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Title: History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12)
Author: Maspero, G. (Gaston), 1846-1916
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12)" ***
[Illustration: Spines]
[Illustration: Cover]
HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen's
College, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of
France
Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt
Exploration Fund
CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Volume VII.
LONDON
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
PUBLISHERS
[Illustration: 001.jpg Frontispiece]
/*
Slumber Song--After painting bv P. Grot. Johann
*/
[Illustration: Titlepage]
[Illustration: 002.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
_THE ASSYRIAN REVIVAL AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SYRIA_
_ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL (885-860 B.C.) AND SHALMANESER III. (860-825 B.C.)--THE
KINGDOM OF URARTU AND ITS CONQUERING PRINCES: MENUAS AND ARGISTIS._
_The line of Assyrian kings after Assurirba, and the Babylonian
dynasties: the war between Rammân-nirâri III. and Shamash-mudammiq; his
victories over Babylon; Tukulti-ninip II. (890-885 B.C.)--The empire at
the accession of Assur-nazir-pal: the Assyrian army and the progress of
military tactics; cavalry, military engines; the condition of Assyria's
neighbours, methods of Assyrian conquest._
_The first campaigns of Assur-nazir-pal in Nairi and on the Khabur
(885-882 B.C.): Zamua reduced to an Assyrian province (881 B.C.)--The
fourth campaign in Naîri and the war on the Euphrates (880 B.C.); the
first conquest of BU-Adini--Northern Syria at the opening of the IXth
century: its civilisation, arts, army, and religion--The submission
of the Hittite states and of the Patina: the Assyrians reach the
Mediterranean._
_The empire after the wars of Assur-nazir-pal--Building of the palace
at Calah: Assyrian architecture and sculpture in the IXth century--The
tunnel of Negub and the palace of Balawât--The last years of
Assur-nazir-pal: His campaign of the year 867 in Naîri--The death of
Assur-nazir-pal (860 B.C.); his character._
_Shalmaneser III. (860-825 B.C.): the state of the empire at his
accession--Urartu: its physical features, races, towns, temples, its
deities--Shalmaneser's first campaign in Urartu: he penetrates as far
as Lake Van (860 B.C.)--The conquest of Bît-Adini and of Naîri (859-855
B.C.)_
_The attack on Damascus: the battle of Qarqar (854 B.C.) and the war
against Babylon (852-851 B.C.)--The alliance between Judah and Israel,
the death of Ahab (853 B.C.); Damascus successfully resists the attacks
of Assyria (849-846 B.C.)--Moab delivered from Israel, Mesha; the death
of Ben-hadad (Adadidri) and the accession of Hazael; the fall of the
house of Omri-Jehu (843 B.C.)--The defeat of Hazael and the homage of
Jehu (842-839 B.C.). Wars in Cilicia and in Namri (838-835 B.c.): the
last battles of Shalmaneser III.; his building works, the revolt
of Assur-dain-pal--Samsi-rammân IV. (825-812 B.C.), his first three
expeditions, his campaigns against Babylon--Bammdn-nirdri IV, (812-783
B.C.)--Jehu, Athaliah, Joash: the supremacy of Hazael over Israel and
Judah--Victory of Bammdn-nirdri over Mari, and the submission of all
Syria to the Assyrians (803 B.C.)._
_The growth of Urartu: the conquests of Menuas and Argistis I., their
victories over Assyria--Shalmaneser IV. (783-772 B.C.)--Assurdân III.
(772-754 B.C.)--Assur-niruri III. (754-745 B.C.)--The downfall of
Assyria and the triumph of Urartu._
[Illustration: 003.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
CHAPTER I--THE ASSYRIAN REVIVAL AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SYRIA
_Assur-nazir-pal (885-860) and Shalmaneser III. (860-825)--The kingdom
of Urartu and its conquering princes: Menuas and Argistis._
Assyria was the first to reappear on the scene of action. Less hampered
by an ancient past than Egypt and Chaldæa, she was the sooner able to
recover her strength after any disastrous crisis, and to assume again
the offensive along the whole of her frontier line.
Image Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik
of the time of Sennacherib. The initial cut, which is also
by Faucher-Gudin, represents the broken obelisk of Assur-
nazir-pal, the bas-reliefs of which are as yet unpublished.
During the years immediately following the ephemeral victories and
reverses of Assurirba, both the country and its rulers are plunged in
the obscurity of oblivion. Two figures at length, though at what date
is uncertain, emerge from the darkness--a certain Irbarammân and an
Assur-nadinakhê II., whom we find engaged in building palaces and making
a necropolis. They were followed towards 950 by a Tiglath-pileser II.,
of whom nothing is known but his name.* He in his turn was succeeded
about the year 935 by one Assurdân II., who appears to have concentrated
his energies upon public works, for we hear of him digging a canal to
supply his capital with water, restoring the temples and fortifying
towns. Kammân-nirâri III., who followed him in 912, stands out more
distinctly from the mists which envelop the history of this period;
he repaired the gate of the Tigris and the adjoining wall at Assur, he
enlarged its principal sanctuary, reduced several rebellious provinces
to obedience, and waged a successful warfare against the neighbouring
inhabitants of Karduniash. Since the extinction of the race of
Nebuchadrezzar I., Babylon had been a prey to civil discord and foreign
invasion. The Aramaean tribes mingled with, or contiguous to the
remnants of the Cossoans bordering on the Persian gulf, constituted
possibly, even at this period, the powerful nation of the Kaldâ.**
* Our only knowledge of Tiglath-pileser II. is from a brick,
on which he is mentioned as being the grandfather of Rammân-
nirâri II.
** The names Chaldæa and Chaldæans being ordinarily used to
designate the territory and people of Babylon, I shall
employ the term Kaldu or Kaldâ in treating of the Aramæan
tribes who constituted the actual Chaldæan nation.
It has been supposed, not without probability, that a certain
Simashshikhu, Prince of the Country of the Sea, who immediately followed
the last scion of the line of Pashê,* was one of their chiefs. He
endeavoured to establish order in the city, and rebuilt the temple of
the Sun destroyed by the nomads at Sippar, but at the end of eighteen
years he was assassinated. His son Eâmukinshurnu remained at the head of
affairs some three to six months; Kashshu-nadinakhê ruled three or
six years, at the expiration of which a man of the house of Bâzi,
Eulbar-shakinshumi by name, seized upon the crown.** His dynasty
consisted of three members, himself included, and it was overthrown
after a duration of twenty years by an Elamite, who held authority for
another seven.***
* The name of this prince has been read Simbarshiku by
Peiser, a reading adopted by Rost; Simbarshiku would have
been shortened into Sibir, and we should have to identify it
with that of the Sibir mentioned by Assur-nazir-pal in his
Annals, col. ii. 1. 84, as a king of Karduniash who lived
before his (Assur-nazir-pal's) time (see p. 38 of the
present volume).
** The name of this king may be read Edubarshakîn-shumi. The
house of Bâzi takes its name from an ancestor who must have
founded it at some unknown date, but who never reigned in
Chaldæa. Winckler has with reason conjectured that the name
subsequently lost its meaning to the Babylonians, and that
they confused the Chaldæan house of Bâzi with the Arab
country of Bâzu: this may explain why in his dynasties
Berosos attributes an Arab origin to that one which
comprises the short-lived line of Bît-Bâzi.
*** Our knowledge of these events is derived solely from the
texts of the Babylonian Canon published and translated by G.
Smith, by Pinches, and by Sayce. The inscription of
Nabubaliddin informs us that Kashu-nadînakhê and Eulbar-
shâkinshumu continued the works begun by Simashshiku in the
temple of the Sun at Sippar.
It was a period of calamity and distress, during which the Arabs or the
Aramæans ravaged the country, and pillaged without compunction not only
the property of the inhabitants, but also that of the gods. The
Elamite usurper having died about the year 1030, a Babylonian of noble
extraction expelled the intruders, and succeeded in bringing the larger
part of the kingdom under his rule.*
* The names of the first kings of this dynasty are destroyed in
the copies of the Royal Canon which have come down to us. The three
preceding dynasties are restored as follows:--
[Illustration: 006.jpg TABLE OF KINGS]
Five or six of his descendants had passed away, and a certain
Shamash-mudammiq was feebly holding the reins of government, when the
expeditions of Rammân-nirâri III. provoked war afresh between Assyria
and Babylon. The two armies encountered each other once again on
their former battlefield between the Lower Zab and the Turnat.
Shamash-mudammiq, after being totally routed near the Yalmân mountains,
did not long survive, and Naboshumishkun, who succeeded him, showed
neither more ability nor energy than his predecessor. The Assyrians
wrested from him the fortresses of Bambala and Bagdad, dislodged him
from the positions where he had entrenched himself, and at length took
him prisoner while in flight, and condemned him to perpetual captivity.*
* Shamash-mudammiq appears to have died about 900.
Naboshumishkun probably reigned only one or two years, from
900 to 899 or to 898. The name of his successor is destroyed
in the _Synchronous History_; it might be Nabubaliddin, who
seems to have had a long life, but it is wiser, until fresh
light is thrown on the subject, to admit that it is some
prince other than Nabubaliddin, whose name is as yet unknown
to us.
His successor abandoned to the Assyrians most of the districts situated
on the left bank of the Lower Zab between the Zagros mountains and the
Tigris, and peace, which was speedily secured by a double marriage,
remained unbroken for nearly half a century. Tukulti-ninip II. was fond
of fighting; "he overthrew his adversaries and exposed their heads upon
stakes," but, unlike his predecessor, he directed his efforts against
Naîri and the northern and western tribes. We possess no details of his
campaigns; we can only surmise that in six years, from 890 to 885,* he
brought into subjection the valley of the Upper Tigris and the mountain
provinces which separate it from the Assyrian plain. Having reached the
source of the river, he carved, beside the image of Tiglath-pileser I.,
the following inscription, which may still be read upon the rock. "With
the help of Assur, Shamash, and Rammân, the gods of his religion, he
reached this spot. The lofty mountains he subjugated from the sun-rising
to its down-setting; victorious, irresistible, he came hither, and like
unto the lightning he crossed the raging rivers."**
* The parts preserved of the Eponym canon begin their record
in 893, about the end of the reign of Rammân-nirâri IL The
line which distinguishes the two reigns from one another is
drawn between the name of the personage who corresponds to
the year 890, and that of Tukulti-ninip who corresponds to
the year 889: Tukulti-ninip II., therefore, begins his reign
in 890, and his death is six years later, in 885.
** This inscription and its accompanying bas-relief are
mentioned in the _Annals of Assur-nazir-pal_.
He did not live long to enjoy his triumphs, but his death made no
impression on the impulse given to the fortunes of his country. The
kingdom which he left to Assur-nazir-pal, the eldest of his sons,
embraced scarcely any of the countries which had paid tribute to former
sovereigns. Besides Assyria proper, it comprised merely those districts
of Naîri which had been annexed within his own generation; the
remainder had gradually regained their liberty: first the outlying
dependencies--Cilicia, Melitene, Northern Syria, and then the provinces
nearer the capital, the valleys of the Masios and the Zagros, the
steppes of the Khabur, and even some districts such as Lubdi and
Shupria, which had been allotted to Assyrian colonists at various
times after successful campaigns. Nearly the whole empire had to be
reconquered under much the same conditions as in the first instance.
Assyria itself, it is true, had recovered the vitality and elasticity of
its earlier days. The people were a robust and energetic race, devoted
to their rulers, and ready to follow them blindly and trustingly
wherever they might lead. The army, while composed chiefly of the same
classes of troops as in the time of Tiglath-pileser I.,--spearmen,
archers, sappers, and slingers,--now possessed a new element, whose
appearance on the field of battle was to revolutionize the whole method
of warfare; this was the cavalry, properly so called, introduced as an
adjunct to the chariotry. The number of horsemen forming this contingent
was as yet small; like the infantry, they wore casques and cuirasses,
but were clothed with a tight-fitting loin-cloth in place of the
long kilt, the folds of which would have embarrassed their movements.
One-half of the men carried sword and lance, the other half sword and
bow, the latter of a smaller kind than that used by the infantry. Their
horses were bridled, and bore trappings on the forehead, but had no
saddles; their riders rode bareback without stirrups; they sat far back
with the chest thrown forward, their knees drawn up to grip the shoulder
of the animal.
[Illustration: 009.jpg AN ASSYRIAN HORSEMAN ARMED WITH THE SWORD]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in bronze on the
gate of Balawât. The Assyrian artist has shown the head and
legs of the second horse in profile behind the first, but he
has forgotten to represent the rest of its body, and also
the man riding it.
Each horseman was attended by a groom, who rode abreast of him, and held
his reins during an action, so that he might be free to make use of
his weapons. This body of cavalry, having little confidence in its own
powers, kept in close contact with the main body of the army, and was
not used in independent manouvres; it was associated with and formed an
escort to the chariotry in expeditions where speed was essential, and
where the ordinary foot soldier would have hampered the movements of the
charioteers.*
* Isolated horsemen must no doubt have existed in the
Assyrian just as in the Egyptian army, but we never find any
mention of a _body_ of cavalry in inscriptions prior to the
time of Assur-nazir-pal; the introduction of this new corps
must consequently have taken place between the reigns of
Tiglath-pileser and Assur-nazir-pal, probably nearer the
time of the latter. Assur-nazir-pal himself seldom speaks of
his cavalry, but he constantly makes mention of the horsemen
of the Aramaean and Syrian principalities, whom he
incorporated into his own army.
[Illustration: 010.jpg A MOUNTED ASSYRIAN ARCHER WITH ATTENDANT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bronze bas-reliefs
of the gate of Balawât.
The army thus reinforced was at all events more efficient, if not
actually more powerful, than formerly; the discipline maintained was as
severe, the military spirit as keen, the equipment as perfect, and the
tactics as skilful as in former times. A knowledge of engineering had
improved upon the former methods of taking towns by sapping and scaling,
and though the number of military engines was as yet limited, the
besiegers were well able, when occasion demanded, to improvise and make
use of machines capable of demolishing even the strongest walls.*
* The battering-ram had already reached such a degree of
perfection under Assur-nazir-pal, that it must have been
invented some time before the execution of the first bas-
reliefs on which we see it portrayed. Its points of
resemblance to the Greek battering-ram furnished Hoofer with
one of his mam arguments for placing the monuments of
Khorsabad and Koyunjik as late as the Persian or Parthian
period.
The Assyrians were familiar with all the different kinds of
battering-ram; the hand variety, which was merely a beam tipped with
iron, worked by some score of men; the fixed ram, in which the beam was
suspended from a scaffold and moved by means of ropes; and lastly,
the movable ram, running on four or six wheels, which enabled it to be
advanced or withdrawn at will. The military engineers of the day allowed
full rein to their fancy in the many curious shapes they gave to this
latter engine; for example, they gave to the mass of bronze at its point
the form of the head of an animal, and the whole engine took at times
the form of a sow ready to root up with its snout the foundations of the
enemy's defences. The scaffolding of the machine was usually protected
by a carapace of green leather or some coarse woollen material stretched
over it, which broke the force of blows from projectiles: at times it
had an additional arrangement in the shape of a cupola or turret in
which archers were stationed to sweep the face of the wall opposite to
the point of attack.
[Illustration: 012.jpg THE MOVABLE SOW MAKING A BREACH IN THE WALL OF A
FORTRESS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bronze bas-reliefs
of the gate of Balawât.
The battering-rams were set up and placed in line at a short distance
from the ramparts of the besieged town; the ground in front of them was
then levelled and a regular causeway constructed, which was paved with
bricks wherever the soil appeared to be lacking in firmness. These
preliminaries accomplished, the engines were pushed forward by relays
of troops till they reached the required range. The effort needed to set
the ram in motion severely taxed the strength of those engaged in the
work; for the size of the beam was enormous, and its iron point, or the
square mass of metal at the end, was of no light weight. The besieged
did their best to cripple or, if possible, destroy the engine as it
approached them.
[Illustration: 013.jpg THE TURRETED BATTERING-RAM ATTACKING THE WALLS OF
A TOWN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief brought from
Nimroud, now in the British Museum.
Torches, lighted tow, burning pitch, and stink-pots were hurled down
upon its roofing: attempts were made to seize the head of the ram by
means of chains or hooks, so as to prevent it from moving, or in order
to drag it on to the battlements; in some cases the garrison succeeded
in crushing the machinery with a mass of rock. The Assyrians, however,
did not allow themselves to be discouraged by such trifling accidents;
they would at once extinguish the fire, release, by sheer force of
muscle, the beams which the enemy had secured, and if, notwithstanding
all their efforts, one of the machines became injured, they had others
ready to take its place, and the ram would be again at work after only a
few minutes' delay. Walls, even when of burnt brick or faced with small
stones, stood no chance against such an attack.
[Illustration: 014.jpg THE BESIEGED ENDEAVOURING TO CRIPPLE OR DESTROY
THE BATTERING-RAM]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief from Nimroud, now
in the British Museum.
The first blow of the ram sufficed to shake them, and an opening was
rapidly made, so that in a few days, often in a few hours, they became
a heap of ruins; the foot soldiers could then enter by the breach which
the pioneers had effected.
It must, however, be remembered that the strength and discipline which
the Assyrian troops possessed in such a high degree, were common to
the military forces of all the great states--Elam, Damascus, Naîri, the
Hittites, and Chaldæa. It was owing to this, and also to the fact that
the armies of all these Powers were, as a rule, both in strength and
numbers, much on a par, that no single state was able to inflict on any
of the rest such a defeat as would end in its destruction. What decisive
results had the terrible struggles produced, which stained almost
periodically the valleys of the Tigris and the Zab with blood? After
endless loss of life and property, they had nearly always issued in the
establishment of the belligerents in their respective possessions,
with possibly the cession of some few small towns or fortresses to the
stronger party, most of which, however, were destined to come back to
its former possessor in the very next campaign. The fall of the capital
itself was not decisive, for it left the vanquished foe chafing under
his losses, while the victory cost his rival so dear that he was unable
to maintain the ascendency for more than a few years. Twice at least
in three centuries a king of Assyria had entered Babylon, and twice the
Babylonians had expelled the intruder of the hour, and had forced him
back with a blare of trumpets to the frontier. Although the Ninevite
dynasties had persisted in their pretensions to a suzerainty which
they had generally been unable to enforce, the tradition of which,
unsupported by any definite decree, had been handed on from one
generation to another; yet in practice their kings had not succeeded in
"taking the hands of Bel," and in reigning personally in Babylon, nor
in extorting from the native sovereign an official acknowledgment of
his vassalage. Profiting doubtless by past experience, Assur-nazir-pal
resolutely avoided those direct conflicts in which so many of his
predecessors had wasted their lives. If he did not actually renounce
his hereditary pretensions, he was content to let them lie dormant. He
preferred to accommodate himself to the terms of the treaty signed a
few years previously by Rammân-nirâri, even when Babylon neglected
to observe them; he closed his eyes to the many ill-disguised acts of
hostility to which he was exposed,* and devoted all his energies to
dealing with less dangerous enemies.
* He did not make the presence of Cossoan troops among the
allies of the Sukhi a casus belli, even though they were
commanded by a brother and by one of the principal officers
of the King of Babylon.
Even if his frontier touched Karduniash to the south, elsewhere he was
separated from the few states strong enough to menace his kingdom by
a strip of varying width, comprising several less important tribes and
cities;--to the east and north-east by the barbarians of obscure race
whose villages and strongholds were scattered along the upper affluents
of the Tigris or on the lower terraces of the Iranian plateau: to the
west and north-west by the principalities and nomad tribes, mostly of
Aramoan extraction, who now for a century had peopled the mountains
of the Tigris and the steppes of Mesopotamia. They were high-spirited,
warlike, hardy populations, proud of their independence and quick
to take up arms in its defence or for its recovery, but none of them
possessed more than a restricted domain, or had more than a handful
of soldiers at its disposal. At times, it is true, the nature of their
locality befriended them, and the advantages of position helped to
compensate for their paucity of numbers.
[Illustration: 017.jpg THE ESCARPMENTS OF THE ZAB]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Binder.
