The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6). Duncker Max

from Humbanigas to Sutruk Nanchundi, driven back, and the cities of Babylonia taken. Merodach Baladan abandons Babylon, and retires to the lower Euphrates, to the land of his nation. Sargon ascends the throne of Babylon, and takes the title, "King of Babel, of Sumir and Accad," which Tiglath Pilesar had borne before him. The second campaign ends with the capture and destruction of Dur Yakin, with the subjugation of the whole region of the Euphrates as far as the shore of the Persian Gulf, and the receiving of Merodach Baladan into favour. According to the astronomical canon, Arkeanus ascended the throne of Babylon in the year 709 B.C. Arkeanus can only be Sargon (Sarrukin). One of the tablets, which contains contracts about the sale of parcels of land, slaves, and loans, from the time of Sargon, bears the date: "Month Sebat, year of Muttakkil-Assur, viceroy of Gozan; fifteenth year of Sargon, king of Asshur, third year of his reign in Babylon."235 As Sargon certainly cannot have ascended the throne of Babylon later than the year 709 B.C., the year 707-706 would be the third year of his reign over Babylonia; the canon of the Assyrian rulers actually puts the year of Muttakkil-Assur at the year 706 B.C.

      The campaigns of the unwearied Sargon did not end with the subjugation of the whole region of Babylonia. The Annals and Fasti narrate how he overthrew Mutallu of Kummukh (Gumathene), who had united himself with Argistis, king of Ararat, who must have taken the place of Urza (p. 99), and that he planted there people from Bit Yakin (707 B.C.). The land of Ellip, which he had previously subjugated, remained faithful to him as long as king Dalta lived. After his death his sons Nibi and Ispabara contended for the throne. The former sought help from Sutruk Nanchundi of Elam; Ispabara vowed allegiance to him (Sargon). To support Ispabara, Sargon sent troops to the land of Ellip, the position of which we can only so far ascertain from the inscriptions, as to know that it bordered on Media (p. 101) as well as Elam. Nibi's warriors and the Elamites were defeated; Nibi was taken prisoner, his adherents were crucified, and Ispabara became the prince of the whole land (706 B.C.).236

      Sargon, who defeated the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, who subjugated Syria and Babylonia, who had gone through so many battles, came to a violent end, but not in war. He was murdered. The list of the rulers announces the naked fact in the year 705B.C., and adds the accession of his son Sennacherib, on whom fell the heavy task of maintaining the wide dominion which Sargon had won. If he did not succeed in doing this without some loss, his buildings, which he began immediately after his accession, were not inferior to those of his father. He must have commenced them at the beginning of his reign. The inscription on a cylinder (Bellino), bearing the date of the third year of Sennacherib, gives the dimensions of a palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, and describes the architecture and adornment. The kings, his fathers, had built this palace, but had not completed its splendour; the waves of the Tigris had injured the foundations; he altered the course of the Tigris, strengthened the dams, built the palace afresh, and caused lions and bulls to be hewn out of great stones.237 The remains of this structure lie on the site of the ancient Nineveh, immediately to the north of the Khosr, which flowed through the city, on the old bed of the Tigris, near the modern village of Kuyundshik. The dimensions give this palace the first place among the castles of the kings of Asshur. It rose on a terrace of more than 80 feet in height, close by the Tigris. The great porticoes were from 150 to 180 feet in length, and about 40 feet in breadth; the great gallery was 218 feet in length, and 25 feet in breadth. About 70 chambers have been discovered in this building.238 The main front lay to the north-west; two great winged bulls with human heads guarded the entrance. At the entrance of the north-east front also were two bulls of this kind. In the great portico behind this entrance, and the gallery abutting upon it, the process of building is represented on the reliefs on the walls. We see the clay pits, the workmen carrying baskets filled with clay and bricks, the great blocks intended for the images of the lions and bulls coming up the Tigris, and brought to the elevation on shore by ropes drawn by hundreds of hands. This is done by means of slips under which are placed wooden rollers. A lion, already finished, standing upright and surrounded by a wooden case, and held up by workmen with ropes and forked poles, is drawn along in this manner; the hinder end of the slip is then raised by a lever placed on wedges in order to facilitate the elevation. The overseer stands between the fore-feet of the colossus, and directs by the movement of his hands the efforts of the workmen. Sennacherib himself from his chariot watches the advance of this statue. In the same way a finished human-headed bull is drawn along by four long rows of workmen. In another chamber we see rows of servants, who carry apples and grapes, pastry and other food in baskets. The reliefs of the next porticoes and halls exhibit the warlike acts of Sennacherib; the crossing of rivers, sieges, stormings of cities in the mountain country, in the plain, in the marsh. Unfortunately the inscriptions over these have almost entirely perished along with the upper part of the walls; only a few words are legible. The inscription of the third year of Sennacherib (703 B.C.) concludes the account of this building with the words: "To him among my sons, whom Asshur in the course of the days shall summon to be lord over land and people, I say this: This palace will grow old and fall to pieces. May he set it up, restore the inscriptions and the writing of my name, and clean the images; may he offer sacrifice, and put everything in its place; so shall Asshur hear his prayer."239 The inscriptions on slabs between the thighs of the two bulls before the north-west entrance give a detailed account of the dimensions and manner of the building of this palace.240

