom Sargon had established in power, to fly from his country, and conquering many cities and districts, which he attached to a.s.syria, and placed under the government of a.s.syrian officers.

The most important of all the expeditions contained in Sennacherib's records is that of his fourth year, B.C. 701, in which he attacked Luliya king of Sidon, and made his first expedition against Hezekiah king of Judah. Invading Syria with a great host, he made Phoenicia the first object of his attack. There Luliya--who seems to be the Mullins of Menander, though certainly not the Elulaeus of Ptolemy's Canon, had evidently raised the standard of revolt, probably during the early years of Sennacherib, when domestic troubles seem to have occupied his attention. Luliya had, apparently, established his dominion over the greater part of Phoenicia, being lord not only of Sidon, or, as it is expressed in the inscription, of Sidon the greater and Sidon the less, but also of Tyre, Ecdippa, Akko, Sarepta, and other cities. However, he did not venture to await Sennacherib's attack, but, as soon as he found the expedition was directed against himself, he took to flight, quitting the continent and retiring to an island in the middle of the sea--perhaps the island Tyre, or more probably Cyprus. Sennacherib did not attempt any pursuit, but was content to receive the submission of the various cities over which Luliya had ruled, and to establish in his place, as tributary monarch, a prince named Tubal. He then received the tributes of the other petty monarchs of these parts, among whom are mentioned Abdilihat king of Avrad. Hurus-milki king of Byblus. Mitinti king of Ashdod, Puduel king of Beth-Ammon, a king of Moab, a king of Edom, and (according to some writers) a "Menahem king of Samaria." After this Sennacherib marched southwards to Ascalon, where the king, Sidka, resisted him, but was captured, together with his city, his wife, his children, his brothers, and the other members of his family. Here again a fresh prince was established in power, while the rebel monarch was kept prisoner and transported into a.s.syria. Four towns dependent upon Ascalon, viz., Razor, Joppa, Beneberak, and Beth Dagon, were soon afterwards taken and plundered.

Sennacherib now pressed on against Egypt. The Philistine city of Ekron had not only revolted from a.s.syria, expelling its king, Path, who wwas opposed to the rebellion, but had entered into negotiations with Ethiopia and Egypt, and had obtained a promise of support from them. The king of Ethiopia was probably the second Shebek (or Sabaco) who is called Sevechus by Manetho, and is said to have reigned either twelve or fourteen yeats. The condition of Egypt at the time was peculiar. The Ethiopian monarch seems to have exercised the real sovereign power: but native princes were established under him who were allowed the t.i.tle of king, and exercised a real though delegated authority over their several cities and districts. On the call of Ekron both princes and sovereign had hastened to its a.s.sistance, bringing with them an army consisting of chariots, hors.e.m.e.n, and archers, so numerous that Sennacherib calls it "a host that could not be numbered." The second great battle between the a.s.syrians and the Egyptians took place near a place called Altaku, which is no doubt the Eltekeh of the Jews, a small town in the vicinity of Ekron. Again the might of Africa yielded to that of Asia. The Egyptians and Ethiopians were defeated with great slaughter. Many chariots, with their drivers, both Egyptian and Ethiopian, fell into the hands of the conqueror, who also took alive several "sons" of the princ.i.p.al Egyptian monarch. The immediate fruit of the victory was the fall of Altaku, which was followed by the capture of Tamna, a neighboring town.

Sennacherib then "went on" to Ekron, which made no resistance, but opened its gates to the victor. The princes and chiefs who had been concerned in the revolt he took alive and slew, exposing their bodies on stakes round the whole circuit of the city walls. Great numbers of inferior persons who were regarded as guilty of rebellion, were sold as slaves. Padi, the expelled king, the friend to a.s.syria, was brought back, reinstated in his sovereignty, and required to pay a small tribute as a token of dependence.

The restoration of Padi involved a war with Hezekiah, king of Judah.

When the Ekronites determined to get rid of a king whose a.s.syrian proclivities were distasteful to them, instead of putting him to death, they arrested him, loaded him with chains, and sent him to Hezekiah for safe keeping. By accepting this charge the Jewish monarch made himself a partner in their revolt; and it was in part to punish this complicity, in part to compel him to give up Padi, that Sennacherib, when he had sufficiently chastised the Ekronite rebels, proceeded to invade Judaea, Then it was--in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, according to the present Hebrew text--that "Sennacherib, king of a.s.syria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them. And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of a.s.syria to Ls.h.i.+sh, saying, I have offended; return from me; that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of a.s.syria appointed unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house. At that time did Hezekiah cut off [the gold from] the doors of the house of the Lord, and [from] the pillars which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid, and gave it to the king of a.s.syria."