Sometimes they were entrenched behind one of those rapid watercourses
like the Radanu, the Zab, or the Turnat, which are winter torrents
rather than streams, and are overhung by steep banks, precipitous as a
wall above a moat; sometimes they took refuge upon some wooded height
and awaited attack amid its rocks and pine woods. Assyria was
superior to all of them, if not in the valour of its troops, at least
numerically, and, towering in the midst of them, she could single out
at will whichever tribe offered the easiest prey, and falling on it
suddenly, would crush it by sheer force of weight. In such a case the
surrounding tribes, usually only too well pleased to witness in safety
the fall of a dangerous rival, would not attempt to interfere; but their
turn was ere long sure to come, and the pity which they had declined
to show to their neighbours was in like manner refused to them. The
Assyrians ravaged their country, held their chiefs to ransom, razed
their strongholds, or, when they did not demolish them, garrisoned
them with their own troops who held sway over the country. The revenues
gleaned from these conquests would swell the treasury at Nineveh, the
native soldiers would be incorporated into the Assyrian army, and when
the smaller tribes had all in turn been subdued, their conqueror would,
at length, find himself confronted with one of the great states from
which he had been separated by these buffer communities; then it was
that the men and money he had appropriated in his conquests would
embolden him to provoke or accept battle with some tolerable certainty
of victory.
Immediately on his accession, Assur-nazir-pal turned his attention to
the parts of his frontier where the population was most scattered, and
therefore less able to offer any resistance to his projects.*
* The principal document for the history of Assur-nazir-pal
is the "Monolith of Nimrud," discovered by Layard in the
ruins of the temple of Ninip; it bears the same inscription
on both its sides. It is a compilation of various documents,
comprising, first, a consecutive account of the campaigns of
the king's first six years, terminating in a summary of the
results obtained during that period; secondly, the account
of the campaign of his sixth year, followed by three
campaigns not dated, the last of which was in Syria; and
thirdly, the history of a last campaign, that of his
eighteenth year, and a second summary. A monolith found in
the ruins of Kurkh, at some distance from Diarbekir,
contains some important additions to the account of the
campaigns of the fifth year. The other numerous inscriptions
of Assur-nazir-pal which have come down to us do not contain
any information of importance which is not found in the text
of the Annals. The inscription of the broken Obelisk, from
which I have often quoted, contains in the second column
some mention of the works undertaken by this king.
He marched towards the north-western point of his territory, suddenly
invaded Nummi,* and in an incredibly short time took Gubbe, its capital,
and some half-dozen lesser places, among them Surra, Abuku, Arura,
and Arubi. The inhabitants assembled upon a mountain ridge which they
believed to be inaccessible, its peak being likened to "the point of an
iron dagger," and the steepness of its sides such that "no winged bird
of the heavens dare venture on them." In the short space of three days
Assur-nazir-pal succeeded in climbing its precipices and forcing the
entrenchments which had been thrown up on its summit: two hundred of its
defenders perished sword in hand, the remainder were taken prisoners.
The Kirruri,** terrified by this example, submitted unreservedly to
the conqueror, yielded him their horses, mules, oxen, sheep, wine, and
brazen vessels, and accepted the Assyrian prefects appointed to collect
the tribute.
* Nummi or Nimmi, mentioned already in the Annals of
Tiglath-pileser I., has been placed by Hommel in the
mountain group which separates Lake Van from Lake Urumiah,
but by Tiele in the regions situated to the southeast of
Nineveh; the observations of Delattre show that we ought
perhaps to look for it to the north of the Arzania,
certainly in the valley of that river. It appears to me to
answer to the cazas of Varto and Boulanîk in the sandjak of
Mush. The name of the capital may be identified with the
present Gop, chief town of the caza of Boulanîk; in this
case Abuku might be represented by the village of Biyonkh.
** The Kirruri must have had their habitat in the depression
around Lake frumiah, on the western side of the lake, if we
are to believe Schrader; Jelattre has pointed out that it
ought to be sought elsewhere, near the sources of the
Tigris, not far from the Murad-su. The connection in which
it is here cited obliges us to place it in the immediate
neighbourhood of Nummi, and its relative position to Adaush
and Gilzân makes it probable that it is to be sought to the
west and south-west of Lake Van, in the cazas of Mush and
Sassun in the sandjak of Mush.
The neighbouring districts, Adaush, Gilzân, and Khubushkia, followed
their example;* they sent the king considerable presents of gold,
silver, lead, and copper, and their alacrity in buying off their
conqueror saved them from the ruinous infliction of a garrison. The
Assyrian army defiling through the pass of Khulun next fell upon the
Kirkhi, dislodged the troops stationed in the fortress of Nishtun,
and pillaged the cities of Khatu, Khatara, Irbidi, Arzania, Tela, and
Khalua; ** Bubu, the Chief of Nishtun,*** was sent to Arbela, flayed
alive, and his skin nailed to the city wall.
* Kirzâu, also transcribed Gilzân and Guzân, has been
relegated by the older Assyriologists to Eastern Armenia,
and the site further specified as being between the ancient
Araxes and Lake Urumiah, in the Persian provinces of Khoî
and Marand. The indications given in our text and the
passages brought together by Schrader, which place Gilzân in
direct connection with Kirruri on one side and with Kurkhi
on the other, oblige us to locate the country in the upper
basin of the Tigris, and I should place it near Bitlis-
tchaî, where different forms of the word occur many times on
the map, such as Ghalzan in Ghalzan-dagh; Kharzan, the name
of a caza of the sandjak of Sert; Khizan, the name of a caza
of the sandjak of Bitlis. Girzân-Kilzân would thus be the
Roman province of Arzanene, Ardzn in Armenian, in which the
initial g or h of the ancient name has been replaced in the
process of time by a soft aspirate. Khubushkia or Khutushkia
has been placed by Lenormant to the east of the Upper Zab,
and south of Arapkha, and this identification has been
approved by Schrader and also by Delitzsch; according to the
passages that Schrader himself has cited, it must, however,
have stretched northwards as far as Shatakh-su, meeting
Gilzân at one point of the sandjaks of Van and Hakkiari.
** Assur-nazir-pal, in going from Kirruri to Kirkhi in the
basin of the Tigris, could go either by the pass of Bitlis
or that of Sassun; that of Bitlis is excluded by the fact
that it lies in Kirruri, and Kirruri is not mentioned in
what follows. But if the route chosen was by the pass of
Sassun, Khulun necessarily must have occupied a position at
the entrance of the defiles, perhaps that of the present
town of Khorukh. The name Khatu recalls that of the Khoith
tribe which the Armenian historians mention as in this
locality. Khaturu is perhaps Hâtera in the caza of Lidjô, in
the sandjak of Diarbekîr, and Arzania the ancient Arzan,
Arzn, the ruins of which may be seen near Sheikh-Yunus.
Tila-Tela is not the same town as the Tela in Mesopotamia,
which we shall have occasion to speak of later, but is
probably to be identified with Til or Tilleh, at the
confluence of the Tigris and the Bohtan-tcha. Finally, it is
possible that the name Khalua may be preserved in that of
Halewi, which Layard gives as belonging to a village
situated almost halfway between Rundvan and Til.
*** Nishtun was probably the most important spot in this
region: from its position on the list, between Khulun and
Khataru on one side and Arzania on the other, it is evident
we must look for it somewhere in Sassun or in the direction
of Mayafarrikin.
[Illustration: 021.jpg THE CAMPAIGNS OF ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL IN NAIRI]
In a small town near one of the sources of the Tigris, Assur-nazir-pal
founded a colony on which he imposed his name; he left there a statue
of himself, with an inscription celebrating his exploits carved on its
base, and having done this, he returned to Nineveh laden with booty.
[Illustration: 022.jpg THE SITE OF SHADIKANNI AT ARBAN, ON THE KHABUR]
Drawn by Boudier, from a sketch taken by Layard.
A few weeks had sufficed for him to complete, on this side, the work
bequeathed to him by his father, and to open up the neighbourhood of the
northeast provinces; he was not long in setting out afresh, this time to
the north-west, in the direction of the Taurus.*
* The text of the "Annals" declares that these events took
place "in this same limmu," in what the king calls higher up
in the column "the beginning of my royalty, the first year
of my reign." We must therefore suppose that he ascended the
throne almost at the beginning of the year, since he was
able to make two campaigns under the same eponym.
He rapidly skirted the left bank of the Tigris, burned some score of
scattered hamlets at the foot of Nipur and Pazatu,* crossed to the right
bank, above Amidi, and, as he approached the Euphrates, received
the voluntary homage of Kummukh and the Mushku.** But while he was
complacently engaged in recording the amount of vessels of bronze, oxen,
sheep, and jars of wine which represented their tribute, a messenger of
bad tidings appeared before him. Assyria was bounded on the east by a
line of small states, comprising the Katna*** and the Bît-Khalupi,****
whose towns, placed alternately like sentries on each side the Khabur,
protected her from the incursions of the Bedâwin.
* Nipur or Nibur is the Nibaros of Strabo. If we consider
the general direction of the campaign, we are inclined to
place Nipur close to the bank of the Tigris, east of the
regions traversed in the preceding campaign, and to identify
it, as also Pazatu, with the group of high hills called at
the present day the Ashit-dagh, between the Kharzan-su and
the Batman-tchai.
** The Mushku (Moschiano or Meshek) mentioned here do not
represent the main body of the tribe, established in
Cappadocia; they are the descendants of such of the Mushku
as had crossed the Euphrates and contested the possession of
the regions of Kashiari with the Assyrians.
*** The name has been read sometimes Katna, sometimes Shuna.
The country included the two towns of Kamani and Dur-
Katlimi, and on the south adjoined Bît-Khalupi; this
identifies it with the districts of Magada and Sheddadîyeh,
and, judging by the information with which Assur-nazir-pal
himself furnishes us, it is not impossible that Dur-Katline
may have been on the site of the present Magarda, and Kamani
on that of Sheddadîyeh. Ancient ruins have been pointed out
on both these spots.
**** Suru, the capital of Bît-Khalupi, was built upon the
Khabur itself where it is navigable, for Assur-nazir-pal
relates further on that he had his royal barge built there
at the time of the cruise which he undertook on the
Euphrates in the VIth year of his reign. The itineraries of
modern travellers mention a place called es-Sauar or es-
Saur, eight hours' march from the mouth of the Khabur on the
right bank of the river, situated at the foot of a hill some
220 feet high; the ruins of a fortified enclosure and of an
ancient town are still visible. Following Tomkins, I should
there place Suru, the chief town of Khalupi; Bît-Khalupi
would be the territory in the neighbourhood of es-Saur.
[Illustration: 024.jpg ONE OF THE WINGED BULLS FOUND AT ARBAN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Layard.
They were virtually Chaldæan cities, having been, like most of those
which flourished in the Mesopotamian plains, thoroughly impregnated
with Babylonian civilisation. Shadikanni, the most important of them,
commanded the right bank of the Khabur, and also the ford where the road
from Nineveh crossed the river on the route to Hariân and Carche-mish.
The palaces of its rulers were decorated with winged bulls, lions,
stelae, and bas-reliefs carved in marble brought from the hills of
Singar. The people seem to have been of a capricious temperament, and,
nothwithstanding the supervision to which they were subjected, few
reigns elapsed in which it was not necessary to put down a rebellion
among them. Bît-Khalupi and its capital Suru had thrown off the Assyrian
yoke after the death of Tukulti-ninip; the populace, stirred up no doubt
by Aramæan emissaries, had assassinated the Harnathite who governed
them, and had sent for a certain Akhiababa, a man of base extraction
from Bît-Adini, whom they had proclaimed king. This defection, if not
promptly dealt with, was likely to entail serious consequences, since it
left an important point on the frontier exposed: and there now remained
nothing to prevent the people of Adini or their allies from spreading
over the country between the Khabur and the Tigris, and even pushing
forward their marauding bands as far as the very walls of Singar and
Assur.
[Illustration: 024b.jpg NO. 1. ENAMELED BRICK (NIMROD). NO. 2. FRAGMENT
OF MURAL PAINTING (NIMROD).]
[Illustration: 025.jpg STELE FROM ARBAN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard's sketch
Without losing a moment, Assur-nazir-pal marched down the course of the
Khabur, hastily collecting the tribute of the cities through which he
passed. The defenders of Sura were disconcerted by his sudden appearance
before their town, and their rulers came out and prostrated themselves
at the king's feet: "Dost thou desire it? it is life for us;--dost thou
desire it? it is death;--dost thou desire it? what thy heart chooseth,
that do to us!" But the appeal to his clemency was in vain; the alarm
had been so great and the danger so pressing, that Assur-nazir-pal was
pitiless. The town was handed over to the soldiery, all the treasure
it contained was confiscated, and the women and children of the best
families were made slaves; some of the ringleaders paid the penalty of
their revolt on the spot; the rest, with Akhiabaha, were carried away
and flayed alive, some at Nineveh, some elsewhere. An Assyrian garrison
was installed in the citadel, and an ordinary governor, Azilu by name,
replaced the dynasty of native princes. The report of this terrible
retribution induced the Laqî* to tender their submission, and their
example was followed by Khaian, king of Khindanu on the Euphrates.
He bought off the Assyrians with gold, silver, lead, precious
stones, deep-hued purple, and dromedaries; he erected a statue of
Assur-nazir-pal in the centre of his palace as a sign of his vassalage,
and built into the wall near the gates of his town an inscription
dedicated to the gods of the conqueror.
* The Laqî were situated on both banks of the Euphrates,
principally on the right bank, between the Khabur and the
Balikh, interspersed among the Sukhi, of whom they were
perhaps merely a dissentient fraction.
Six, or at the most eight, months had sufficed to achieve these rapid
successes over various foes, in twenty different directions--the
expeditions in Nummi and Kirruri, the occupation of Kummukh, the flying
marches across the mountains and plains of Mesopotamia--during all of
which the new sovereign had given ample proof of his genius. He had, in
fine, shown himself to be a thorough soldier, a conqueror of the type
of Tiglath-pileser, and Assyria by these victories had recovered her
rightful rank among the nations of Western Asia.
The second year of his reign was no less fully occupied, nor did it
prove less successful than the first. At its very beginning, and even
before the return of the favourable season, the Sukhi on the Euphrates
made a public act of submission, and their chief, Ilubâni, brought to
Nineveh on their behalf a large sum of gold and silver. He had scarcely
left the capital when the news of an untoward event effaced the good
impression he had made. The descendants of the colonists, planted in
bygone times by Shalmaneser I. on the western slope of the Masios, in
the district of Khalzidipkha, had thrown off their allegiance, and
their leader, Khulaî, was besieging the royal fortress of Damdamusa.*
Assur-nazir-pal marched direct to the sources of the Tigris, and
the mere fact of his presence sufficed to prevent any rising in that
quarter. He took advantage of the occasion to set up a stele beside
those of his father Tukulti-ninip and his ancestor Tiglath-pileser,
and then having halted to receive the tribute of Izalla,** he turned
southwards, and took up a position on the slopes of the Kashiari.
* The position of Khalzidipkha or Khalzilukha, as well as
that of Kina-bu, its stronghold, is shown approximately by
what follows. Assur-nazir-pal, marching from the sources of
the Supnat towards Tela, could pass either to the east or
west of the Karajah-dagh; as the end of the campaign finds
him at Tushkhân, to the south of the Tigris, and he returns
to Naîri and Kirkhi by the eastern side of the Karajah-dagh,
we are led to conclude that the outgoing march to Tela was
by the western side, through the country situated between
the Karajah-dagh and the Euphrates. On referring to a modern
map, two rather important places will be found in this
locality: the first, Arghana, commanding the road from
Diarbekîr to Khar-put; the other, Severek, on the route from
Diarbekîr to Orfah. Arghana appears to me to correspond to
the royal city of Damdamusa, which would, thus have
protected the approach to the plain on the north-west.
Severek corresponds fairly well to the position which,
according to the Assyrian text, Kinabu must have occupied;
hence the country of Khalzidipkha (Khalzilukha) must be the
district of Severek.
** Izalla, written also Izala, Azala, paid its tribute in
sheep and oxen, and also produced a wine for which it
continued to be celebrated down to the time of
Nebuchadrezzar II. Lenormant and Finzi place this country-
near to Nisibis, where the Byzantine and Syrian writers
mention a district and a mountain of the same name, and this
conjecture is borne out by the passages of the _Annals of
Assur-nazir-pal_ which place it in the vicinity of Bît-Adini
and Bît-Bakhiâni. It has also been adopted by most of the
historians who have recently studied the question.
At the first news of his approach, Khulai had raised the blockade of
Damdamusa and had entrenched himself in Kinabu; the Assyrians, however,
carried the place by storm, and six hundred soldiers of the garrison
were killed in the attack. The survivors, to the number of three
thousand, together with many women and children, were, thrown into the
flames. The people of Mariru hastened to the rescue;* the Assyrians took
three hundred of them, prisoners and burnt them alive; fifty others
were ripped up, but the victors did not stop to reduce their town. The
district of Nirbu was next subjected to systematic ravaging, and half of
its inhabitants fled into the Mesopotamian desert, while the remainder
sought refuge in Tela at the foot of the Ukhira.**
* The site of Mariru is unknown; according to the text of
the Annals, it ought to lie near Severek (Kinabu) to the
south-east, since after having mentioned it, Assur-nazir-pal
speaks of the people of Nirbu whom he engaged in the desert
before marching against Tela.
** Tila or Tela is the Tela Antoninopolis of the writers of
the Roman period and the present Veranshehr. The district of
Nirbu, of which it was the capital, lay on the southern
slope of the Karajah-dagh at the foot of Mount Urkhira, the
central group of the range. The name Kashiari is applied to
the whole mountain group which separates the basins of the
Tigris and Euphrates to the south and south-west.
The latter place was a strong one, being surrounded by three enclosing
walls, and it offered an obstinate resistance. Notwithstanding this, it
at length fell, after having lost three thousand of its defenders:--some
of its garrison were condemned to the stake, some had their hands,
noses, or ears cut off, others were deprived of sight, flayed alive,
or impaled amid the smoking ruins. This being deemed insufficient
punishment, the conqueror degraded the place from its rank of chief
town, transferring this, together with its other privileges, to a
neighbouring city, Tushkhân, which had belonged to the Assyrians from
the beginning of their conquests.* The king enlarged the place, added to
it a strong enclosing wall, and installed within it the survivors of the
older colonists who had been dispersed by the war, the majority of whom
had taken refuge in Shupria.**
* From this passage we learn that Tushkhân, also called
Tushkha, was situated on the border of Nirbu, while from
another passage in the campaign of the Vth year we find that
it was on the right bank of the Tigris. Following H.
Rawlinson, I place it at Kurkh, near the Tigris, to the east
of Diarbekîr. The existence in that locality of an
inscription of Assur-nazir-pal appears to prove the
correctness of this identification; we are aware, in fact,
of the particular favour in which this prince held Tushkhân,
for he speaks with pride of the buildings with which he
embellished it. Hommel, however, identifies Kurkh with the
town of Matiâtô, of which mention is made further on.
** Shupria or Shupri, a name which has been read Ruri, had
been brought into submission from the time of Shalmaneser I.
We gather from the passages in which it is mentioned that it
was a hilly country, producing wine, rich in flocks, and
lying at a short distance from Tushkhân; perhaps Mariru,
mentioned on p. 28, was one of its towns. I think we may
safely place it on the north-western slopes of the Kashiari,
in the modern caza of Tchernik, which possesses several
vineyards held in high estimation. Knudtzon, to whom we are
indebted for the reading of this name, places the country
rather further north, within the fork formed by the two
upper branches of the Tigris.
He constructed a palace there, built storehouses for the reception of
the grain of the province; and, in short, transformed the town into
a stronghold of the first order, capable of serving as a base of
operations for his armies. The surrounding princes, in the meanwhile,
rallied round him, including Ammibaal of Bît-Zamani, and the rulers
of Shupria, Naîri, and Urumi;* the chiefs of Eastern Nirbu alone held
aloof, emboldened by the rugged nature of their mountains and the
density of their forests. Assur-nazir-pal attacked them on his return
journey, dislodged them from the fortress of Ishpilibria where they were
entrenched, gained the pass of Buliani, and emerged into the valley of
Luqia.**
* The position of Bît-Zamani on the banks of the Euphrates
was determined by Delattre. Urumi was situated on the right
bank of the same river in the neighbourhood of Sumeisat, and
the name has survived in that of Urima, a town in the
vicinity so called even as late as Roman times. Nirdun, with
Madara as its capital, occupied part of the eastern slopes
of the Kashiari towards Ortaveran.