      In the inscription on the cylinder, Sennacherib boasts that he made a canal from the Khosr through the city; that he renovated Nineveh, "the city of Istar," and made it brilliant as the sun; the prisoners, Chaldæans, Aramæans, captives from Van and Cilicia, were employed on these works.241 The adornment of Nineveh, the strengthening of its walls, are mentioned on inscriptions on slabs in the palace itself.242 Another cylinder (Smith) from the ninth year of the reign of Sennacherib (697 B.C.),243 also mentions the buildings which the king undertook for the restoration of Nineveh: the prisoners of his campaigns worked at them: Philistines and Tyrians are here added to Chaldæans, Aramæans, Armenians, and Cilicians.244 Later documents inform us that Sennacherib built temples to Nebo and Merodach at Nineveh.245 A third cylinder (Taylor) has been preserved from the fifteenth year of the reign of Sennacherib (691 B.C.), which tells us of a second great building of his at Nineveh. By the kings, his fathers, a house had been erected for the preservation of the treasure; for the horses and troops. This building had become damaged; he caused the old house to be removed, and built up again on a larger scale.246 The remains of this building lie to the south of the confluence of the Khosr and Tigris near the modern Nebbi Yunus. According to the evidence of the ruins it was of smaller dimensions than the palace at Kuyundshik. To the north-east of Nineveh, near the modern Bavian, the image of Sennacherib is hewn in the rocks. The inscription on this image informs us in detail what Sennacherib had done for the irrigation of the land of Assyria: among other things it is mentioned, that he had made 16 (18) canals from the Khosr, or into it.247 Bricks found at Sherif-Khan show by the stamp that Sennacherib built a temple there to Nergal; the bricks of a heap of ruins to the south-west of the ancient Arbela show that he erected there the fortifications of a city called Kakzi.248

      The most indispensable task which devolved on Sennacherib at his accession was the keeping of Babylon in subjection. The news of the death of Sargon, the mighty warrior, might arouse among all the nations which had felt the weight of his arms so heavily the hope of again shaking off the yoke. If the Babylonians succeeded in freeing themselves from the dominion of his successor, there was the prospect that such a success would be an event of wide importance; a sign and example to the subject lands. According to the evidence of Josephus, Berosus related of Sennacherib that he fought against all Asia and Egypt:249 Abydenus represented him as subjugating Babylonia.250

235

Ménant, "Babylone," p. 157.

236

The Annals in Oppert, loc. cit. 7, 51-53. The Fasti in Ménant, "Annal." p. 186, 187.

237

Cylinder Bellino in Ménant, "Annal." p. 229.

238

G. Rawlinson, "Monarch," 22. 179, n. 5.

239

Ménant, loc. cit. 229, 230.

240

Ménant, loc. cit. p. 212.

241

Ménant, loc. cit. p. 228, 229.

242

Ménant, loc. cit. p. 211.

243

Year of Nabudurussur.

244

G. Smith, "Disc." p. 308.

245

G. Smith, "Assurbanipal," p. 318.

246

Ménant, loc. cit. p. 224.

247

Rodwell, "Records of the Past," 9, 23; Ménant, loc. cit. p. 235.

248

In Ménant, loc. cit. p. 237.

249

Joseph. "Antiq." 10, 1, 4.

250

In Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 35, ed. Schöne.