Such is the brief account of this expedition and its consequences which is given us by the author of the Second Book of Kings, who writes from a religious point of view, and is chiefly concerned at the desecration of holy things to which the imminent peril of his city and people forced the Jewish monarch to submit. It is interesting to compare with this account the narrative of Sennacherib himself, who records the features of the expedition most important in his eyes, the number of the towns taken and of the prisoners carried into captivity, the measures employed to compel submission, and the nature and amount of the spoil which he took with him to Nineveh.

"Because Hezekiah, king of Judah," says the a.s.syrian monarch, "would not submit to my yoke, I came up against him, and by force of arms and by the might of my power I took forty-six of his strong fenced cities; and of the smaller towns which were scattered about I took and plundered a countless number. And from these places I captured and carried off as spoil 200,150 people, old and young, male and female, together with horses and mares, a.s.ses and camels, oxen and sheep, a countless mult.i.tude. And Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape.... Then upon this Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of my arms and he sent out to me the chiefs and the elders of Jerusalem with thirty talents of gold and eight hundred talents of silver, and divers treasures, a rich and immense booty.... All these things were brought to me at Nineveh, the seat of my government, Hezekiah having sent them by way of tribute, and as a token of his submission to my power."

It appears then that Sennacherib, after punis.h.i.+ng the people of Ekron, broke up from before that city, and entering Judaea proceeded towards Jerusalem, spreading his army over a wide s.p.a.ce, and capturing on his way a vast number of small towns and villages, whose inhabitants he enslaved and carried off to the number of 200,000. Having reached Jerusalem, he commenced the siege in the usual way, erecting towers around the city, from which stones and arrows were discharged against the defenders of the fortifications, and "casting banks" against the walls and gates. Jerusalem seems to have been at this time very imperfectly fortified. The "breaches of the city of David" had recently been "many;" and the inhabitants had hastily pulled down the houses in the vicinity of the wall to fortify it. It was felt that the holy place was in the greatest danger. We may learn from the conduct of the people, as described by one of themselves, what were the feelings generally of the cities threatened with destruction by the a.s.syrian armies. Jerusalem was at first "full of stirs and tumult;" the people rushed to the housetops to see if they were indeed invested, and beheld "the choicest valleys full of chariots, and the hors.e.m.e.n set in array at the gates."

Then came "a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity"--a day of "breaking down the walls and of crying to the mountains." Amidst this general alarm and mourning there were, however, found some whom a wild despair made reckless, and drove to a ghastly and ill-timed merriment. When G.o.d by His judgments gave an evident "call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth--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."

Hezekiah after a time came to the conclusion that resistance would be vain, and offered to surrender upon terms, an offer which Sennacherib, seeing the great strength of the place, and perhaps distressed for water, readily granted. It was agreed that Hezekiah should undertake the payment of an annual tribute, to consist of thirty talents of gold and three hundred talents of silver, and that he should further yield up the chief treasures of the place as a "present" to the Great King. Hezekiah, in order to obtain at once a sufficient supply of gold, was forced to strip the walls and pillars of the Temple, which were overlaid in parts with this precious metal. He yielded up all the silver from the royal treasury and from the treasury of the Temple; and this amounted to five hundred talents more than the fixed rate of tribute. In addition to these sacrifices, the Jewish monarch was required to surrender Padi, his Ekronite prisoner, and was mulcted in certain portions of his dominions, which were attached by the conqueror to the territories of neighboring kings.

Sennacherib, after this triumph, returned to Nineveh, but did not remain long in repose. The course of events summoned him in the ensuing year B.C. 700--to Babylonia, where Merodach-Baladan, a.s.sisted by a certain Susub, a Chaldaean prince, was again in arms against his authority.

Sennacherib first defeated Susub, and then, directing his march upon Beth-Yakin, forced Merodach-Baladan once more to quit the country and betake himself to one of the islands of the Persian Gulf, abandoning to Sennacherib's mercy his brothers and his other partisans. It would appear that the Babylonian viceroy Belibus, who three years previously had been set over the country by Sennacherib, was either actively implicated in this revolt, or was regarded as having contributed towards it by a neglect of proper precautions. Sennacherib, on his return from the sea-coast, superseded him, placing upon the throne his own eldest son, a.s.shur-inadi-su, who appears to be the Asordanes of Polyhistor, and the Aparanadius or a.s.saranadius of Ptolemy's Canon.