** Hommel identifies the Luqia with the northern affluent of
the Euphrates called on the ancient monuments Lykos, and he
places the scene of the war in Armenia. The context obliges
us to look for this river to the south of the Tigris, to the
north-east and to the east of the Kashiari. The king coming
from Nirbu, the pass of Buliani, in which he finds the towns
of Kirkhi, must be the valley of Khaneki, in which the road
winds from Mardin to Diarbekir, and the Luqia is probably
the most important stream in this region, the Sheikhân-Su,
which waters Savur, chief town of the caza of Avinch. Ardupa
must have been situated near, or on the actual site of, the
present Mardîn, whose Assyrian name is unknown to us; it was
at all events a military station on the road to Nineveh,
along which the king returned victorious with the spoil.
At Ardupa a brief halt was made to receive the ambassadors of one of the
Hittite sovereigns and others from the kings of Khanigalbat, after which
he returned to Nineveh, where he spent the winter. As a matter of fact,
these were but petty wars, and their immediate results appear at the
first glance quite inadequate to account for the contemporary enthusiasm
they excited. The sincerity of it can be better understood when we
consider the miserable state of the country twenty years previously.
Assyria then comprised two territories, one in the plains of the middle,
the other in the districts of the upper, Tigris, both of considerable
extent, but almost without regular intercommunication. Caravans or
isolated messengers might pass with tolerable safety from Assur and
Nineveh to Singar, or even to Nisibis; but beyond these places they
had to brave the narrow defiles and steep paths in the forests of the
Masios, through which it was rash to venture without keeping eye and
ear ever on the alert. The mountaineers and their chiefs recognized the
nominal suzerainty of Assyria, but refused to act upon this recognition
unless constrained by a strong hand; if this control were relaxed they
levied contributions on, or massacred, all who came within their reach,
and the king himself never travelled from his own city of Nineveh to his
own town of Amidi unless accompanied by an army. In less than the short
space of three years, Assur-nazir-pal had remedied this evil. By
the slaughter of some two hundred men in one place, three hundred in
another, two or three thousand in a third, by dint of impaling
and flaying refractory sheikhs, burning villages and dismantling
strongholds, he forced the marauders of Naîri and Kirkhi to respect his
frontiers and desist from pillaging his country. The two divisions
of his kingdom, strengthened by the military colonies in Nirbu, were
united, and became welded together into a compact whole from the banks
of the Lower Zab to the sources of the Khabur and the Supnat.
During the following season the course of events diverted the king's
efforts into quite an opposite direction (B.C. 882). Under the name of
Zamua there existed a number of small states scattered along the western
slope of the Iranian Plateau north of the Cossæans.* Many of them--as,
for instance, the Lullumê--had been civilized by the Chaldæans almost
from time immemorial; the most southern among them were perpetually
oscillating between the respective areas of influence of Babylon and
Nineveh, according as one or other of these cities was in the ascendant,
but at this particular moment they acknowledged Assyrian sway. Were they
excited to rebellion against the latter power by the emissaries of
its rival, or did they merely think that Assur-nazir-pal was too
fully absorbed in the affairs of Naîri to be able to carry his arms
effectively elsewhere? At all events they coalesced under Nurrammân,
the sheikh of Dagara, blocked the pass of Babiti which led to their
own territory, and there massed their contingents behind the shelter of
hastily erected ramparts.**
* According to Hommol and Tiele, Zamua would be the country
extending from the sources of the Radanu to the southern
shores of the lake of Urumiah; Schrader believes it to have
occupied a smaller area, and places it to the east and
south-west of the lesser Zab. Delattre has shown that a
distinction must be made between Zamua on Lake Van and the
well-known Zamua upon the Zab. Zamua, as described by Assur-
nazir-pal, answers approximately to the present sandjak of
Suleimaniyeh in the vilayet of Mossul.
** Hommol believes that Assur-nazir-pal crossed the Zab near
Altin-keupru, and he is certainly correct: but it appears to
me from a passage in the _Annals_, that instead of taking
the road which leads to Bagdad by Ker-kuk and Tuz-Khurmati,
he marched along that which leads eastwards in the direction
of Suleimaniyeh. The pass of Babiti must have lain between
Gawardis and Bibân, facing the Kissê tchai, which forms the
western branch of the Radanu. Dagara would thus be
represented by the district to the east of Kerkuk at the
foot of the Kara-dagh.
Assur-nazir-pal concentrated his army at Kakzi,* a little to the south
of Arbela, and promptly marched against them; he swept all obstacles
before him, killed fourteen hundred and sixty men at the first
onslaught, put Dagara to fire and sword, and soon defeated Nurrammân,
but without effecting his capture.
* Kakzi, sometimes read Kalzi, must have been situated at
Shemamek of Shamamik, near Hazeh, to the south-west of
Erbil, the ancient Arbela, at the spot where Jones noticed
important Assyrian ruins excavated by Layard.
As the campaign threatened to be prolonged, he formed an entrenched
camp in a favourable position, and stationed in it some of his troops to
guard the booty, while he dispersed the rest to pillage the country on
all sides.
[Illustration: 033.jpg THE CAMPAIGNS OF ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL IN ZAMUA]
One expedition led him to the mountain group of Nizir, at the end of the
chain known to the people of Lullumê as the Kinipa.* He there reduced to
ruins seven towns whose inhabitants had barricaded themselves in urgent
haste, collected the few herds of cattle he could find, and driving
them back to the camp, set out afresh towards a part of Nizir as yet
unsubdued by any conqueror. The stronghold of Larbusa fell before the
battering-ram, to be followed shortly by the capture of Bara. Thereupon
the chiefs of Zamua, convinced of their helplessness, purchased the
king's departure by presents of horses, gold, silver, and corn.**
Nurrammân alone remained impregnable in his retreat at Nishpi, and an
attempt to oust him resulted solely in the surrender of the fortress
of Birutu.*** The campaign, far from having been decisive, had to be
continued during the winter in another direction where revolts had taken
place,--in Khudun, in Kissirtu, and in the fief of Arashtua,**** all
three of which extended over the upper valleys of the lesser Zab, the
Radanu, the Turnat, and their affluents.
* Mount Kinipa is a part of Nizir, the Khalkhalân-dagh, if
we may-judge from the direction of the Assyrian campaign.
** None of these places can be identified with certainty.
The gist of the account leads us to gather that Bara was
situated to the east of Dagara, and formed its frontier; we
shall not be far wrong in looking for all these districts in
the fastnesses of the Kara-dagh, in the caza of
Suleimaniyeh. Mount Nishpi is perhaps the Segirmc-dagh of
the present day.
*** The Assyrian compiler appears to have made use of two
slightly differing accounts of this campaign; he has twice
repeated the same facts without noticing his mistake.
**** The fief of Arashtua, situated beyond the Turnat, is
probably the district of Suleimaniyeh; it is, indeed, at
this place only that the upper course of the Turnat is
sufficiently near to that of the Radanu to make the marches
of Assur-nazir-pal in the direction indicated by the
Assyrian scribe possible. According to the account of the
_Annals_, it seems to me that we must seek for Khudun and
Kissirtu to the south of the fief of Arashtua, in the modern
cazas of Gulanbar or Shehrizôr.
The king once more set out from Kakzi, crossed the Zab and the Eadanu,
through the gorges of Babiti, and halting on the ridges of Mount Simaki,
peremptorily demanded tribute from Dagara.* This was, however, merely
a ruse to deceive the enemy, for taking one evening the lightest of his
chariots and the best of his horsemen, he galloped all night without
drawing rein, crossed the Turnat at dawn, and pushing straight forward,
arrived in the afternoon of the same day before the walls of Ammali, in
the very heart of the fief of Arashtua.** The town vainly attempted a
defence; the whole population was reduced to slavery or dispersed in the
forests, the ramparts were demolished, and the houses reduced to
ashes. Khudun with twenty, and Kissirtu with ten of its villages, Bara,
Kirtiara, Dur-Lullumê, and Bunisa, offered no further resistance, and
the invading host halted within sight of the defiles of Khashmar.***
* The _Annals of Assur-nazir-pal_ go on to mention that
Mount Simaki extended as far as the Turnat, and that it was
close to Mount Azira. This passage, when compared with that
in which the opening of the campaign is described, obliges
us to recognise in Mounts Simaki and Azira two parts of the
Shehrizôr chain, parallel to the Seguirmé-dagh. The fortress
of Mizu, mentioned in the first of these two texts, may
perhaps be the present Gurân-kaleh.
** Hommel thinks that Ammali is perhaps the present
Suleimaniyeh; it is, at all events, on this side that we
must look for its site.
*** I do not know whether we may trace the name of the
ancient Mount Khashmar-Khashmir in the present Azmir-dagh;
it is at its feet, probably in the valley of Suleimanabad,
that we ought to place the passes of Khashmar.
One kinglet, however, Amika of Zamru, showed no intention of
capitulating. Entrenched behind a screen of forests and frowning
mountain ridges, he fearlessly awaited the attack. The only access to
the remote villages over which he ruled, was by a few rough roads hemmed
in between steep cliffs and beds of torrents; difficult and dangerous
at ordinary times, they were blocked in war by temporary barricades, and
dominated at every turn by some fortress perched at a dizzy height above
them. After his return to the camp, where his soldiers were allowed
a short respite, Assur-nazir-pal set out against Zamru, though he was
careful not to approach it directly and attack it at its most formidable
points. Between two peaks of the Lara and Bidirgi ranges he discovered a
path which had been deemed impracticable for horses, or even for heavily
armed men. By this route, the king, unsuspected by the enemy, made his
way through the mountains, and descended so unexpectedly upon Zamru,
that Amika had barely time to make his escape, abandoning everything in
his alarm--palace, treasures, harem, and even his chariot.* A body of
Assyrians pursued him hotly beyond the fords of the Lallu, chasing him
as far as Mount Itini; then, retracing their steps to headquarters, they
at once set out on a fresh track, crossed the Idir, and proceeded to lay
waste the plains of Ilaniu and Suâni.**
* This raid, which started from the same point as the
preceding one, ran eastwards in an opposite direction and
ended at Mount Itini. Leaving the fief of Arashtua in the
neighbourhood of Suleimaniyeh, Assur-nazir-pal crossed the
chain of the Azmir-dagh near Pir-Omar and Gudrun, where we
must place Mounts Lara and Bidirgi, and emerged upon Zamru;
the only-places which appear to correspond to Zamru in that
region are Kandishin and Suleimanabad. Hence the Lallu is
the river which runs by Kandishin and Suleimanabad, and
Itini the mountain which separates this river from the
Tchami-Kizildjik.
** I think we may recognise the ancient name of Ilaniu in
that of Alan, now borne by a district on the Turkish and
Persian frontier, situated between Kunekd ji-dagh and the
town of Serdesht. The expedition, coming from the fief of
Arashtua, must have marched northwards: the Idir in this
case must be the Tchami-Kizildjik, and Mount Sabua the chain
of mountains above Serdesht.
Despairing of taking Amika prisoner, Assur-nazir-pal allowed him to lie
hidden among the brushwood of Mount Sabua, while he himself called
a halt at Parsindu,* and set to work to organise the fruits of his
conquest.
* Parsindu, mentioned between Mount Ilaniu and the town of
Zamru, ought to lie somewhere in the valley of Tchami-
Kizildjik, near Murana.
He placed garrisons in the principal towns---at Parsindu, Zamru, and
at Arakdi in Lullumê, which one of his predecessors had re-named
Tukulti-Ashshur-azbat,* --"I have taken the help of Assur." He next
imposed on the surrounding country an annual tribute of gold,
silver, lead, copper, dyed stuffs, oxen, sheep, and wine. Envoys from
neighbouring kings poured in--from Khudun; Khubushkia, and Gilzân, and
the whole of Northern Zamua bowed "before the splendour of his arms;" it
now needed only a few raids resolutely directed against Mounts Azîra and
Simaki, as far as the Turn at, to achieve the final pacification of the
South. While in this neighbourhood, his attention was directed to the
old town of Atlîla,** built by Sibir,*** an ancient king of Karduniash,
but which had been half ruined by the barbarians. He re-named it
Dur-Assur, "the fortress of Assur," and built himself within it a palace
and storehouses, in which he accumulated large quantities of corn,
making the town the strongest bulwark of his power on the Cossæan
border.
*The approximate site of Arakdi is indicated in the
itinerary of Assur-nazir-pal itself; the king comes from
Zamru in the neighbourhood of Sulei-manabad, crosses Mount
Lara, which is the northern part of the Azmir-dagh, and
arrives at Arakdi, possibly somewhere in Surtash. In the
course of the preceding campaign, after having laid waste
Bara, he set out from this same town (Arakdi) to subdue
Nishpi, all of which bears out the position I have
indicated. The present town of Baziân would answer fairly
well for the site of a place destined to protect the
Assyrian frontier on this side.
** Given its position on the Chaldæan frontier, Atlîla is
probably to be identified with the Kerkuk of the present
day.
*** Hommel is inclined to believe that Sibir was the
immediate predecessor of Nabubaliddin, who reigned at
Babylon at the same time as Assur-nazir-pal at Nineveh;
consequently he would be a contemporary of Rammân-nirâri
III. and of Tukulti-ninip II. Peiser and Rost have
identified him with Simmash-shikhu.
[Illustration: 037.jpg THE ZAB BELOW THE PASSES OF ALAN, THE ANCIENT
ILANIU]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Morgan.
The two campaigns of B.C. 882 and 881 had cost Assur-nazir-pal great
efforts, and their results had been inadequate to the energy expended.
His two principal adversaries, Nurrammân and Amika, had eluded him, and
still preserved their independence at the eastern extremities of their
former states. Most of the mountain tribes had acknowledged the king's
supremacy merely provisionally, in order to rid themselves of his
presence; they had been vanquished scores of times, but were in no sense
subjugated, and the moment pressure was withdrawn, they again took
up arms. The districts of Zamua alone, which bordered on the Assyrian
plain, and had been occupied by a military force, formed a province, a
kind of buffer state between the mountain tribes and the plains of the
Zab, protecting the latter from incursions.
Assur-nazir-pal, feeling himself tolerably safe on that side, made no
further demands, and withdrew his battalions to the westward part of his
northern frontier. He hoped, no doubt, to complete the subjugation of
the tribes who still contested the possession of various parts of
the Kashiari, and then to push forward his main guard as far as the
Euphrates and the Arzania, so as to form around the plain of Amidi a
zone of vassals or tutelary subjects like those of Zamua. With this end
in view, he crossed the Tigris near its source at the traditional fords,
and made his way unmolested in the bend of the Euphrates from the palace
of Tilluli, where the accustomed tribute of Kummukh was brought to him,
to the fortress of Ishtarâti, and from thence to Kibaki. The town of
Matiatê, having closed its gates against him, was at once sacked, and
this example so stimulated the loyalty of the Kurkhi chiefs, that
they ha*tened to welcome him at the neighbouring military station of
Zazabukha. The king's progress continued thence as before, broken by
frequent halts at the most favourable points for levying contributions
on the inhabitants.1 Assur-nazir-pal encountered no serious difficulty
except on the northern slopes of the Kashiari, but there again fortune
smiled on him; all the contested positions were soon ceded to him,
including even Madara, whose fourfold circuit of walls did not avail to
save it from the conqueror.** After a brief respite at Tushkhân, he set
out again one evening with his lightest chariots and the pick of his
horsemen, crossed the Tigris on rafts, rode all night, and arrived
unexpectedly the next morning before Pitura, the chief town of the
Dirrabans.*** It was surrounded by a strong double enceinte, through
which he broke after forty-eight hours of continuous assault: 800 of
its men perished in the breach, and 700 others were impaled before the
gates.
* It is difficult to place any of these localities on the
map: they ought all to be found between the ford of the
Tigris, at Diarbeldr and the Euphrates, probably at the foot
of the Mihrab-dagh and the Kirwântchernen-dagh.
** Madara belonged to a certain Lapturi, son of Tubusi,
mentioned in the campaign of the king's second year. In
comparing the facts given in the two passages, we see it was
situated on the eastern slope of the Kashiari, not far from
Tushkhan on one side, and Ardupa--that is probably Mardin--?
on the other. The position of Ortaveran, or of one of the
"tells" in its neighbourhood, answers fairly well to these
conditions.
*** According to the details given in the _Annals_, we must
place the town of Bitura (or Pitura) at about 19 miles from
Kurkh, on the other side of the Tigris, in a north-easterly
direction, and consequently the country of Lirrâ would be
between the Hazu-tchaî and the Batman-tchaî. The Matni, with
its passes leading in to Naîri, must in this case be the
mountain group to the north of Mayafarrikîn, known as the
Dordoseh-dagh or the Darkôsh-dagh.
Arbaki, at the extreme limits of Eirkhi, was the next to succumb, after
which the Assyrians, having pillaged Dirra, carried the passes of Matni
after a bloody combat, spread themselves over Naîri, burning 250 of its
towns and villages, and returned with immense booty to Tushkhân. They
had been there merely a few days when the newt arrived that the people
of Bît-Zamâni, always impatient of the yoke, had murdered their
prince Ammibaal, and had proclaimed a certain Burramman in his place.
Assur-nazir-pal marched upon Sinabux and repressed the insurrection,
reaping a rich harvest of spoil--chariots fully equipped, 600
draught-horses, 130 pounds of silver and as much of gold, 6600 pounds of
lead and the same of copper, 19,800 pounds of iron, stuffs, furniture
in gold and ivory, 2000 bulls, 500 sheep, the entire harem of Ammibaal,
besides a number of maidens of noble family together with their dresses.
Burramman was by the king's order flayed alive, and Arteanu his brother
chosen as his successor. Sinabu* and the surrounding towns formed part
of that network of colonies which in times past Shalmaneser I. had
organised as a protection from the incursions of the inhabitants of
Naîri; Assur-nazir-pal now used it as a rallying-place for the remaining
Assyrian families, to whom he distributed lands and confided the
guardianship of the neighbouring strongholds.
* Hommel thinks that Sinabu is very probably the same as the
Kinabu mentioned above; but it appears from Assur-nazir-
pal's own account that this Kinabu was in the province of
Khalzidipkha (Khalzilukha) on the Kashiari, whereas Sinabu
was in Bît-Zamâni.
The results of this measure were not long in making themselves felt:
Shupria, Ulliba, and Nirbu, besides other districts, paid their dues
to the king, and Shura in Khamanu,* which had for some time held out
against the general movement, was at length constrained to submit (880
B.C.).
* Shur is mentioned on the return to Nairi, possibly on the
road leading from Amidi and Tushkhân to Nineveh. Hommel
believes that the country of Khamanu was the Amanos in
Cilicia, and he admits, but unwillingly, that Assur-nazir-
pal made a detour beyond the Euphrates. I should look for
Shura, and consequently for Khamanu, in the Tur-Abdin, and
should identify them with Saur, in spite of the difference
of the two initial articulations.
However high we may rate the value of this campaign, it was eclipsed by
the following one. The Aramæans on the Khabur and the middle Euphrates
had not witnessed without anxiety the revival of Ninevite activity,
and had begged for assistance against it from its rival. Two of their
principal tribes, the Sukhi and the Laqi, had addressed themselves to
the sovereign then reigning at Babylon. He was a restless, ambitious
prince, named Nabu-baliddin, who asked nothing better than to excite a
hostile feeling against his neighbour, provided he ran no risk by his
interference of being drawn into open warfare. He accordingly despatched
to the Prince of Sukhi the best of his Cossoan troops, commanded by
his brother Zabdanu and one of the great officers of the crown,
Bel-baliddin. In the spring of 879 B.C., Assur-nazir-pal determined once
for all to put an end to these intrigues. He began by inspecting the
citadels flanking the line of the Kharmish* and the Khabur,--Tabiti,**
Magarisi,*** Shadikanni, Shuru in Bît-Khafupi, and Sirki.****
* The Kharmish has been identified with the Hirmâs, the
river flowing by Nisibis, and now called the Nahr-Jaghjagha.
** Tabiti is the Thebeta (Thebet) of Roman itineraries and
Syrian writers, situated 33 miles from Nisibis and 52 from
Singara, on the Nahr-Hesawy or one of the neighbouring
wadys.
*** Magarisi ought to be found on the present Nahr-
Jaghjagha, near its confluence with the Nahr-Jerrâhi and its
tributaries; unfortunately, this part of Mesopotamia is
still almost entirely unexplored, and no satisfactory map of
it exists as yet.
**** Sirki is Circesium at the mouth of the Khabur.
Between the embouchures of the Khabur and the Balîkh, the Euphrates
winds across a vast table-land, ridged with marly hills; the left bank
is dry and sterile, shaded at rare intervals by sparse woods of poplars
or groups of palms. The right bank, on the contrary, is seamed with
fertile valleys, sufficiently well watered to permit the growth of
cereals and the raising of cattle. The river-bed is almost everywhere
wide, but strewn with dangerous rocks and sandbanks which render
navigation perilous. On nearing the ruins of Halebiyeh, the river
narrows as it enters the Arabian hills, and cuts for itself a regular
defile of three or four hundred paces in length, which is approached by
the pilots with caution.*
* It is at this defile of El-Hammeh, and not at that of
Birejik at the end of the Taurus, that we must place the
_Khinqi sha Purati_--the narrows of the Euphrates--so often
mentioned in the account of this campaign.
Assur-nazir-pal, on leaving Sirki, made his way along the left bank,
levying toll on Supri, Naqarabâni, and several other villages in his
course. Here and there he called a halt facing some town on the opposite
bank, but the boats which could have put him across had been removed,
and the fords were too well guarded to permit of his hazarding an
attack. One town, however, Khindânu, made him a voluntary offering
which, he affected to regard as a tribute, but Kharidi and Anat appeared
not even to suspect his presence in their vicinity, and he continued
on his way without having obtained from them anything which could be
construed into a mark of vassalage.*
* The detailed narrative of the _Annals_ informs us that
Assur-nazir-pal encamped on a mountain between Khindânu and
Bît-Shabaia, and this information enables us to determine on
the map with tolerable certainty the localities mentioned in
this campaign. The mountain in question can be none other
than El-Hammeh, the only one met with on this bank of the
Euphrates between the confluents of the Euphrates and the
Khabur. Khindânu is therefore identical with the ruins of
Tabus, the Dabausa of Ptolemy; hence Supri and Naqabarâni
are situated between this point and Sirki, the former in the
direction of Tayebeh, the latter towards El-Hoseîniyeh. On
the other hand, the ruins of Kabr Abu-Atîsh would correspond
very well to Bît-Shabaia: is the name of Abu-Sbé borne by
the Arabs of that neighbourhood a relic of that of Shabaia.
Kharidi ought in that case to be looked for on the opposite
bank, near Abu-Subân and Aksubi, where Chesney points out
ancient remains. A day's march beyond Kabr Abu-Atîsh brings
us to El-Khass, so that the town of Anat would be in the
Isle of Moglah. Shuru must be somewhere near one of the two
Tell-Menakhîrs on this side the Balikh.
[Illustration: 044.jpg THE CAMPAIGNS OF ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL IN MESOPOTAMIA]
At length, on reaching Shuru, Shadadu, the Prince of Sukhi, trusting
in his Cossoans, offered him battle; but he was defeated by
Assur-na'zir-pal, who captured the King of Babylon's brother, forced
his way into the town after an assault lasting two days, and returned to
Assyria laden with spoil. This might almost be considered as a repulse;
for no sooner had the king quitted the country than the Aramaeans in
their turn crossed the Euphrates and ravaged the plains of the Khabur.*
Assur-nazir-pal resolved not to return until he was in a position
to carry his arms into the heart of the enemy's country. He built
a flotilla at Shuru in Bît-Khalupi on which he embarked his troops.
Wherever the navigation of the Euphrates proved to be difficult, the
boats were drawn up out of the water and dragged along the banks over
rollers until they could again be safely launched; thus, partly afloat
and partly on land, they passed through the gorge of Halebiyeh, landed
at Kharidi, and inflicted a salutary punishment on the cities which had
defied the king's wrath on his last expedition. Khindânu, Kharidi, and
Kipina were reduced to ruins, and the Sukhi and the Laqi defeated, the
Assyrians pursuing them for two days in the Bisuru mountains as far as
the frontiers of Bit-Adini.**
* The _Annals_ do not give us either the _limmu_ or the date
of the year for this new expedition. The facts taken
altogether prove that it was a continuation of the preceding
one, and it may therefore be placed in the year B.C. 878.
** The campaign of B.C. 878 had for its arena that of the
Euphrates which lies between the Khabur and the Balikh; this
time, however, the principal operations took place on the
right bank. If Mount Bisuru is the Jebel-Bishri, the town of
Kipina, which is mentioned between it and Kharidi, ought to
be located between Maidân and Sabkha.
A complete submission was brought about, and its permanency secured
by the erection of two strongholds, one of which, Kar-assur-nazir-pal,
commanded the left, and the other, Nibarti-assur, the right bank of the
Euphrates.*
This last expedition had brought the king into contact with the most
important of the numerous Aramaean states congregated in the western
region of Mesopotamia. This was Bît-Adini, which lay on both sides of
the middle course of the Euphrates.** It included, on the right bank, to
the north of Carchemish, between the hills on the Sajur and Arabân-Su, a
mountainous but fertile district, dotted over with towns and fortresses,
the names of some of which have been preserved--Pakarrukhbuni, Sursunu,
Paripa, Dabigu, and Shitamrat.*** Tul-Barsip, the capital, was situated
on the left bank, commanding the fords of the modern Birejîk,****
and the whole of the territory between this latter and the Balîkh
acknowledged the rule of its princes, whose authority also extended
eastwards as far as the basaltic plateau of Tul-Abâ, in the Mesopotamian
desert.
* The account in the Annals is confused, and contains
perhaps some errors with regard to the facts. The site of
the two towns is nowhere indicated, but a study of the map
shows that the Assyrians could not become masters of the
country without occupying the passes of the Euphrates; I am
inclined to think that Kar-assur-nazir-pal is El-Halebiyeh,
and Nibarti-assur, Zalebiyeh, the Zenobia of Roman times.
** Bît-Adini appears to have occupied, on the right bank of
the Euphrates, a part of the cazas of Aîn-Tab, Rum-kaleh,
and Birejîk, that of Suruji, minus the nakhiyeh of Harrân,
the larger part of the cazas of Membîj and of Rakkah, and
part of the caza of Zôr, the cazas being those represented
on the maps of Vital Cuinet.
*** None of these localities can be identified with
certainty, except perhaps Dabigu, a name we may trace in
that of the modern village of Dehbek.
**** Tul-Barsip has been identified with Birejîk.
To the south-east, Bît-Adini bordered upon the country of the Sukhi and
the Laqi,* lying to the east of Assyria; other principalities, mainly of
Aramoan origin, formed its boundary to the north and north-west--Shugab
in the bend of the Euphrates, from Birejîk to Samosata,** Tul-Abnî
around Edessa,*** the district of Harrân,**** Bît-Zamani, Izalla in
the Tektek-dagh and on the Upper Khabur, and Bît-Bakhiâni in the plain
extending from the Khabur to the Kharmish.^
* In his previous campaign Assur-nazir-pal had taken two
towns of Bît-Adini, situated on the right bank of the
Euphrates, at the eastern extremity of Mount Bisuru, near
the frontier of the Lâqi.
** The country of Shugab is mentioned between Birejîk (Tul-
Barsip) and Bît-Zamani, in one of the campaigns of
Shalmaneser III., which obliges us to place it in the caza
of Rum-kaleh; the name has been read Sumu.
*** Tul-Abnî, which was at first sought for near the sources
of the Tigris, has been placed in the Mesopotamian plain.
The position which it occupies among the other names obliges
us to put it near Bît-Adini and Bît-Zamani: the only
possible site that I can find for it is at Orfah, the Edessa
of classical times.
**** The country of Harrân is nowhere mentioned as belonging
either to Bît-Adini or to Tul-Abnî: we must hence conclude
that at this period it formed a little principality
independent of those two states.
^ The situation of Bît-Bakhiâni is shown by the position
which it occupies in the account of the campaign, and by the
names associated with it in another passage of the _Annals_.
Bît-Zamani had belonged to Assyria by right of conquest ever since the
death of Ammibaal; Izalla and Bît-Bakhiâni had fulfilled their duties
as vassals whenever Assur-nazir-pal had appeared in their neighbourhood;
Bît-Adini alone had remained independent, though its strength was more
apparent than real. The districts which it included had never been able
to form a basis for a powerful state. If by chance some small kingdom
arose within it, uniting under one authority the tribes scattered over
the burning plain or along the river banks, the first conquering
dynasty which sprang up in the neighbourhood would be sure to effect its
downfall, and absorb it under its own leadership. As Mitâni, saved by
its remote position from bondage to Egypt, had not been able to escape
from acknowledging the supremacy of the Khâti, so Bît-Adini was destined
to fall almost without a struggle under the yoke of the Assyrians. It
was protected from their advance by the volcanic groups of the Urâa and
Tul-Abâ, which lay directly in the way of the main road from the marshes
of the Khabur to the outskirts of Tul-Barsip. Assur-nazir-pal, who might
have worked round this line of natural defence to the north through
Nirbu, or to the south through his recently acquired province of Lâqi,
preferred to approach it in front; he faced the desert, and, in spite of
the drought, he invested the strongest citadel of Tul-Abâ in the month
of June, 877 B.C. The name of the place was Kaprabi, and its inhabitants
believed it impregnable, clinging as it did to the mountain-side "like
a cloud in the sky."*
* The name is commonly interpreted "Great Rock," and divided
thus--Kap-rabi. It may also be considered, like Kapridargila
or Kapranishâ, as being formed of _Kapru_ and _abi_; this
latter element appears to exist in the ancient name of
Telaba, Thallaba, now Tul-Abâ. Kapr-abi might be a fortress
of the province of Tul-Abâ.
The king, however, soon demolished its walls by sapping and by the use
of the ram, killed 800 of its garrison, burned its houses, and carried
off 2400 men with their families, whom he installed in one of the
suburbs of Calah. Akhuni, who was then reigning in Bît-Adini, had not
anticipated that the invasion would reach his neighbourhood: he at once
sent hostages and purchased peace by a tribute; the Lord of Tul-Abnî
followed his example, and the dominion of Assyria was carried at a blow
to the very frontier of the Khâti. It was about two centuries before
this that Assurirba had crossed these frontiers with his vanquished
army, but the remembrance of his defeat had still remained fresh in the
memory of the people, as a warning to the sovereign who should attempt
the old hazardous enterprise, and repeat the exploits of Sargon of Agadê
or of Tiglath-pileser I. Assur-nazir-pal made careful preparations for
this campaign, so decisive a one for his own prestige and for the future
of the empire. He took with him not only all the Assyrian troops at his
disposal, but requisitioned by the way the armies of his most recently
acquired vassals, incorporating them with his own, not so much for the
purpose of augmenting his power of action, as to leave no force in his
rear when once he was engaged hand to hand with the Syrian legions.
He left Calah in the latter days of April, 876 B.C.,* receiving
the customary taxes from Bît-Bakhiâni, Izalla, and Bît-Adini, which
comprised horses, silver, gold, copper, lead, precious stuffs, vessels
of copper and furniture of ivory; having reached Tul-Barsip, he accepted
the gifts offered by Tul-Abni, and crossing the Euphrates upon rafts of
inflated skins, he marched his columns against Oarchemish.
* On the 8th Iyyâr, but without any indication of limmu, or
any number of the year or of the campaign; the date 876 B.C.
is admitted by the majority of historians.
The political organisation of Northern Syria had remained entirely
unaltered since the days when Tiglath-pileser made his first victorious
inroad into the country. The Cilician empire which succeeded to the
Assyrian--if indeed it ever extended as far as some suppose--did not
last long enough to disturb the balance of power among the various races
occupying Syria: it had subjugated them for a time, but had not been
able to break them up and reconstitute them. At the downfall of the
Cilician Empire the small states were still intact, and occupied, as of
old, the territory comprising the ancient Naharaim of the Egyptians, the
plateau between the Orontes and the Euphrates, the forests and marshy
lowlands of the Amanos, the southern slopes of Taurus, and the plains of
Cilicia.
[Illustration: 050.jpg CAMPAIGNS OF ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL IN SYRIA]
Of these states, the most famous, though not then the most redoubtable,
was that with which the name of the Khâti is indissolubly connected, and
which had Carchemish as its capital. This ancient city, seated on the
banks of the Euphrates, still maintained its supremacy there, but though
its wealth and religious ascendency were undiminished, its territory had
been curtailed. The people of Bît-Adini had intruded themselves between
this state and Kummukh, Arazik hemmed it in on the south, Khazazu
and Khalmân confined it on the west, so that its sway was only freely
exercised in the basin of the Sajur. On the north-west frontier of the
Khâti lay Gurgum, whose princes resided at Marqasi and ruled over the
central valley of the Pyramos together with the entire basin of the
Ak-su. Mikhri,* Iaudi, and Samalla lay on the banks of the Saluara, and
in the forests of the Amanos to the south of Gurgum. Kuî maintained its
uneventful existence amid the pastures of Cilicia, near the marshes at
the mouth of the Pyramos. To the south of the Sajur, Bît-Agusi** barred
the way to the Orontes; and from their lofty fastness of Arpad, its
chiefs kept watch over the caravan road, and closed or opened it at
their will.
* Mikhri or Ismikhri, i.e. "the country of larches," was the
name of a part of the Amanos, possibly near the Pyramos.
** The real name of the country was Iakhânu, but it was
called Bît-Gusi or Bît-Agusi, like Bît-Adini, Bît-Bakhiâni,
Bît-Omri, after the founder of the reigning dynasty. We must
place Iakhânu to the south of Azaz, in the neighbourhood of
Arpad, with this town as its capital.
They held the key of Syria, and though their territory was small in
extent, their position was so strong that for more than a century and
a half the majority of the Assyrian generals preferred to avoid this
stronghold by making a detour to the west, rather than pass beneath its
walls. Scattered over the plateau on the borders of Agusi, or hidden in
the valleys of Amanos, were several less important principalities, most
of them owing allegiance to Lubarna, at that time king of the Patina and
the most powerful sovereign of the district. The Patina had apparently
replaced the Alasia of Egyptian times, as Bît-Adini had superseded
Mitâni; the fertile meadow-lands to the south of Samalla on the Afrîn
and the Lower Orontes, together with the mountainous district between
the Orontes and the sea as far as the neighbourhood of Eleutheros, also
belonged to the Patina.
[Illustration: 052.jpg BAS-RELIEF FROM A BUILDING AT SINJIRLI]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Perrot and Chipiez.
On the southern frontier of the Patina lay the important Phoenician
cities, Arvad, Arka, and Sina; and on the south-east, the fortresses
belonging to Hamath and Damascus. The characteristics of the country
remained unchanged. Fortified towns abounded on all sides, as well as
large walled villages of conical huts, like those whose strange outlines
on the horizon are familiar to the traveller at the present-day. The
manners and civilisation of Chaldæa pervaded even more than formerly the
petty courts, but the artists clung persistently to Asianic tradition,
and the bas-reliefs which adorned the palaces and temples were similar
in character to those we find scattered throughout Asia Minor; there
is the same inaccurate drawing, the same rough execution, the same
tentative and awkward composition.
[Illustration: 053.jpg JIBRÎN, A VILLAGE OF CONICAL HUTS, ON THE PLATEAU
OF ALEPPO]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph reproduced in Peters.
The scribes from force of custom still employed the cuneiform syllabary
in certain official religious or royal inscriptions, but, as it was
difficult to manipulate and limited in application, the speech of the
Aramæan immigrants and the Phoenician alphabet gradually superseded the
ancient language and mode of writing.*
* There is no monument bearing an inscription in this
alphabet which can be referred with any certainty to the
time of Assur-nazir-pal, but the inscriptions of the kings
of Samalla date back to a period not more than a century and
a half later than his reign; we may therefore consider the
Aramæan alphabet as being in current use in Northern Syria
at the beginning of the ninth century, some forty years
before the date of Mesha's inscription (i.e. the Moabite
stone).
Thus these Northern Syrians became by degrees assimilated to the people
of Babylon and Nineveh, much as the inhabitants of a remote province
nowadays adapt their dress, their architecture, their implements of
husbandry and handicraft, their military equipment and organisation, to
the fashions of the capital.*
* One can judge of their social condition from the
enumeration of the objects which formed their tribute, or
the spoil which the Assyrian kings carried off from their
country.
[Illustration: 054.jpg THE WAR-CHARIOT OF THE KHÂTI OP THE NINTH
CENTURY]
Drawn by Boudier, from a bas-relief.
Their armies were modelled on similar lines, and consisted of archers,
plkemen, slingers, and those troops of horsemen which accompanied the
chariotry on flying raids; the chariots, moreover, closely followed the
Assyrian type, even down to the padded bar with embroidered hangings
which connected the body of the chariot with the end of the pole.
[Illustration: 055.jpg THE ASSYRIAN WAR-CHARIOT OF THE NINTH CENTURY
B.C.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze bas-relief on the
gates of Balawât.
The Syrian princes did not adopt the tiara, but they wore the long
fringed robe, confined by a girdle at the waist, and their mode of life,
with its ceremonies, duties, and recreations, differed little from that
prevailing in the palaces of Calah or Babylon. They hunted big game,
including the lion, according to the laws of the chase recognised at
Nineveh, priding themselves as much on their exploits in hunting, as on
their triumphs in war.
[Illustration: 056.jpg A KING OF THE KHÂTI HUNTING A LION IN HIS
CHARIOT]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Hogarth, published in
the _Recueil de Travaux_.
Their religion was derived from the common source which underlay all
Semitic religions, but a considerable number of Babylonian deities were
also worshipped; these had been introduced in some cases without any
modification, whilst in others they had been assimilated to more ancient
gods bearing similar characteristics: at Nerab, among the Patina, Nusku
and his female companion Nikal, both of Chaldæan origin, claimed the
homage of the faithful, to the disparagement of Shahr the moon and
Shamash the sun. Local cults often centred round obscure deities held
in little account by the dominant races; thus Samalla reverenced Uru the
light, Bekubêl the wind, the chariot of El, not to mention El himself,
Besheph, Hadad, and the Cabin, the servants of Besheph.
[Illustration: 057.jpg THE GOD HADAD]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph in Luschan.
These deities were mostly of the Assyrian type, and if one may draw
any conclusion from the few representations of them already discovered,
their rites must have been celebrated in a manner similar to that
followed in the cities on the Lower Euphrates. Scarcely any signs of
Egyptian influence survived, though here and there a trace of it might
be seen in the figures of calf or bull, the vulture of Mut or the
sparrow-hawk of Horus. Assur-nazir-pal, marching from the banks of the
Khabur to Bît-Adini, and from Bît-Adini passing on to Northern Syria,
might almost have imagined himself still in his own dominions, so
gradual and imperceptible were the changes in language and civilisation
in the country traversed between Nineveh and Assur, Tul-Barsip and
Samalla.
His expedition was unattended by danger or bloodshed. Lubarna, the
reigning prince of the Patina, was possibly at that juncture meditating
the formation of a Syrian empire under his rule. Unki, in which lay his
capital of Kunulua, was one of the richest countries of Asia,* being
well watered by the Afrin, Orontes, and Saluara;** no fields produced
such rich harvests as his, no meadows pastured such cattle or were
better suited to the breeding of war-horses.
* The Unki of the Assyrians, the Uniuqa of the Egyptians, is
the valley of Antioch, the Amk of the present day. Kunulua
or Kinalia, the capital of the Patina, has been identified
with the Gindaros of Greek times; I prefer to identify it
with the existing Tell-Kunâna, written for Tell-Kunâla by
the common substitution of _n_ for _l_ at the end of proper
names.
** The Saluara of the Assyrian texts is the present Kara-su,
which flows into the Ak-Denîz, the lake of Antioch.
[Illustration: 058.jpg RELIGIOUS SCENE DISPLAYING EGYPTIAN FEATURES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the impression taken from a
Hittite cylinder.
His mountain provinces yielded him wood and minerals, and provided a
reserve of semi-savage woodcutters and herdsmen from which to recruit
his numerous battalions. The neighbouring princes, filled with
uneasiness or jealousy by his good fortune, saw in the Assyrian monarch
a friend and a liberator rather than an enemy. Carchemish opened its
gates and laid at his feet the best of its treasures--twenty talents of
silver, ingots, rings, and daggers of gold, a hundred talents of copper,
two hundred talents of iron, bronze bulls, cups decorated with scenes
in relief or outline, ivory in the tusk or curiously wrought, purple
and embroidered stuffs, and the state carriage of its King Shangara.