The remaining events of Sennacherib's reign may be arranged in chronological order without much difficulty, but few of them can be dated with exactness. We lose at this point the invaluable aid of Ptolemy's Canon, which contains no notice of any event recorded in Sennacherib's inscriptions of later date than the appointment of a.s.saranadius.

It is probable in that in the year B.C. 699 Sennacherib conducted his second expedition into Palestine. Hezekiah, after his enforced submission two years earlier, had entered into negotiations with the Egyptians, and looking to receive important succors from this quarter, had again thrown off his allegiance. Sennacherib, understanding that the real enemy whom he had to fear on his south-western frontier was not Judaea, but Egypt, marched his army through Palestine--probably by the coast route--and without stopping to chastise Jerusalem, pressed southwards to Libnah and Lachish, which were at the extreme verge of the Holy Land, and were probably at this tune subject to Egypt. He first commenced the siege of Lachish with all his power; and while engaged in this operation, finding that Hezekiah was not alarmed by his proximity, and did not send in his submission, he detached a body of troops from Ins main force, and sent it under a Tartan or general, supported by two high officers of the court--the Rabshakeh or Chief Cupbearer, and the Rob-saris or Chief Eunuch--to summon the rebellious city to surrender.

Hezekiah was willing to treat, and sent out to the a.s.syrian camp, which was pitched just outside the walls, three high officials of his own to open negotiations. But the a.s.syrian envoys had not cone to debate or even to offer terms, but to require the unconditional submission of both king and people. The Rabshakeh or cupbearer, who was familiar with the Hebrew language, took the word and delivered his message in insulting phrase, laughing at the simplicity which could trust in Egypt, and the superst.i.tious folly which could expect a divine deliverance, and defying Hezekiah to produce so many as two thousand trained soldiers capable of serving as cavalry. When requested to use a foreign rather than the native dialect, lest the people who were upon the walls should hear, the bold envoy, with an entire disregard of diplomatic forms, raised his voice and made a direct appeal to the popular fears and hopes thinking to produce a tumultuary surrender of the place, or at least an outbreak of which his troops might have taken advantage. His expectations, however, were disappointed; the people made no response to his appeal, but listened in profound silence; and the amba.s.sadors, finding that they could obtain nothing from the fears of either king or people, and regarding the force that they had brought with them as insufficient for a siege, returned to their master with the intelligence of their ill-success. The a.s.syrian monarch had either taken Lachish or raised its siege, and was gone on to Libnah, where the envoys found him. On receiving their report, he determined to make still another effort to overcome Hezckiah's obstinacy and accordingly he despatched fresh messengers with a letter to the Jewish king, in which he was reminded of the fate of various other kingdoms and peoples which had resisted the a.s.syrians, and once more urged to submit himself. It was this letter perhaps a royal autograph--which Hezekiah took into the temple and there "spread it before the Lord," praying G.o.d to "bow down his ear and hear; to open his eyes and see, and hear the words of Sennacherib, which had sent to reproach the living G.o.d." Upon this Isaiah was commissioned to declare to his afflicted sovereign that the kings of a.s.syria were mere instruments in G.o.d's hands to destroy such, nations as He pleased, and that none of Sennacherib's threats against Jerusalem should be accomplished. G.o.d, Isaiah told him would "put his hook in Sennacherib's nose, and his bridle in his lips, and turn him back by the way by which he came." The Lord had said, concerning the king of a.s.syria, "He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with s.h.i.+eld, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city. For I will defend this city, to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake."