The Hittite troops, assembled in haste, joined forces with the Aramæan
auxiliaries, and the united host advanced on Coele-Syria. The scribe
commissioned to record the history of this expedition has taken a
delight in inserting the most minute details. Leaving Carchemish, the
army followed the great caravan route, and winding its way between the
hills of Munzigâni and Khamurga, skirting Bît-Agusi, at length arrived
under the walls of Khazazu among the Patina.*
* Khazazu being the present Azaz, the Assyrian army must
have followed the route which still leads from Jerabis to
this town. Mount Munzigâni and Khamurga, mentioned between
Carchemish and Akhânu or Iakhânu, must lie between the Sajur
and the Koweik, near Shehab, at the only point on the route
where the road passes between two ranges of lofty hills.
The town having purchased immunity by a present of gold and of finely
woven stuffs, the army proceeded to cross the Apriê, on the bank of
which an entrenched camp was formed for the storage of the spoil.
Lubarna offered no resistance, but nevertheless refused to acknowledge
his inferiority; after some delay, ifc was decided to make a direct
attack on his capital, Kunulua, whither he had retired. The appearance
of the Assyrian vanguard put a speedy end to his ideas of resistance:
prostrating himself before his powerful adversary, he offered hostages,
and emptied his palaces and stables to provide a ransom. This comprised
twenty talents of silver, one talent of gold, a hundred talents of
lead, a hundred talents of iron, a thousand bulls, ten thousand sheep,
daughters of his nobles with befitting changes of garments, and all the
paraphernalia of vessels, jewels, and costly stuffs which formed
the necessary furniture of a princely household. The effect of his
submission on his own vassals and the neighbouring tribes was shown in
different ways. Bît-Agusi at once sent messengers to congratulate the
conqueror, but the mountain provinces awaited the invader's nearer
approach before following its example. Assur-nazir-pal, seeing that they
did not take the initiative, crossed the Orontes, probably at the spot
where the iron bridge now stands, and making his way through the country
between laraku and Iaturi,* reached the banks of the Sangura* without
encountering any difficulty.
* The spot where Assur-nazir-pal must have crossed the
Orontes is determined by the respective positions of Kunulua
and Tell-Kunâna. At the iron bridge, the modern traveller
has the choice of two roads: one, passing Antioch and Beît-
el-Mâ, leads to Urdeh on the Nahr-el-Kebîr; the other
reaches the same point by a direct route over the Gebel
Kosseir. If, as I believe, Assur-nazir-pal took the latter
route, the country and Mount laraku must be the northern
part of Gebel Kosseir in the neighbourhood of Antioch, and
Iaturi, the southern part of the same mountain near Derkush.
laraku is mentioned in the same position by Shalmaneser
III., who reached it after crossing the Orontes, on
descending from the Amanos _en route_ for the country of
Hamath.
** The Sangura or Sagura has been identified by Delattre
with the Nahr-el-Kebîr, not that river which the Greeks
called the Eleutheros, but that which flows into the sea
near Latakia. Before naming the Sangura, the _Annals_
mention a country, whose name, half effaced, ended in _-ku_:
I think we may safely restore this name as [Ashtama]kou,
mentioned by Shalmaneser III. in this region, after the name
of laraku. The country of Ashtamaku would thus be the
present canton of Urdeh, which is traversed before reaching
the banks of the Nahr-el-Kebîr.
After a brief halt there in camp, he turned his back on the sea, and
passing between Saratini and Duppâni,* took by assault the fortress of
Aribua.** This stronghold commanded all the surrounding country, and was
the seat of a palace which Lubarna at times used as a similar residence.
Here Assur-nazir-pal took up his quarters, and deposited within its
walls the corn and spoils of Lukhuti;*** he established here an Assyrian
colony, and, besides being the scene of royal festivities, it became
henceforth the centre of operations against the mountain tribes.
* The mountain cantons of Saratini and Duppâni (Kalpâni
l'Adpâni?), situated immediately to the south of the Nahr-el-
Kebîr, correspond to the southern part of Gebel-el-Akrad,
but I cannot discover any names on the modern map at all
resembling them.
** Beyond Duppâni, Assur-nazir-pal encamped on the banks of
a river whose name is unfortunately effaced, and then
reached Aribua; this itinerary leads us to the eastern slope
of the Gebel Ansarieh in the latitude of Hamath. The only
site I can find in this direction fulfilling the
requirements of the text is that of Masiad, where there
still exists a fort of the Assassins. The name Aribua is
perhaps preserved in that of Rabaô, er-Rabahu, which is
applied to a wady and village in the neighbourhood of
Masiad.
*** Lukhuti must not be sought in the plains of the Orontes,
where Assur-nazir-pal would have run the risk of an
encounter with the King of Hamath or his vassals; it must
represent the part of the mountain of Ansarieh lying between
Kadmus, Masiad, and Tortosa.
The forts of the latter were destroyed, their houses burned, and
prisoners were impaled outside the gates of their cities. Having
achieved this noble exploit, the king crossed the intervening spurs of
Lebanon and marched down to the shores of the Mediterranean. Here he
bathed his weapons in the waters, and offered the customary sacrifices
to the gods of the sea, while the Phoenicians, with their wonted
prudence, hastened to anticipate his demands--Tyre, Sidon, Byblos,
Mahallat, Maîza, Kaîza, the Amorites and Arvad,* all sending tribute.
* The point where Assur-nazir-pal touched the sea-coast
cannot be exactly determined: admitting that he set out from
Masiad or its neighbourhood, he must have crossed the
Lebanon by the gorge of the Eleutheros, and reached the sea-
board somewhere near the mouth of this river.
One point strikes us forcibly as we trace on the map the march of this
victorious hero, namely, the care with which he confined himself to
the left bank of the Orontes, and the restraint he exercised in
leaving untouched the fertile fields of its valley, whose wealth was
so calculated to excite his cupidity. This discretion would be
inexplicable, did we not know that there existed in that region a
formidable power which he may have thought it imprudent to provoke. It
was Damascus which held sway over those territories whose frontiers he
respected, and its kings, also suzerains of Hamath and masters of half
Israel, were powerful enough to resist, if not conquer, any enemy who
might present himself. The fear inspired by Damascus naturally explains
the attitude adopted by the Hittite states towards the invader, and
the precautions taken by the latter to restrict his operations within
somewhat narrow limits. Having accepted the complimentary presents of
the Phoenicians, the king again took his way northwards--making a slight
detour in order to ascend the Amanos for the purpose of erecting there
a stele commemorating his exploits, and of cutting pines, cedars,
and larches for his buildings--and then returned to Nineveh amid the
acclamations of his people.
In reading the history of this campaign, its plan and the principal
events which took place in it appear at times to be the echo of what had
happened some centuries before. The recapitulation of the halting-places
near the sources of the Tigris and on the banks of the Upper Euphrates,
the marches through the valleys of the Zagros or on the slopes of
Kashiari, the crushing one by one of the Mesopotamian races, ending in a
triumphal progress through Northern Syria, is almost a repetition, both
as to the names and order of the places mentioned, of the expedition
made by Tiglath-pileser in the first five years of his reign. The
question may well arise in passing whether Assur-nazir-pal consciously
modelled his campaign on that of his ancestor, as, in Egypt, Ramses
III. imitated Ramses II., or whether, in similar circumstances, he
instinctively and naturally followed the same line of march. In
either case, he certainly showed on all sides greater wisdom than his
predecessor, and having attained the object of his ambition, avoided
compromising his success by injudiciously attacking Damascus or Babylon,
the two powers who alone could have offered effective resistance. The
victory he had gained, in 879, over the brother of Nabu-baliddin had
immensely flattered his vanity. His panegyrists vied with each other in
depicting Karduniash bewildered by the terror of his majesty, and the
Chaldæans overwhelmed by the fear of his arms; but he did not allow
himself to be carried away by their extravagant flatteries, and
continued to the end of his reign to observe the treaties concluded
between the two courts in the time of his grandfather Rammân-nirâri.*
* His frontier on the Chaldæan side, between the Tigris and
the mountains, was the boundary fixed by Rammân-nirâri.
He had, however, sufficiently enlarged his dominions, in less than ten
years, to justify some display of pride. He himself described his empire
as extending, on the west of Assyria proper, from the banks of the
Tigris near Nineveh to Lebanon and the Mediterranean;* besides which,
Sukhi was subject to him, and this included the province of Rapiku on
the frontiers of Babylonia.**
* The expression employed in this description and in similar
passages, _ishtu ibirtan nâru_, translated _from the ford
over the river_, or better, _from the other side of the
river_, must be understood as referring to Assyria proper:
the territory subject to the king is measured in the
direction indicated, starting from the rivers which formed
the boundaries of his hereditary dominions. _From the other
bank of the Tigris_ means from the bank of the Tigris
opposite Nineveh or Oalah, whence the king and his army set
out on their campaigns.
** Rapiku is mentioned in several texts as marking the
frontier between the Sukhi and Chaldæa.
He had added to his older provinces of Amidi, Masios and Singar, the
whole strip of Armenian territory at the foot of the Taurus range, from
the sources of the Supnat to those of the Bitlis-tchaî, and he held the
passes leading to the banks of the Arzania, in Kirruri and Gilzân, while
the extensive country of Naîri had sworn him allegiance. Towards the
south-east the wavering tribes, which alternately gave their adherence
to Assur or Babylon according to circumstances, had ranged themselves on
his side, and formed a large frontier province beyond the borders of his
hereditary kingdom, between the Lesser Zab and the Turnat. But, despite
repeated blows inflicted on them, he had not succeeded in welding
these various factors into a compact and homogeneous whole; some small
proportion of them were assimilated to Assyria, and were governed
directly by royal officials,* but the greater number were merely
dependencies, more or less insecurely held by the obligations of
vassalage or servitude. In some provinces the native chiefs were under
the surveillance of Assyrian residents;** these districts paid an annual
tribute proportionate to the resources and products of their country:
thus Kirruri and the neighbouring states contributed horses, mules,
bulls, sheep, wine, and copper vessels; the Aramaeans gold, silver,
lead, copper, both wrought and in the ore, purple, and coloured or
embroidered stuffs; while Izalla, Nirbu, Nirdun, and Bît-Zamâni had to
furnish horses, chariots, metals, and cattle.
* There were royal governors in Suru in Bit-Khalupi, in
Matiâte, in Madara, and in Naîri.
** There were "Assyrian" residents in Kirruri and the
neighbouring countries, in Kirkhi, and in Naîri.
The less civilised and more distant tribes were not, like these,
subject to regular tribute, but each time the sovereign traversed their
territory or approached within reasonable distance, their chiefs sent
or brought to him valuable presents as fresh pledges of their loyalty.
Royal outposts, built at regular intervals and carefully fortified,
secured the fulfilment of these obligations, and served as depots for
storing the commodities collected by the royal officials; such outposts
were, Damdamusa on the north-west of the Kashiari range, Tushkhân on the
Tigris, Tilluli between the Supnat and the Euphrates, Aribua among the
Patina, and others scattered irregularly between the Greater and Lesser
Zab, on the Khabur, and also in Naîri. These strongholds served as
places of refuge for the residents and their guards in case of a revolt,
and as food-depots for the armies in the event of war bringing them
into their neighbourhood. In addition to these, Assur-nazir-pal also
strengthened the defences of Assyria proper by building fortresses at
the points most open to attack; he repaired or completed the defences of
Kaksi, to command the plain between the Greater and Lesser Zab and the
Tigris; he rebuilt the castles or towers which guarded the river-fords
and the entrances to the valleys of the Gebel Makhlub, and erected at
Calah the fortified palace which his successors continued to inhabit for
the ensuing five hundred years.
Assur-nazir-pal had resided at Nineveh from the time of his accession to
the throne; from thence he had set out on four successive campaigns, and
thither he had returned at the head of his triumphant troops, there he
had received the kings who came to pay him homage, and the governors
who implored his help against foreign attacks; thither he had sent
rebel chiefs, and there, after they had marched in ignominy through the
streets, he had put them to torture and to death before the eyes of
the crowd, and their skins were perchance still hanging nailed to the
battlements when he decided to change the seat of his capital. The
ancient capital no longer suited his present state as a conqueror; the
accommodation was too restricted, the decoration too poor, and probably
the number of apartments was insufficient to house the troops of women
and slaves brought back from his wars by its royal master. Built on
the very bank of the Tebilti, one of the tributaries of the Khusur,
and hemmed in by three temples, there was no possibility of its
enlargement--a difficulty which often occurs in ancient cities. The
necessary space for new buildings could only have been obtained by
altering the course of the stream, and sacrificing a large part of the
adjoining quarters of the city: Assur-nazir-pal therefore preferred to
abandon the place and to select a new site where he would have ample
space at his disposal.
[Illustration: 067.jpg THE MOUNDS OF CALAH]
Drawn by Boudier, from Layard. The pointed mound on the left
near the centre of the picture represents the ziggurât of
the great temple.
He found what he required close at hand in the half-ruined city of
Calah, where many of his most illustrious predecessors had in times past
sought refuge from the heat of Assur. It was now merely an obscure and
sleepy town about twelve miles south of Nineveh, on the right bank of
the Tigris, and almost at the angle made by the junction of this river
with the Greater Zab. The place contained a palace built by Shalmaneser
I., which, owing to many years' neglect, had become uninhabitable.
Assur-nazir-pal not only razed to the ground the palaces and temples,
but also levelled the mound on which they had been built; he then
cleared away the soil down to the water level, and threw up an immense
and almost rectangular terrace on which to lay out his new buildings.
[Illustration: 068.jpg STELE OF ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL AT CALAH]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Mansell.
The king chose Ninip, the god of war, as the patron of the city, and
dedicated to him, at the north-west corner of the terrace, a ziggurât
with its usual temple precincts. Here the god was represented as a bull
with a man's head and bust in gilded alabaster, and two yearly feasts
were instituted in his honour, one in the month Sebat, the other in the
month Ulul. The ziggurât was a little over two hundred feet high,
and was probably built in seven stages, of which only one now remains
intact: around it are found several independent series of chambers and
passages, which may have been parts of other temples, but it is now
impossible to say which belonged to the local Belît, which to Sin, to
Gula, to Rammân, or to the ancient deity Râ. At the entrance to the
largest chamber, on a rectangular pedestal, stood a stele with rounded
top, after the Egyptian fashion. On it is depicted a figure of the king,
standing erect and facing to the left of the spectator; he holds his
mace at his side, his right hand is raised in the attitude of adoration,
and above him, on the left upper edge of the stele, are grouped the five
signs of the planets; at the base of the stele stands an altar with
a triangular pedestal and circular slab ready for the offerings to be
presented to the royal founder by priests or people. The palace extended
along the south side of the terrace facing the town, and with the river
in its rear; it covered a space one hundred and thirty-one yards in
length and a hundred and nine in breadth. In the centre was a large
court, surrounded by seven or eight spacious halls, appropriated
to state functions; between these and the court were many rooms of
different sizes, forming the offices and private apartments of the
royal house. The whole palace was built of brick faced with stone. Three
gateways, flanked by winged, human-headed bulls, afforded access to the
largest apartment, the hall of audience, where the king received his
subjects or the envoys of foreign powers.* The doorways and walls of
some of the rooms were decorated with glazed tiles, but the majority of
them were covered with bands of coloured** bas-reliefs which portrayed
various episodes in the life of the king--his state-councils, his lion
hunts, the reception of tribute, marches over mountains and rivers,
chariot-skirmishes, sieges, and the torture and carrying away of
captives.
* At the east end of the hall Layard found a block of
alabaster covered with inscriptions, forming a sort of
platform on which the king's throne may have stood.
** Layard points out the traces of colouring still visible
when the excavations were made.
[Illustration: 070.jpg THE WINGED BULLS OP ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Layard.
Incised in bands across these pictures are inscriptions extolling the
omnipotence of Assur, while at intervals genii with eagles' beaks, or
deities in human form, imperious and fierce, appear with hands full
of offerings, or in the act of brandishing thunderbolts against evil
spirits. The architect who designed this imposing decoration, and the
sculptors who executed it, closely followed the traditions of ancient
Chaldæa in the drawing and composition of their designs, and in the use
of colour or chisel; but the qualities and defects peculiar to their own
race give a certain character of originality to this borrowed art. They
exaggerated the stern and athletic aspect of their models, making the
figure thick-set, the muscles extraordinarily enlarged, and the features
ludicrously accentuated.
[Illustration: 071.jpg GLAZED TILE FROM PALACE OF CALAH]
Drawn by Boudier, after Layard.
Their pictures produce an impression of awkwardness, confusion and
heaviness, but the detail is so minute and the animation so great that
the attention of the spectator is forcibly arrested; these uncouth
beings impress us with the sense of their self-reliance and their
confidence in their master, as we watch them brandishing their
weapons or hurrying to the attack, and see the shock of battle and the
death-blows given and received. The human-headed bulls, standing on
guard at the gates, exhibit the calm and pensive dignity befitting
creatures conscious of their strength, while the lions passant who
sometimes replace them, snarl and show their teeth with an almost
alarming ferocity.
[Illustration: 072.jpg LION FROM ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL'S PALACE]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the sculpture in the
British Museum.
The statues of men and gods, as a rule, are lacking in originality. The
heavy robes which drape them from head to foot give them the appearance
of cylinders tied in at the centre and slightly flattened towards the
top. The head surmounting this shapeless bundle is the only life-like
part, and even the lower half of this is rendered heavy by the hair
and beard, whose tightly curled tresses lie in stiff rows one above the
other. The upper part of the face which alone is visible is
correctly drawn; the expression is of rather a commonplace type of
nobility--respectable but self-sufficient. The features--eyes, forehead,
nose, mouth--are all those of Assur-nazir-pal; the hair is arranged in
the fashion he affected, and the robe is embroidered with his jewels;
but amid all this we miss the keen intelligence always present in
Egyptian sculpture, whether under the royal head-dress of Cheops or in
the expectant eyes of the sitting scribe: the Assyrian sculptor could
copy the general outline of his model fairly well, but could not infuse
soul into the face of the conqueror, whose "countenance beamed above the
destruction around him."
The water of the Tigris being muddy, and unpleasant to the taste, and
the wells at Calah so charged with lime and bitumen as to render them
unwholesome, Assur-nazir-pal supplied the city with water from the
neighbouring Zab.* An abundant stream was diverted from this river at
the spot now called Negub, and conveyed at first by a tunnel excavated
in the rock, and thence by an open canal to the foot of the great
terrace: at this point the flow of the water was regulated by dams, and
the surplus was utilised for irrigation** purposes by means of openings
cut in the banks.
* The presence of bitumen in the waters of Calah is due to
the hot springs which rise in the bed of the brook Shor-
derreh.
** The canal of Negub--_Negub_ signifies _hole_ in Arabic--
was discovered by Layard. The Zab having changed its course
to the south, and scooped out a deeper bed for itself, the
double arch, which serves as an entrance to the canal, is
actually above the ordinary level of the river, and the
water flows through it only in flood-time.
The aqueduct was named Bâbilat-khigal--the bringer of plenty--and, to
justify the epithet, date-palms, vines, and many kinds of fruit trees
were planted along its course, so that both banks soon assumed the
appearance of a shady orchard interspersed with small towns and villas.
The population rapidly increased, partly through the spontaneous
influx of Assyrians themselves, but still more through the repeated
introduction of bands of foreign prisoners: forts, established at the
fords of the Zab, or commanding the roads which cross the Gebel Makhlub,
kept the country in subjection and formed an inner line of defence at a
short distance from the capital.
[Illustration: 074.jpg A CORNER OF THE RUINED PALACE OF ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Rassam.
Assur-nazir-pal kept up a palace, garden, and small temple, near the
fort of Imgur-Bel, the modern Balawât: thither he repaired for intervals
of repose from state affairs, to enjoy the pleasures of the chase
and cool air in the hot season. He did not entirely abandon his other
capitals, Nineveh and Assur, visiting them occasionally, but Calah was
his favourite seat, and on its adornment he spent the greater part of
his wealth and most of his leisure hours. Only once again did he abandon
his peaceful pursuits and take the field, about the year 897 B.C.,
during the eponymy of Shamashnurî. The tribes on the northern boundary
of the empire had apparently forgotten the lessons they had learnt at
the cost of so much bloodshed at the beginning of his reign: many had
omitted to pay the tribute due, one chief had seized the royal cities of
Amidi and Damdamusa, and the rebellion threatened to spread to Assyria
itself. Assur-nazir-pal girded on his armour and led his troops to
battle as vigorously as in the days of his youth. He hastily collected,
as he passed through their lands, the tribute due from Kipâni, Izalla,
and Kummukh, gained the banks of the Euphrates, traversed Grubbu burning
everything on his way, made a detour through Dirria and Kirkhi, and
finally halted before the walls of Damdamusa. Six hundred soldiers
of the garrison perished in the assault and four hundred were taken
prisoners: these he carried to Amidi and impaled as an object-lesson
round its walls; but, the defenders of the town remaining undaunted,
he raised the siege and plunged into the gorges of the Kashiari. Having
there reduced to submission Udâ, the capital of Lapturi, son of Tubisi,
he returned to Calah, taking with him six thousand prisoners whom he
settled as colonists around his favourite residence. This was his last
exploit: he never subsequently quitted his hereditary domain, but
there passed the remaining seven years of his life in peace, if not in
idleness. He died in 860 B.C., after a reign of twenty-five years. His
portraits represent him as a vigorous man, with a brawny neck and broad
shoulders, capable of bearing the weight of his armour for many hours at
a time. He is short in the head, with a somewhat flattened skull and low
forehead; his eyes are large and deep-set beneath bushy eyebrows, his
cheek-bones high, and his nose aquiline, with a fleshy tip and wide
nostrils, while his mouth and chin are hidden by moustache and beard.
The whole figure is instinct with real dignity, yet such dignity as
is due rather to rank and the habitual exercise of power, than to the
innate qualities of the man.*
* Perrot and Chipiez do not admit that the Assyrian
sculptors intended to represent the features of their kings;
for this they rely chiefly on the remarkable likeness
between all the figures in the same series of bas-reliefs.
My own belief is that in Assyria, as in Egypt, the sculptors
took the portrait of the reigning sovereign as the model for
all their figures.
The character of Assur-nazir-pal, as gathered from the dry details
of his Annals, seems to have been very complex. He was as ambitious,
resolute, and active as any prince in the world; yet he refrained from
offensive warfare as soon as his victories had brought under his rule
the majority of the countries formerly subject to Tiglath-pileser I. He
knew the crucial moment for ending a campaign, arresting his progress
where one more success might have brought him into collision with some
formidable neighbour; and this wise prudence in his undertakings
enabled him to retain the principal acquisitions won by his arms. As a
worshipper of the gods he showed devotion and gratitude; he was just to
his subjects, but his conduct towards his enemies was so savage as to
appear to us cruel even for that terribly pitiless age: no king ever
employed such horrible punishments, or at least none has described with
such satisfaction the tortures inflicted on his vanquished foes.
Perhaps such measures were necessary, and the harshness with which he
repressed insurrection prevented more frequent outbreaks and so averted
greater sacrifice of life. But the horror of these scenes so appals the
modern reader, that at first he can only regard Assur-nazir-pal as a
royal butcher of the worst type.
[Illustration: 077.jpg SHALMANESER III.]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Mansell, taken from
the original stele in the British Museum.
Assur-nazir-pal left to his successor an overflowing treasury, a valiant
army, a people proud of their progress and fully confident in their own
resources, and a kingdom which had recovered, during several years of
peace, from the strain of its previous conquests. Shalmaneser III.* drew
largely on the reserves of men and money which his father's foresight
had prepared, and his busy reign of thirty-five years saw thirty-two
campaigns, conducted almost without a break, on every side of the empire
in succession. A double task awaited him, which he conscientiously and
successfully fulfilled.
* [The Shalmaneser III. of the text is the Shalmaneser II.
of the notes.--TR.]
Assur-nazir-pal had thoroughly reorganised the empire and raised it to
the rank of a great power: he had confirmed his provinces and vassal
states in their allegiance, and had subsequently reduced to subjection,
or, at any rate, penetrated at various points, the little buffer
principalities between Assyria and the powerful kingdoms of Babylon,
Damascus, and Urartu; but he had avoided engaging any one of these
three great states in a struggle of which the issue seemed doubtful.
Shalmaneser could not maintain this policy of forbearance without loss
of prestige in the eyes of the world: conduct which might seem prudent
and cautious in a victorious monarch like Assur-nazir-pal would in
him have argued timidity or weakness, and his rivals would soon have
provoked a quarrel if they thought him lacking in the courage or the
means to attack them. Immediately after his accession, therefore, he
assumed the offensive, and decided to measure his strength first
against Urartu, which for some years past had been showing signs of
restlessness. Few countries are more rugged or better adapted for
defence than that in which his armies were about to take the field. The
volcanoes to which it owed its configuration in geological times, had
become extinct long before the appearance of man, but the surface of the
ground still bears evidence of their former activity; layers of basaltic
rock, beds of scorias and cinders, streams of half-disintegrated mud
and lava, and more or less perfect cones, meet the eye at every turn.
Subterranean disturbances have not entirely ceased even now, for certain
craters--that of Tandurek, for example--sometimes exhale acid fumes;
while hot springs exist in the neighbourhood, from which steaming
waters escape in cascades to the valley, and earthquakes and strange
subterranean noises are not unknown. The backbone of these Armenian
mountains joins towards the south the line of the Grordyasan range; it
runs in a succession of zigzags from south-east to northwest, meeting at
length the mountains of Pontus and the last spurs of the Caucasus.
[Illustration: 079.jpg THE TWO PEAKS OF MOUNT ARARAT]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by A. Tissandier.
Lofty snow-clad peaks, chiefly of volcanic origin, rise here and there
among them, the most important being Akhta-dagh, Tandurek, Ararat,
Bingoel, and Palandoeken. The two unequal pyramids which form the summit
of Ararat are covered with perpetual snow, the higher of them being
16,916 feet above the sea-level. The spurs which issue from the
principal chain cross each other in all directions, and make a network
of rocky basins where in former times water collected and formed lakes,
nearly all of which are now dry in consequence of the breaking down of
one or other of their enclosing sides. Two only of these mountain lakes
still remain, entirely devoid of outlet, Lake Van in the south, and Lake
Urumiah further to the south-east. The Assyrians called the former the
Upper Sea of Naîri, and the latter the Lower Sea, and both constituted
a defence for Urartu against their attacks. To reach the centre of the
kingdom of Urartu, the Assyrians had either to cross the mountainous
strip of land between the two lakes, or by making a detour to the
north-west, and descending the difficult slopes of the valley of the
Arzania, to approach the mountains of Armenia lying to the north of Lake
Van. The march was necessarily a slow and painful one for both horses
and men, along narrow winding valleys down which rushed rapid streams,
over raging torrents, through tangled forests where the path had to be
cut as they advanced, and over barren wind-swept plateaux where rain and
mist chilled and demoralized soldiers accustomed to the warm and sunny
plains of the Euphrates. The majority of the armies which invaded this
region never reached the goal of the expedition: they retired after
a few engagements, and withdrew as quickly as possible to more genial
climes. The main part of the Urartu remained almost always unsubdued
behind its barrier of woods, rocks, and lakes, which protected it from
the attacks levelled against it, and no one can say how far the kingdom
extended in the direction of the Caucasus. It certainly included the
valley of the Araxes and possibly part of the valley of the Kur, and
the steppes sloping towards the Caspian Sea. It was a region full of
contrasts, at once favoured and ill-treated by nature in its elevation
and aspect: rugged peaks, deep gorges, dense thickets, districts sterile
from the heat of subterranean fires, and sandy wastes barren for lack of
moisture, were interspersed with shady valleys, sunny vine-clad slopes,
and wide stretches of fertile land covered with rich layers of deep
alluvial soil, where thick-standing corn and meadow-lands, alternating
with orchards, repaid the cultivator for the slightest attempt at
irrigation.
[Illustration: 080.jpg End of the Harvest--Cutting Straw]
History does not record who were the former possessors of this land;
but towards the middle of the ninth century it was divided into several
principalities, whose position and boundaries cannot be precisely
determined. It is thought that Urartu lay on either side of Mount Ararat
and on both banks of the Araxes, that Biainas lay around Lake Van,*
and that the Mannai occupied the country to the north and east of
Lake Urumiah;** the positions of the other tribes on the different
tributaries of the Euphrates or the slopes of the Armenian mountains are
as yet uncertain.
* Urartu is the only name by which the Assyrians knew the
kingdom of Van; it has been recognised from the very
beginning of Assyriological studies, as well as its identity
with the Ararat of the Bible and the Alarodians of
Herodotus. It was also generally recognised that the name
Biainas in the Vannic inscriptions, which Hincks read Bieda,
corresponded to the Urartu of the Assyrians, but in
consequence of this mistaken reading, efforts have been made
to connect it with Adiabene. Sayce was the first to show
that Biainas was the name of the country of Van, and of the
kingdom of which Van was the capital; the word Bitâni which
Sayce connects with it is not a secondary form of the name
of Van, but a present day term, and should be erased from
the list of geographical names.
** The Mannai are the Minni of Jeremiah (li. 27), and it is
in their country of Minyas that one tradition made the ark
rest after the Deluge.
The country was probably peopled by a very mixed race, for its mountains
have always afforded a safe asylum for refugees, and at each migration,
which altered the face of Western Asia, some fugitives from neighbouring
nations drifted to the shelter of its fastnesses.
[Illustration: 082.jpg THE KINGDOM OF URATU]
The principal element, the Khaldi, were akin to that great family of
tribes which extended across the range of the Taurus, from the shores of
the Mediterranean to the Euxine, and included the Khalybes, the Mushku,
the Tabal, and the Khâti. The little preserved of their language
resembles what we know of the idioms in use among the people of Arzapi
and Mitânni, and their religion seems to have been somewhat analogous
to the ancient worship of the Hittites. The character of the ancient
Armenians, as revealed to us by the monuments, resembles in its main
features that of the Armenians of the present time. They appear as tall,
strong, muscular, and determined, full of zest for work and fighting,
and proud of their independence.
[Illustration: 083.jpg FRAGMENT OF A VOTIVE SHIELD OF URARTIAN WORK]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Hormuzd Rassam.
Some of them led a pastoral life, wandering about with their flocks
during the greater part of the year, obliged to seek pasturage in
valley, forest, or mountain height according to the season, while in
winter they remained frost-bound in semi-subterranean dwellings similar
to those in which descendants immure themselves at the present day.
Where the soil lent itself to agriculture, they proved excellent
husbandmen, and obtained abundant crops. Their ingenuity in irrigation
was remarkable, and enabled them to bring water by a system of trenches
from distant springs to supply their fields and gardens; besides which,
they knew how to terrace the steep hillsides so as to prevent the rapid
draining away of moisture. Industries were but little developed among
them, except perhaps the working of metals; for were they not akin to
those Chalybes of the Pontus, whose mines and forges already furnished
iron to the Grecian world? Fragments have been discovered in the
ruined cities of Urartu of statuettes, cups, and votive shields, either
embossed or engraved, and decorated with concentric bands of animals
or men, treated in the Assyrian manner, but displaying great beauty of
style and remarkable finish of execution.
[Illustration: 084.jpg SITE OF AN URARTIAN TOWN AT TOPRAH-KALEH]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Binder.
Their towns were generally fortified or perched on heights, rendering
them easy of defence, as, for example, Van and Toprah-Kaleh. Even such
towns as were royal residences were small, and not to be compared with
the cities of Assyria or Aram; their ground-plan generally assumed the
form of a rectangular oblong, not always traced with equal exactitude.
[Illustration: 085.jpg THE RUINS OF A PALACE OF URARTU AT TOPRAH-KALEH]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Hormuzd Rassam.
The walls were built of blocks of roughly hewn stone, laid in regular
courses, but without any kind of mortar or cement; they were surmounted
by battlements, and flanked at intervals by square towers, at the foot
of which were outworks to protect the points most open to attack.
The entrance was approached by narrow and dangerous pathways, which
sometimes ran on ledges across the precipitous face of the rock. The
dwelling-houses were of very simple construction, being merely square
cabins of stone or brick, devoid of any external ornament, and pierced
by one low doorway, but sometimes surmounted by an open colonnade
supported by a row of small pillars; a flat roof with a parapet crowned
the whole, though this was often replaced by a gabled top, which was
better adapted to withstand the rains and snows of winter. The palaces
of the chiefs differed from the private houses in the size of their
apartments and the greater care bestowed upon their decoration. Their
façades were sometimes adorned with columns, and ornamented with
bucklers or carved discs of metal; slabs of stone covered with
inscriptions lined the inner halls, but we do not know whether the
kings added to their dedications to the gods and the recital of their
victories, pictures of the battles they had fought and of the fortresses
they had destroyed. The furniture resembled that in the houses of
Nineveh, but was of simpler workmanship, and perhaps the most valuable
articles were imported from Assyria or were of Aramaean manufacture.
The temples seemed to have differed little from the palaces, at least
in external appearance. The masonry was more regular and more skilfully
laid; the outer court was filled with brazen lavers and statues; the
interior was furnished with altars, sacrificial stones, idols in human
or animal shape, and bowls identical with those in the sanctuaries on
the Euphrates, but the nature and details of the rites in which they
were employed are unknown. One supreme deity, Khaldis, god of the sky,
was, as far as we can conjecture, the protector of the whole nation,
and their name was derived from his, as that of the Assyrians was from
Assur, the Cossæans from Kashshu, and the Khati from Khâtu.
[Illustration: 086.jpg TEMPLE OF KHALDIS AT MUZAZIR]
This deity was assisted in the government of the universe by Teisbas,
god of the air, and Ardinîs the sun-god. Groups of secondary deities
were ranged around this sovereign triad--Auis, the water; Ayas, the
earth; Selardis, the moon; Kharubainis, Irmusinis, Adarutas, and
Arzi-melas: one single inscription enumerates forty-six, but some of
these were worshipped in special localities only.
[Illustration: 089.jpg ASSYRIAN SOLDIERS CARRYING OFF OR DESTROYING THE
FURNITURE OF AN URARTIAN TEMPLE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Botta. Scribes are weighing
gold, and soldiers destroying the statue of a god with their
axes.
It would appear as if no goddesses were included in the native Pantheon.
Saris, the only goddess known to us at present, is probably merely a
variant of the Ishtar of Nineveh or Arbela, borrowed from the Assyrians
at a later date.
The first Assyrian conquerors looked upon these northern regions as an
integral part of Naîri, and included them under that name. They knew of
no single state in the district whose power might successfully withstand
their own, but were merely acquainted with a group of hostile provinces
whose internecine conflicts left them ever at the mercy of a foreign
foe.* Two kingdoms had, however, risen to some importance about the
beginning of the ninth century--that of the Mannai in the east, and that
of Urartu in the centre of the country. Urartu comprised the district
of Ararat proper, the province of Biaina, and the entire basin of the
Arzania.
* The single inscription of Tiglath-pileser I. contains a
list of twenty-three kings of Nairi, and mentions sixty
chiefs of the same country.
[Illustration: 090.jpg SHALMANESEE III. CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
bronze gates of Balawât.
Arzashkun, one of its capitals, situated probably near the sources of
this river, was hidden, and protected against attack, by an extent of
dense forest almost impassable to a regular army. The power of this
kingdom, though as yet unorganised, had already begun to inspire the
neighbouring states with uneasiness. Assur-nazir-pal speaks of it
incidentally as lying on the northern frontier of his empire,* but the
care he took to avoid arousing its hostility shows the respect in which
he held it.
* Arzashku, Arzashkun, seems to be the Assyrian form of an
Urartian name ending in _-ka_, formed from a proper name
Arzash, which recalls the name Arsène, Arsissa, applied by
the ancients to part of Lake Van. Arzashkun might represent
the Ardzik of the Armenian historians, west of Malasgert.
He was, indeed, as much afraid of Urartu as of Damascus, and though
he approached quite close to its boundary in his second campaign, he
preferred to check his triumphant advance rather than risk attacking
it. It appears to have been at that time under the undisputed rule of a
certain Sharduris, son of Lutipri, and subsequently, about the middle
of Assur-nazir-pal's reign, to have passed into the hands of Aramê, who
styled himself King of Naîri, and whose ambition may have caused those
revolts which forced Assur-nazir-pal to take up arms in the eighteenth
year of his reign. On this occasion the Assyrians again confined
themselves to the chastisement of their own vassals, and checked
their advance as soon as they approached Urartu. Their success was but
temporary; hardly had they withdrawn from the neighbourhood, when the
disturbances were renewed with even greater violence, very probably
at the instigation of Aramê. Shalmaneser III. found matters in a very
unsatisfactory state both on the west and south of Lake Van: some of the
peoples who had been subject to his father--the Khubushkia, the pastoral
tribes of the Gordæan mountains, and the Aramæans of the Euphrates--had
transferred their allegiance elsewhere. He immediately took measures to
recall them to a sense of their duty, and set out from Calah only a few
days after succeeding to the crown. He marched at first in an easterly
direction, and, crossing the pass of Simisi, burnt the city of Aridi,
thus proving that he was fully prepared to treat rebels after the
same fashion as his father. The lesson had immediate effect. All
the neighbouring tribes, Khargæans, Simisæans, the people of Simira,
Sirisha, and Ulmania, hastened to pay him homage even before he had
struck his camp near Aridi. Hurrying across country by the shortest
route, which entailed the making of roads to enable his chariots and
cavalry to follow him, he fell upon Khubushkia, and reduced a hundred
towns to ashes, pursuing the king Kakia into the depths of the forest,
and forcing him to an unconditional surrender. Ascending thence to
Shugunia, a dependency of Aramê's, he laid the principality waste, in
spite of the desperate resistance made on their mountain slopes by the
inhabitants; then proceeding to Lake Van, he performed the ceremonial
rites incumbent on an Assyrian king whenever he stood for the first time
on the shores of a new sea. He washed his weapons in the waters, offered
a sacrifice to the gods, casting some portions of the victim into
the lake, and before leaving carved his own image on the surface of a
commanding rock. On his homeward march he received tribute from Gilzân.
This expedition was but the prelude of further successes. After a few
weeks' repose at Nineveh, he again set out to make his authority felt in
the western portions of his dominions.
[Illustration: 093.jpg THE PEOPLE OF SHUGUNIA FIGHTING AGAINST THE
ASSYRIANS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
bronze gates of Balawât.
Akhuni, chief of Bît-Adini, whose position was the first to be menaced,
had formed a league with the chiefs of all the cities which had formerly
bowed before Assur-nazir-pal's victorious arms, Gurgum, Samalla, Kuî,
the Patina, Car-chemish, and the Khâti. Shalmaneser seized Lalati* and
Burmarana, two of Akhuni's towns, drove him across the Euphrates, and
following close on his heels, collected as he passed the tribute of
Gurgum, and fell upon Samalla.
* Lalati is probably the Lulati of the Egyptians. The modern
site is not known, nor is that of Burmarana.
Under the walls of Lutibu he overthrew the combined forces of Adini,
Samalla, and the Patina, and raised a trophy to commemorate his victory
at the sources of the Saluara; then turning sharply to the south, he
crossed the Orontes in pursuit of Shapalulme, King of the Patina.
[Illustration: 094.jpg PRISONERS FROM SHUGUNIA, WITH THEIR ARMS TIED AND
YOKES ON THEIR NECKS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
bronze gates of Balawât.
Not far from Alizir he encountered a fresh army raised by Akhuni and
the King of Samalla, with contingents from Carchemish, Kuî, Cilicia, and
Iasbuki:* having routed it, he burnt the fortresses of Shapalulme, and
after occupying himself by cutting down cedars and cypress trees on the
Amanos in the province of Atalur, he left a triumphal stele engraved on
the mountain-side.
* The country of Iasbuki is represented by Ishbak, a son of
Abraham and Keturah, mentioned in Genesis (xxv. 2) in
connection with Shuah.
[Illustration: 094b.jpg SACRIFICE OFFERED BY SHALMANESER III.]
[Illustration: 095.jpg COSTUMES FOUND IN THE FIFTH TOMB]
Next turning eastwards, he received the homage offered with alacrity by
the towns of Taia, Khazazu, Nulia, and Butamu, and, with a final tribute
from Agusi, he returned in triumph to Nineveh. The motley train which
accompanied, him showed by its variety the immense extent of country
he had traversed during this first campaign. Among the prisoners were
representatives of widely different races;--Khâti with long robes and
cumbrous head-dresses, following naked mountaineers from Shugunia, who
marched with yokes on their necks, and wore those close-fitting helmets
with short crests which have such a strangely modern look on the
Assyrian bas-reliefs. The actual results of the campaign were, perhaps,
hardly commensurate with the energy expended. This expedition from
east to west had certainly inflicted considerable losses on the rebels
against whom it had been directed; it had cost them dearly in men
and cattle, and booty of all kinds, and had extorted from them a
considerable amount of tribute, but they remained, notwithstanding,
still unsubdued. As soon as the Assyrian troops had quitted their
neighbourhood, they flattered themselves they were safe from further
attack. No doubt they thought that a show of submission would satisfy
the new invader, as it had satisfied his father; but Shalmaneser was not
disposed to rest content with this nominal dependence. He intended to
exercise effective control over all the states won by his sword, and the
proof of their subjection was to be the regular payment of tribute
and fulfilment of other obligations to their suzerain. Year by year he
unfailingly enforced his rights, till the subject states were obliged to
acknowledge their master and resign themselves to servitude.