Meanwhile it is probable that Sennacherib, having received the submission of Libnah, had advanced upon Egypt. It was important to crush an Egyptian army which had been collected against him by a certain Sethos, one of the many native princes who at this time ruled in the Lower country before the great Ethiopian monarch Tehrak or Tirhakah, who was known to be on his march, should effect a junction with the troops of this minor potentate. Sethos, with his army, was at Pelusium; and Sennacherib, advancing to attack him, had arrived within sight of the Egyptian host, and pitched his camp over against the camp of the enemy, just at the time to when Hezekiah received his letter and made the prayer to which Isaiah was instructed to respond. The two hosts lay down at night in their respective stations, the Egyptians and their king full of anxious alarm, Sennacherib and his a.s.syrians proudly confident, intending on the morrow to advance to the combat and repeat the lesson taught at Raphia and Altaku. But no morrow was to break on the great ma.s.s of those who took their rest in the tents of the a.s.syrians. The divine fiat had gone forth. In the night, as they slept, destruction fell upon them. "The angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the a.s.syrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses." A miracle, like the destruction of the first-born, had been wrought, but this time on the enemies of the Egyptians, who naturally ascribed their deliverance to the interposition of their own G.o.ds; and seeing the enemy in confusion and retreat, pressed hastily after him, distressed his flying columns, and cut off his stragglers. The a.s.syrian king returned home to Nineveh, shorn of his glory, with the shattered remains of his great host, and cast that proud capital into a state of despair and grief, which the genius of an AEschylus might have rejoiced to depict, but which no less powerful pen could adequately portray.

It is difficult to say how soon a.s.syria recovered from this terrible blow. The annals of Sennacherib, as might have been expected, omit it altogether, and represent the a.s.syrian monarch as engaged in a continuous series of successful campaigns, which seem to extend uninterruptedly from his third to his tenth year. It is possible that while the a.s.syrian expedition was in progress, under the eye of Sennacherib himself, a successful war was being conducted by one of his generals in the mountains of Armenia, and that Sennacherib was thus enabled, without absolutely falsifying history, to parade as his own certain victories gained by this leader in the very year of his own reverse. It is even conceivable that the power of a.s.syria was not so injured by the loss of a single great army, as to make it necessary for her to stop even for one year in the course of her aggressive warfare; and thus the expeditions of Sennacherib may form an uninterrupted series, the eight campaigns which are a.s.signed to him occupying eight consecutive years. But on the other hand it is quite as probable that there are gaps in the history, some years having been omitted altogether. The Taylor Cylinder records but eight campaigns, yet it was certainly written as late as Sennacherib's fifteenth year. It contains no notice of any events in Sennacherib's first or second year; and it may consequently make other omissions covering equal or larger intervals. Thus the destruction of the a.s.syrian army at Pelusium may have been followed by a pause of some years' duration in the usual aggressive expeditions; and it may very probably have encouraged the Babylonians in the attempt to shake off the a.s.syrian yoke, which they certainly made towards the middle of Sennacherib's reign.

But while it appears to be probable that consequences of some importance followed on the Pelusiac calamity, it is tolerably certain that no such tremendous results flowed from it as some writers have imagined. The murder of the disgraced Sennacherib "within fifty-five days" of his return to Nineveh, seems to be an invention of the Alexandrian Jew who wrote the Book of Tobit. The total destruction of the empire in consequence of the blow, is an exaggeration of Josephus, rashly credited by some moderns. Sennacherib did not die till B.C. 681, seventeen years after his misfortune; and the Empire suffered so little that we find Esar-haddon, a few years later, in full possession of all the territory that any king before him had over held, ruling from Babylonia to Egypt, or (as he himself expresses it) "from the rising up of the sun to the going down of the same." Even Sennacherib himself was not prevented by his calamity from undertaking important wars during the latter part of his reign. We shall see shortly that he recovered Babylon, chastised Susiana, and invaded Cilicia, in the course of the seventeen years which intervened between his flight from Pelusium and his decease. Moreover, there is evidence that he employed himself during this part of his reign in the consolidation of the Western provinces, which first appear about his twelfth year as integral portions of the Empire, furnis.h.i.+ng eponyms in their turn, and thus taking equal rank with the ancient provinces of a.s.syria Proper, Adiabene, and Mesopotamia.

The fifth campaign of Sennacherib, according to his own annals, was partly in a mountainous country which he calls Nipur or Nibur--probably the most northern portion of the Zagros range where it abuts on Ararat.

He there took a number of small towns, after which he proceeded westward and contended with a certain Maniya king of Dayan, which was a part of Taurus bordering on Cilicia. He boasts that he penetrated further into this region than any king before him; and the boast is confirmed by the fact that the geographical names which appear are almost entirely new to us. The expedition was a plundering raid, not an attempt at conquest.

Sennacherib ravaged the country, burnt the towns, and carried away with him all the valuables, the flocks and herds, and the inhabitants.