The narrative of his reiterated efforts is a monotonous one. The king
advanced against Adini in the spring of 859 B.C., defeated Akhuni near
Tul-barsip, transported his victorious regiments across the Euphrates
on rafts of skins, seized Surunu, Paripa, and Dabigu* besides six
fortresses and two hundred villages, and then advanced into the
territory of Carchemish, which he proceeded to treat with such severity
that the other Hittite chiefs hastened to avert a similar fate by
tendering their submission.
* Shalmaneser crossed the Euphrates near Tul-barsip, which
would lead him into the country between Birejîk, Rum-kaleh,
and Aintab, and it is in that district that we must look for
the towns subject to Akhuni. Dabigu, I consider, corresponds
to Dehbek on Rey's map, a little to the north-east of
Aintab; the sites of Paripa and Surunu are unknown.
The very enumeration of their offerings proves not only their wealth,
but the terror inspired by the advancing Assyrian host: Shapalulmê of
the Patina, for instance, yielded up three talents of gold, a hundred
talents of silver, three hundred talents of copper, and three hundred
of iron, and paid in addition to this an annual tribute of one talent
of silver, two talents of purple, and two hundred great beams of
cedar-wood. Samalla, Agusi, and Kummukh were each laid under tribute in
proportion to their resources, but their surrender did not necessarily
lead to that of Adini. Akhuni realised that, situated as he was on the
very borders of Assyrian territory, there was no longer a chance of
his preserving his semi-independence, as was the case with his kinsfolk
beyond the Euphrates; proximity to the capital would involve a stricter
servitude, which would soon reduce him from the condition of a vassal to
that of a subject, and make him merely a governor where he had hitherto
reigned as king. Abandoned by the Khâti, he sought allies further north,
and entered into a league with the tribes of Naîri and Urartu. When, in
858 B.C., Shalmaneser III. forced an entrance into Tul-barsip, and drove
back what was left of the garrison on the right bank of the Euphrates,
a sudden movement of Aramê obliged him to let the prey escape from
his grasp. Rapidly fortifying Tul-barsip, Nappigi, Aligu, Pitru, and
Mutkînu, and garrisoning them with loyal troops to command the fords
of the river, as his ancestor Shalmaneser I. had done six centuries
before,* he then re-entered Naîri by way of Bît-Zamani, devastated
Inziti with fire and sword, forced a road through to the banks of the
Arzania, pillaged Sukhmi and Dayaîni, and appeared under the walls of
Arzashkun.
* Pitru, the Pethor of the Bible (Numb. xxii. 5), is
situated near the confluence of the Sajur and the Euphrates,
somewhere near the encampment called Oshériyéh by Sachau.
Mutkînu was on the other bank, perhaps at Kharbet-Beddaî,
nearly opposite Pitru. Nappigi was on the left bank of the
Euphrates, which excludes its identification with Mabog-
Hierapolis, as proposed by Hommel; Nabigath, mentioned by
Tomkins, is too far east. Nappigi and Aligu must both be
sought in the district between the Euphrates and the town of
Saruj.
Aramê withdrew to Mount Adduri and awaited his attack in an almost
impregnable position; he was nevertheless defeated: 3400 of his soldiers
fell on the field of battle; his camp, his treasures, his chariots, and
all his baggage passed into the hands of the conqueror, and he himself
barely escaped with his life. Shalmaneser ravaged the country "as a
savage bull ravages and tramples under his feet the fertile fields;" he
burnt the villages and the crops, destroyed Arzashkun, and raised before
its gates a pyramid of human heads, surrounded by a circle of prisoners
impaled on stakes. He climbed the mountain chain of Iritia, and laid
waste Aramali and Zanziuna at his leisure, and descending for the second
time to the shores of Lake Van, renewed the rites he had performed there
in the first year of his reign, and engraved on a neighbouring rock an
inscription recording his deeds of prowess.
[Illustration: 100.jpg SHUA, KING OF GILZAN, BRINGING A WAR-HORSE FULLY
CAPARISONED TO SHALMANESER]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
Black Obelisk.
He made his way back to Gilzân, where its king, Shua, brought him
a war-horse fully caparisoned, as a token of homage. Shalmaneser
graciously deigned to receive it, and further exacted from the king the
accustomed contributions of chariot-horses, sheep, and wine, together
with seven dromedaries, whose strange forms amused the gaping crowds of
Nineveh. After quitting Gilzân, Shalmaneser encountered the people of
Khubushkia, who ventured to bar his way; but its king, Kakia, lost his
city of Shilaia, and three thousand soldiers, besides bulls, horses, and
sheep innumerable. Having enforced submission in Khubushkia, Shalmaneser
at length returned to Assur through the defiles of Kirruri, and came to
Calah to enjoy a well-earned rest after the fatigues of his campaign.
[Illustration: 101.jpg DROMEDARIES FROM GILZAN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
bronze gates of Balawât.
But Akhuni had not yet lost heart. Though driven back to the right bank
of the Euphrates, he had taken advantage of the diversion created by
Aramê in his favour, to assume a strong position among the hills of
Shitamrat with the river in his rear.*
* The position of Shitamrat may answer to the ruins of the
fortress of Rum-kaleh, which protected a ford of the
Euphrates in Byzantine times.
Shalmaneser attacked his lines in front, and broke through them after
three days' preliminary skirmishing; then finding the enemy drawn up in
battle array before their last stronghold, the king charged without
a moment's hesitation, drove them back and forced them to surrender.
Akhuni's life was spared, but he was sent with the remainder of his army
to colonise a village in the neighbourhood of Assur, and Adini became
henceforth an integral part of Assyria.
[Illustration: 102.jpg TRIBUTE FROM GILZAN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
Black Obelisk.
The war on the western frontier was hardly brought to a close when
another broke out in the opposite direction. The king rapidly crossed
the pass of Bunagishlu and fell upon Mazamua: the natives, disconcerted
by his impetuous onslaught, nevertheless hoped to escape by putting
out in their boats on the broad expanse of Lake Urumiah. Shalmaneser,
however, constructed rafts of inflated skins, on which his men ventured
in pursuit right out into the open. The natives were overpowered; the
king "dyed the sea with their blood as if it had been wool," and did not
withdraw until he had forced them to appeal for mercy.
In five years Shalmaneser had destroyed Adini, laid low Urartu, and
confirmed the tributary states of Syria in their allegiance; but
Damascus and Babylon were as yet untouched, and the moment was at hand
when he would have to choose between an arduous conflict with them, or
such a repression of the warlike zeal of his opening years, that, like
his father Assur-nazir-pal, he would have to repose on his laurels.
Shalmaneser was too deeply imbued with the desire for conquest to choose
a peaceful policy: he decided at once to assume the offensive against
Damascus, being probably influenced by the news of Ahab's successes, and
deeming that if the King of Israel had gained the ascendency unaided,
Assur, fully confident of its own superiority, need have no fear as
to the result of a conflict. The forces, however, at the disposal of
Benhadad II. (Adadidri) were sufficient to cause the Assyrians some
uneasiness. The King of Damascus was not only lord of Coele-Syria and
the Haurân, but he exercised a suzerainty more or less defined over
Hamath, Israel, Ammon, the Arabian and Idumean tribes, Arvad and the
principalities of Northern Phoenicia, Usanata, Shianu, and Irkanata;* in
all, twelve peoples or twelve kings owned his sway, and their forces,
if united to his, would provide at need an army of nearly 100,000 men:
a few years might see these various elements merged in a united empire,
capable of withstanding the onset of any foreign foe.**
* Irkanata, the Egyptian Arqanatu, perhaps the Irqata of the
Tel-el-A marna tablets, is the Arka of Phoenicia. The other
countries enumerated are likewise situated in the same
locality. Shianu (for a long time read as Shizanu), the Sin
of the Bible (Gen. x. 17), is mentioned by Tiglath-pileser
III. under the name Sianu. Ushanat is called Uznu by
Tiglath-pileser, and Delitzsch thought it represented the
modern Kalaat-el-Hosu. With Arvad it forms the ancient Zahi
of the Egyptians, which was then subject to Damascus.
** The suzerainty of Ben-hadad over these twelve peoples is
proved by the way in which they are enumerated in the
Assyrian documents: his name always stands at the head of
the list. The manner in which the Assyrian scribes introduce
the names of these kings, mentioning sometimes one,
sometimes two among them, without subtracting them from the
total number 12, has been severely criticised, and Schrader
excused it by saying that 12 is here used as a round number
somewhat vaguely.
Shalmaneser set out from Nineveh on the 14th day of the month Iyyâr, 854
B.C., and chastised on his way the Aramaeans of the Balikh, whose sheikh
Giammu had shown some inclination to assert his independence. He crossed
the Euphrates at Tul-harsip, and held a species of durbar at Pitru for
his Syrian subjects: Sangar of Carchemish, Kundashpi of Kummukh, Aramê
of Agusi, Lalli of Melitene, Khaiani of Samalla, Garparuda who had
succeeded Shapalulmê among the Patina, and a second Garparuda of Gurgum,
rallied around him with their presents of welcome, and probably also
with their troops. This ceremony concluded, he hastened to Khalmaa and
reduced it to submission, then plunged into the hill-country between
Khalmân and the Orontes, and swept over the whole territory of Hamath.
A few easy victories at the outset enabled him to exact ransom from, or
burn to the ground, the cities of Adinnu, Mashgâ, Arganâ, and Qarqar,
but just beyond Qarqar he encountered the advance-guard of the Syrian
army.*
* The position of these towns is uncertain: the general plan
of the campaign only proves that they must lie on the main
route from Aleppo to Kalaat-Sejar, by Barâ or by Maarêt-en-
Nômân and Kalaat-el-Mudiq. It is agreed that Qarqar must be
sought not far from Hamath, whatever the exact site may be.
An examination of the map shows us that Qarqar corresponds
to the present Kalaat-el-Mudiq, the ancient Apamasa of
Lebanon; the confederate army would command the ford which
led to the plain of Hamath by Kalaat-Sejar.
[Illustration: 105.jpg TRIBUTE FROM GARPARUDA, KING OF THE PATINA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
Black Obelisk.
Ben-hadad had called together, to give him a fitting reception, the
whole of the forces at his disposal: 1200 chariots, 1200 horse, 20,000
foot-soldiers from Damascus alone; 700 chariots, 700 horse and 10,000
foot from Hamath; 2000 chariots and 10,000 foot belonging to Ahab, 500
soldiers from Kuî, 1000 mountaineers from the Taurus,* 10 chariots and
10,000 foot from Irk and 200 from Arvad, 200 from Usanata, 30 chariots
and 10,000 foot from Shianu, 1000 camels from Gindibu the Arab, and 1000
Ammonites.
* The people of the Muzri next enumerated have long been
considered as Egyptians; the juxtaposition of their name
with that of Kuî shows that it refers here to the Muzri of
the Taurus.
The battle was long and bloody, and the issue uncertain; Shalmaneser
drove back one wing of the confederate army to the Orontes, and forcing
the other wing and the centre to retire from Qarqar to Kirzau, claimed
the victory, though the losses on both sides were equally great. It
would seem as if the battle were indecisive--the Assyrians, at any
rate, gained nothing by it; they beat a retreat immediately after their
pretended victory, and returned to their own land without prisoners and
almost without booty. On the whole, this first conflict had not been
unfavourable to Damascus: it had demonstrated the power of that state in
the eyes of the most incredulous, and proved how easy resistance
would be, if only the various princes of Syria would lay aside their
differences and all unite under the command of a single chief. The
effect of the battle in Northern Syria and among the recently annexed
Aïamoan tribes was very great; they began to doubt the omnipotence of
Assyria, and their loyalty was shaken. Sangar of Carchemish and the
Khâti refused to pay their tribute, and the Emirs of Tul-Abnî and Mount
Kashiari broke out into open revolt. Shalmaneser spent a whole year in
suppressing the insurrection; complications, moreover, arose at Babylon
which obliged him to concentrate his attention and energy on Chaldæan
affairs. Nabu-baliddin had always maintained peaceful and friendly
relations with Assyria, but he had been overthrown, or perhaps
assassinated, and his son Marduk-nadin-shumu had succeeded him on the
throne, to the dissatisfaction of a section of his subjects. Another son
of Nabu-baliddin, Marduk-belusâtê, claimed the sovereign power, and soon
won over so much of the country that Marduk-nâdin-shumu had fears
for the safety of Babylon itself. He then probably remembered the
pretensions to Kharduniash, which his Assyrian neighbours had for a long
time maintained, and applied to Shalmaneser to support his tottering
fortunes. The Assyrian monarch must have been disposed to lend a
favourable ear to a request which allowed him to intervene as suzerain
in the quarrels of the rival kingdom: he mobilised his forces, offered
sacrifices in honour of Bammân at Zabân, and crossed the frontier in 853
B.C.*
The war dragged on during the next two years. The scene of hostilities
was at the outset on the left bank of the Tigris, which for ten
centuries had served as the battle-field for the warriors of both
countries. Shalmaneser, who had invested Me-Turnat at the fords of the
Lower Dîyalah, at length captured that fortress, and after having
thus isolated the rebels of Babylonia proper, turned his steps towards
G-ananatê.**
* The town of Zabân is situated on the Lesser Zab, but it is
impossible to fix the exact site.
** Mè-Turnat, Mê-Turni, "the water of the Turnat," stood
upon the Dîyalah, probably near the site of Bakuba, where
the most frequented route crosses the river; perhaps we may
identify it with the Artemita of classical authors. Gananatê
must be sought higher up near the mountains, as the context
points out; I am inclined to place it near the site of
Khanekin, whose gardens are still celebrated, and the
strategic importance of which is considerable.
Marduk-belusâtê, "a vacillating king, incapable of directing his own
affairs," came out to meet him, but although repulsed and driven within
the town, he defended his position with such spirit that Shalmaneser was
at length obliged to draw off his troops after having cut down all
the young compelled the fruit trees, disorganised the whole system of
irrigation,--in short, after having effected all the damage he could. He
returned in the following spring by the most direct route; Lakhiru fell
into his hands,* but Marduk-belusâtê, having no heart to contend with
him for the possession of a district ravaged by the struggle of the
preceding summer, fell back on the mountains of Yasubi and concentrated
his forces round Armân.**
* Lakhiru comes before Gananate on the direct road from
Assyria, to the south of the Lower Zab, as we learn from the
account of the campaign itself: wo shall not do wrong in
placing this town either at Kifri, or in its neighbourhood
on the present caravan route.
** Mount Yasubi is the mountainous district which separates
Khanekin from Holwân.
Shalmaneser, having first wreaked his vengeance upon Gananatê, attacked
his adversary in his self-chosen position; Annan fell after a desperate
defence, and Marduk-belusâtê either perished or disappeared in a last
attempt at retaliation. Marduk-nadîn-shumu, although rid of his rival,
was not yet master of the entire kingdom. The Aramæans of the Marshes,
or, as they called themselves, the Kaldâ, had refused him their
allegiance, and were ravaging the regions of the Lower Euphrates by
their repeated incursions. They constituted not so much a compact state,
as a confederation of little states, alternately involved in petty
internecine quarrels, or temporarily reconciled under the precarious
authority of a sole monarch. Each separate state bore the name of the
head of the family--real or mythical--from whom all its members prided
themselves on being descended,--Bît-Dakkuri, Bît-Adini, Bît-Amukkâni,
Bît-Shalani, Bît-Shalli, and finally Bît-Yakîn, which in the end
asserted its predominance over all the rest.*
* As far as we can judge, Bît-Dakkuri and Bît-Adini were the
most northerly, the latter lying on both sides of the
Euphrates, the former on the west of the Euphrates, to the
south of the Bahr-i-Nejîf; Bît-Yakîn was at the southern
extremity near the mouths of the Euphrates, and on the
western shore of the Persian Gulf.
In demanding Shalmaneser's help, Marduk-nadîn-shumu had virtually thrown
on him the responsibility of bringing these turbulent subjects to order,
and the Assyrian monarch accepted the duties of his new position without
demur. He marched to Babylon, entered the city and went direct to the
temple of E-shaggîl: the people beheld him approach with reverence their
deities Bel and Belît, and visit all the sanctuaries of the local gods,
to whom he made endless propitiatory libations and pure offerings.
He had worshipped Ninip in Kuta; he was careful not to forget Nabo of
Borsippa, while on the other hand he officiated in the temple of Ezida,
and consulted its ancient oracle, offering upon its altars the flesh
of splendid oxen and fat lambs. The inhabitants had their part in the
festival as well as the gods; Shalmaneser summoned them to a public
banquet, at which he distributed to them embroidered garments, and plied
them with meats and wine; then, after renewing his homage to the gods
of Babylon, he recommenced his campaign, and set out in the direction
of the sea. Baqâni, the first of the Chaldæan cities which lay on his
route, belonged to Bît-Adini,* one of the tribes of Bît-Dakkuri; it
appeared disposed to resist him, and was therefore promptly dismantled
and burnt--an example which did not fail to cool the warlike
inclinations which had begun to manifest themselves in other parts of
Bît-Dakkuri.
* The site of Baqâni is unknown; it should be sought for
between Lamlum and Warka, and Bît-Adini in Bît-Dakkuri
should be placed between the Shatt-et-Kaher and the Arabian
desert, if the name of Enzudî, the other royal town,
situated to the west of the Euphrates, is found, as is
possible, under a popular etymology, in that of Kalaat ain-
Saîd or Kalaat ain-es-Saîd in the modern maps.
He next crossed the Euphrates, and pillaged Enzudî, the fate of which
caused the remainder of Bît-Adini to lay down arms, and the submission
of the latter brought about that of Bît-Yakîn and Bît-Amukkani. These
were all rich provinces, and they bought off the conqueror liberally:
gold, silver, tin, copper, iron, acacia-wood, ivory, elephants' skins,
were all showered upon the invader to secure his mercy. It must have
been an intense satisfaction to the pride of the Assyrians to be able
to boast that their king had deigned to offer sacrifices in the sacred
cities of Accad, and that he had been borne by his war-horses to
the shores of the Salt Sea; these facts, of little moment to us now,
appeared to the people of those days of decisive importance. No king who
was not actually master of the country would have been tolerated within
the temple of the eponymous god, for the purpose of celebrating
the rites which the sovereign alone was empowered to perform.
Marduk-nadîn-shumu, in recognising Shalmaneser's right to act thus,
thereby acknowledged that he himself was not only the king's ally, but
his liegeman. This bond of supremacy doubtless did not weigh heavily
upon him; as soon as his suzerain had evacuated the country, the two
kingdoms remained much on the same footing as had been established by
the treaties of the three previous generations. Alliances were made
between private families belonging to both, peace existed between the
two sovereigns, interchange of commerce and amenities took place between
the two peoples, but with one point of difference which had not existed
formerly: Assur protected Babel, and, by taking precedence of Marduk, he
became the real head of the peoples of the Euphrates valley. Assured of
the subordination, or at least of the friendly neutrality of Babylon,
Shalma-neser had now a free hand to undertake a campaign in the remoter
regions of Syria, without being constantly haunted by the fear that his
rival might suddenly swoop down upon him in the rear by the valleys of
the Badanu or the Zabs. He now ran no risks in withdrawing his troops
from the south-eastern frontier, and in marshalling his forces on the
slopes of the Armenian Alps or on the banks of the Orontes, leaving
merely a slender contingent in the heart of Assyria proper to act as the
necessary guardians of order in the capital.
Since the indecisive battle of Qarqar, the western frontier of the
empire had receded as far as the Euphrates, and Shalmaneser had been
obliged to forego the collection of the annual Syrian tribute. It would
have been an excellent opportunity for the Khâti, while they enjoyed
this accidental respite, to come to an understanding with Damascus, for
the purpose of acting conjointly against a common enemy; but they let
the right moment slip, and their isolation made submission inevitable.
The effort to subdue them cost Shalmaneser dear, both in time and men;
in the spring of each year he appeared at the fords of Tul-barsip and
ravaged the environs of Carchemish, then marched upon the Orontes to
accomplish the systematic devastation of some fresh district, or to
inflict a defeat on such of his adversaries as dared to encounter him
in the open field. In 850 B.C. the first blow was struck at the Khâti;
Agusi* was the next to suffer, and its king, Aramê, lost Arniê, his
royal city, with some hundred more townships and strongholds.**
* Historians have up to the present admitted that this
campaign of the year 850 took place in Armenia. The context
of the account itself shows us that, in his tenth year,
Shalmaneser advanced against the towns of Aramê, immediately
after having pillaged the country of the Khâti, which
inclines me to think that these towns were situated in
Northern Syria. I have no doubt that the Aramê in question
is not the Armenian king of that name, but Aramê the
sovereign of Bit-Agusi, who is named several times in the
Annals of Shalmaneser.
** The text of Bull No. 1 adds to the account of the war
against Aramê, that of a war against the Damascene league,
which merely repeats the account of Shalmaneser's eleventh
year. It is generally admitted that the war against Aramê
falls under his tenth year, and the war against Ben-hadad
during his eleventh year. The scribes must have had at their
disposal two different versions of one document, in which
these two wars were described without distinction of year.
The compiler of the inscription of the Bulls would have
considered them as forming two distinct accounts, which he
has placed one after the other.
In 849 B.C. it was the turn of Damascus. The league of which Ben-hadad
had proclaimed himself the suzerain was still in existence, but it had
recently narrowly escaped dissolution, and a revolt had almost deprived
it of the adherence of Israel and the house of Omri--after Hamath,
the most active of all its members. The losses suffered at Qarqar had
doubtless been severe enough to shake Ahab's faith in the strength of
his master and ally. Besides this, it would appear that the latter had
not honourably fulfilled all the conditions of the treaty of peace he
had signed three years previously; he still held the important fortress
of Bamoth-gilead, and he delayed handing it over to Ahab in spite of his
oath to restore it. Finding that he could not regain possession of it by
fair means, Ahab resolved to take it by force. A great change in feeling
and politics had taken place at Jerusalem. Jehoshaphat, who occupied the
throne, was, like his father Asa, a devout worshipper of Jahveh, but
his piety did not blind him to the secular needs of the moment. The
experience of his predecessors had shown that the union of the twelve
tribes under the rule of a scion of Judah was a thing of the past for
ever; all attempts to restore it had ended in failure and bloodshed,
and the house of David had again only lately been saved from ruin by the
dearly bought intervention of Ben-hadad I. and his Syrians. Jehoshaphat
from the outset clearly saw the necessity of avoiding these errors of
the past; he accepted the situation and sought the friendship of Israel.
An alliance between two princes so unequal in power could only result in
a disguised suzerainty for one of them and a state of vassalage for
the other; what Ben-hadad's alliance was to Ahab, that of Ahab was to
Jehoshaphat, and it served his purpose in spite of the opposition of
the prophets.1 The strained relations between the two countries were
relaxed, and the severed tribes on both sides of the frontier set about
repairing their losses; while Hiel the Bethelite at length set about
rebuilding Jericho on behalf of Samaria,* Jehoshaphat was collecting
around him a large army, and strengthening himself on the west against
the Philistines and on the south against the Bedawîn of the desert.**
The marriage of his eldest son Jehoram*** with Athaliah subsequently
bound the two courts together by still closer ties;**** mutual-visits
were exchanged, and it was on the occasion of a stay made by Jehoshaphat
at Jezreel that the expedition against Eamoth was finally resolved on.
* The subordinate position of Jehoshaphat is clearly
indicated by the reply which he makes to Ahab when the
latter asks him to accompany him on this expedition: "I am
as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy
horses" (1 Kings xxii. 4).
** 1 Kings xvi. 34, where the writer has preserved the
remembrance of a double human sacrifice, destined, according
to the common custom in the whole of the East, to create
guardian spirits for the new building: "he laid the
foundation thereof with the loss of Abiram his firstborn,
and set up the gates thereof with the loss of his youngest
son Segub; according to the word of the Lord." [For the
curse pronounced on whoever should rebuild Jericho, see
Josh. vi. 26.--Tr.]
*** [Following the distinction in spelling given in 2 Kings
viii. 25, I have everywhere written Joram (of Israel) and
Jehoram (of Judah), to avoid confusion.--Tr.]
**** Athaliah is sometimes called the daughter of Ahab (2
Kings viii. 18), and sometimes the daughter of Omri (2 Kings
viii. 26; cf. 2 Ohron. xxii. 2), and several authors prefer
the latter filiation, while the majority see in it a mistake
of the Hebrew scribe. It is possible that both attributions
may be correct, for we see by the Assyrian inscriptions that
a sovereign is called the son of the founder of his line
even when he was several generations removed from him: thus,
Merodach-baladan, the adversary of Sargon of Assyria, calls
himself son of Iakin, although the founder of the Bît-Iakîn
had been dead many centuries before his accession. The
document used in 2 Kings viii. 26 may have employed the term
daughter of Omri in the same manner merely to indicate that
the Queen of Jerusalem belonged to the house of Omri.
It might well have appeared a more than foolhardy enterprise, and it was
told in Israel that Micaiah, a prophet, the son of Imlah, had predicted
its disastrous ending. "I saw," exclaimed the prophet, "the Lord sitting
on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and
on His left. And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab that he may go up
and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another
said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before
the Lord, and said, I will entice him. And the Lord said unto him,
Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth of all his prophets. And He said, Thou shalt entice him, and
shalt prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord
hafch put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and the
Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee."*
* 1 Kings xxii. 5-23, reproduced in 2 Chron. xviii. 4-22.
The two kings thereupon invested Ramoth, and Ben-hadad hastened to
the defence of his fortress. Selecting thirty-two of his bravest
charioteers, he commanded them to single out Ahab only for attack, and
not fight with others until they had slain him. This injunction happened
in some way to come to the king's ears, and he therefore disguised
himself as a common soldier, while Jehoshaphat retained his ordinary
dress. Attracted by the richness of the latter's armour, the Syrians
fell upon him, but on his raising his war-cry they perceived their
mistake, and turning from the King of Judah they renewed their quest of
the Israelitish leader. While they were vainly seeking him, an archer
drew a bow "at a venture," and pierced him in the joints of his cuirass.
"Wherefore he said to his charioteer, Turn thine hand, and carry me
out of the host; for I am sore wounded." Perceiving, however, that the
battle was going against him, he revoked the order, and remained on
the field the whole day, supported by his armour-bearers. He expired at
sunset, and the news of his death having spread panic through the ranks,
a cry arose, "Every man to his city, and every man to his country!" The
king's followers bore his body to Samaria,* and Israel again relapsed
into the position of a vassal, probably under the same conditions as
before the revolt.
* 1 Kings xxii. 28-38 (cf. 2 Ohron. xviii. 28-34), with
interpolations in verses 35 and 38. It is impossible to
establish the chronology of this period with any certainty,
so entirely do the Hebrew accounts of it differ from the
Assyrian. The latter mention Ahab as alive at the time of
the battle of Qarqar in 854 B.C. and Jehu on the throne in
842 B.C. We must, therefore, place in the intervening twelve
years, first, the end of Ahab's reign; secondly, the two
years of Ahaziah; thirdly, the twelve years of Joram;
fourthly, the beginning of the reign of Jehu--in all,
possibly fourteen years. The reign of Joram has been
prolonged beyond reason by the Hebrew annalists, and it
alone lends itself to be curtailed. Admitting that the siege
of Samaria preceded the battle of Qarqar, we may surmise
that the three years which elapsed, according to the
tradition (1 Kings xxii. 1), between the triumph of Ahab and
his death, fall into two unequal periods, two previous to
Qarqar, and one after it, in such a manner that the revolt
of Israel would have been the result of the defeat of the
Damascenes; Ahab must have died in 835 B.C., as most modern
historians agree. On the other hand, it is scarcely probable
that Jehu ascended the throne at the very moment that
Shalmaneser was defeating Hazael in 842 B.C.; we can only
carry back his accession to the preceding year, possibly
843. The duration of two years for the reign of Ahaziah can
only be reduced by a few months, if indeed as much as that,
as it allows of a full year, and part of a second year (cf.
1 Kings xxii. 51, where it is said that Ahaziah ascended the
throne in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, and 2 Kings iii. 1,
where it states that Joram of Israel succeeded Ahaziah in
the 18th year of the same Jehoshaphat).; in placing these
two years between 853 and 851, there will remain for the
reign of Joram the period comprised between 851 and 843,
namely, eight years, instead of the twelve attributed to him
by biblical tradition.
Ahaziah survived his father two years, and was succeeded by his brother
Joram.* When Shalmaneser, in 849 B.C., reappeared in the valley of the
Orontes, Joram sent out against him his prescribed contingent, and the
conquered Israelites once more fought for their conqueror.
* The Hebrew documents merely make mention of Ahaziah's
accession, length of reign, and death (1 Kings xxii. 40, 51-
53, and 2 Kings i. 2-17). The Assyrian texts do not mention
his name, but they state that in 849 "the twelve kings"
fought against Shalmaneser, and, as we have already seen,
one of the twelve was King of Israel, here, therefore
necessarily Ahaziah, whose successor was Joram.
The Assyrians had, as usual, maltreated the Khâti. After having pillaged
the towns of Carchemish and Agusi, they advanced on the Amanos, held
to ransom the territory of the Patina enclosed within the bend of the
Orontes, and descending upon Hamath by way of the districts of Iaraku
and Ashta-maku, they came into conflict with the army of the twelve
kings, though on this occasion the contest was so bloody that they were
forced to withdraw immediately after their success. They had to content
themselves with sacking Apparazu, one of the citadels of Aramê, and
with collecting the tribute of Garparuda of the Patina; which done, they
skirted the Amanos and provided themselves with beams from its
cedars. The two following years were spent in harrying the people of
Paqarakhbuni, on the right bank of the Euphrates, in the dependencies
of the ancient kingdom of Adini (848 B.C.), and in plundering the
inhabitants of Ishtaratê in the country of Iaîti, near the sources of
the Tigris (847 B.C.), till in 846 they returned to try their fortune
again in Syria. They transported 120,000 men across the Euphrates,
hoping perhaps, by the mere mass of such a force, to crush their enemy
in a single battle; but Ben-hadad was supported by his vassals, and
their combined army must have been as formidable numerically as that of
the Assyrians. As usual, after the engagement, Shalmaneser claimed
the victory, but he did not succeed in intimidating the allies or in
wresting from them a single rood of territory.*
* The care which the king takes to specify that "with
120,000 men he crossed the Euphrates in flood-time" very
probably shows that this number was for him in some respects
an unusual one.
Discouraged, doubtless, by so many fruitless attempts, he decided to
suspend hostilities, at all events for the present. In 845 B.C. he
visited Naîri, and caused an "image of his royal Majesty" to be carved
at the source of the Tigris close to the very spot where the stream
first rises. Pushing forward through the defiles of Tunibuni, he
next invaded Urartu, and devastated it as far as the sources of the
Euphrates; on reaching these he purified his arms in the virgin spring,
and offered a sacrifice to the gods. On his return to the frontier,
the chief of Dayaini "embraced his feet," and presented him with some
thoroughbred horses. In 844 B.C. he crossed the Lower Zab and plunged
into the heart of Namri; this country had long been under Babylonian
influence, and its princes bore Semitic names. Mardukmudammiq, who was
then its ruler, betook himself to the mountains to preserve his life;
but his treasures, idols, and troops were carried off to Assyria, and
he was superseded on the throne by Ianzu, the son of Khambân, a noble
of Cossæan origin. As might be expected after such severe exertions,
Shalmaneser apparently felt that he deserved a time of repose, for his
chroniclers merely note the date of 843 B.C. as that of an inspection,
terminating in a felling of cedars in the Amanos. As a fact, there was
nothing stirring on the frontier. Chaldæa itself looked upon him as a
benefactor, almost as a suzerain, and by its position between Elam and
Assyria, protected the latter from any quarrel with Susa. The nations
on the east continued to pay their tribute without coercion, and Namri,
which alone entertained pretensions to independence, had just received
a severe lesson. Urartu had not acknowledged the supremacy of Assur,
but it had suffered in the last invasion, and Aramê had shown no
further sign of hostility. The tribes of the Upper Tigris--Kummukh and
Adini--accepted their position as subjects, and any trouble arising
in that quarter was treated as merely an ebullition of local
dissatisfaction, and was promptly crushed. The Khâti were exhausted by
the systematic destruction of their towns and their harvests. Lastly,
of the principalities of the Amanos, Gurgum, Samalla, and the Patina, if
some had occasionally taken part in the struggles for independence, the
others had always remained faithful in the performance of their duties
as vassals. Damascus alone held out, and the valour with which she had
endured all the attacks made on her showed no signs of abatement; unless
any internal disturbance arose to diminish her strength, she was likely
to be able to resist the growing power of Assyria for a long time to
come. It was at the very time when her supremacy appeared to be thus
firmly established that a revolution broke out, the effects of
which soon undid the work of the preceding two or three generations.
Ben-hadad, disembarrassed of Shalmaneser, desired to profit by the
respite thus gained to make a final reckoning with the Israelites. It
would appear that their fortune had been on the wane ever since the
heroic death of Ahab. Immediately after the disaster at Eamoth, the
Moabites had risen against Ahaziah,* and their king, Mesha, son of
Kamoshgad, had seized the territory north of the Arnon which belonged
to the tribe of Gad; he had either killed or carried away the Jewish
population in order to colonise the district with Moabites, and he had
then fortified most of the towns, beginning with Dhibon, his capital.
Owing to the shortness of his reign, Ahaziah had been unable to take
measures to hinder him; but Joram, as soon as he was firmly seated on
the throne, made every effort to regain possession of his province, and
claimed the help of his ally or vassal Jehoshaphat.**
* 2 Kings iii. 5. The text does not name Ahaziah, and it
might be concluded that the revolt took place under Joram;
the expression employed by the Hebrew writer, however,
"when Ahab was dead... the King of Moab rebelled against the
King of Israel," does not permit of it being placed
otherwise than at the opening of Ahaziah's reign.
** 2 Kings iii. 6, 7, where Jehoshaphat replies to Joram in
the same terms which he had used to Ahab. The chronological
difficulties induced Ed. Meyer to replace the name of
Jehoshaphat in this passage by that of his son Jehoram. As
Stade has remarked, the presence of two kings both bearing
the name of Jehoram in the same campaign against Moab would
have been one of those facts which strike the popular
imagination, and would not have been forgotten; if the
Hebrew author has connected the Moabite war with the name of
Jehoshaphat, it is because his sources of information
furnished him with that king's name.
The latter had done his best to repair the losses caused by the war with
Syria. Being Lord of Edom, he had been tempted to follow the example
of Solomon, and the deputy who commanded in his name had constructed a
vessel * at Ezion-geber "to go to Ophir for gold;" but the vessel was
wrecked before quitting the port, and the disaster was regarded by the
king as a punishment from Jahveh, for when Ahaziah suggested that the
enterprise should be renewed at their joint expense, he refused the
offer.** But the sudden insurrection of Moab threatened him as much as
it did Joram, and he gladly acceded to the latter's appeal for help.
* [Both in the Hebrew and the Septuagint the ships are in
the plural number in 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49.--Tr.]
** 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49, where the Hebrew writer calls the
vessel constructed by Jehoshaphat a "ship of Tarshish;"
that is, a vessel built to make long voyages. The author of
the Chronicles thought that the Jewish expedition to Ezion-
geber on the Red Sea was destined to go to Tarshish in
Spain. He has, moreover, transformed the vessel into a
fleet, and has associated Ahaziah in the enterprise,
contrary to the testimony of the Book of Kings; finally, he
has introduced into the account a prophet named Eliezer, who
represents the disaster as a chastisement for the alliance
with Ahaziah (2 Ghron. xx. 35-37).
Apparently the simplest way of approaching the enemy would have been
from the north, choosing Gilead as a base of operations; but the line of
fortresses constructed by Mesha at this vulnerable point of his frontier
was so formidable, that the allies resolved to attack from the south
after passing the lower extremity of the Dead Sea. They marched for
seven days in an arid desert, digging wells as they proceeded for the
necessary supply of water. Mesha awaited them with his hastily assembled
troops on the confines of the cultivated land; the allies routed him
and blockaded him within his city of Kir-hareseth.* Closely beset, and
despairing of any help from man, he had recourse to the last resource
which religion provided for his salvation; taking his firstborn son, he
offered him to Chemosh, and burnt him on the city wall in sight of the
besiegers. The Israelites knew what obligations this sacrifice entailed
upon the Moabite god, and the succour which he would be constrained to
give to his devotees in consequence. They therefore raised the siege and
disbanded in all directions.** Mesha, delivered at the very moment that
his cause seemed hopeless, dedicated a stele in the temple of Dhibôn, on
which he recorded his victories and related what measures he had taken
to protect his people.***
* Kir-Hareseth or Kir-Moab is the present Kcrak, the Krak of
mediaeval times.
** The account of the campaign (2 Kings iii. 8-27) belongs
to the prophetic cycle of Elisha, and seems to give merely a
popular version of the event. A king of Edom is mentioned
(9-10, 12-13), while elsewhere, under Jehoshaphat, it is
stated "there was no king in Edom" (1 Kings xxii. 47); the
geography also of the route taken by the expedition is
somewhat confused. Finally, the account of the siege of Kir-
hareseth is mutilated, and the compiler has abridged the
episode of the human sacrifice, as being too conducive to
the honour of Chemosh and to the dishonour of Jahveh. The
main facts of the account are correct, but the details are
not clear, and do not all bear the stamp of veracity.
*** This is the famous Moabite Stone or stele of Dhibôn,
discovered by Clermont-Ganneau in 1868, and now preserved in
the Louvre.
[Illustration: 123.jpg THE MOABITE STONE OF STELE OF MESHA]
From a photograph by Faucher-Gudin, retouched by Massias
from the original in the Louvre. The fainter parts of the
stele are the portions restored in the original.
He still feared a repetition of the invasion, but this misfortune was
spared him; Jehoshaphat was gathered to his fathers,* and his Edomite
subjects revolted on receiving the news of his death. Jeho--his son and
successor, at once took up arms to bring them to a sense of their duty;
but they surrounded his camp, and it was with difficulty that he cut his
way through their ranks and escaped during the night.
* The date of the death of Jehoshaphat may be fixed as 849
or 848 B.C. The biblical documents give us for the period of
the history of Judah following on the death of Ahab: First,
eight years of Jehoshaphat, from the 17th year of his reign
(1 Kings xxii. 51) to his 25th (and last) year (1 Kings
xxii. 42); secondly, eight years of Jehoram, son of
Jehoshaphat (2 Kings viii. 17); thirdly, one year of
Ahaziah, son of Jehoram (2 Kings viii. 26)--in all 17 years,
which must be reduced and condensed into the period between
853 B.C., the probable date of the battle of Ramoth, and
843, the equally probable date of the accession of Jehu. The
reigns of the two Ahaziahs are too short to be further
abridged; we must therefore place the campaign against Moab
at the earliest in 850, during the months which followed the
accession of Joram of Israel, and lengthen Johoshaphat's
reign from 850 to 849. There will then be room between 849
and 844 for five years (instead of eight) for the reign of
Jehoram of Judah.
The defection of the old Canaanite city of Libnah followed quickly on
this reverse,* and Jehoram was powerless to avenge himself on it, the
Philistines and the Bedâwin having threatened the western part of his
territory and raided the country.** In the midst of these calamities
Judah had no leisure to take further measures against Mesha, and Israel
itself had suffered too severe a blow to attempt retaliation. The
advanced age of Ben-hadad, and the unsatisfactory result of the
campaigns against Shalmaneser, had furnished Joram with an occasion for
a rupture with Damascus. War dragged on for some time apparently, till
the tide of fortune turned against Joram, and, like his father Ahab in
similar circumstances, he shut himself within Samaria, where the false
alarm of an Egyptian or Hittite invasion produced a panic in the Syrian
camp, and restored the fortunes of the Israelitish king.***
* 2 Kings viii. 20-22; cf. 2 Ghron. xxi. 8-10.
** This war is mentioned only in 2 Ghron. xxi. 16, 17, where
it is represented as a chastisement from Jahveh; the
Philistines and "the Arabs which are beside the Ethiopians"
(Kush) seem to have taken Jerusalem, pillaged the palace,
and carried away the wives and children of the king into
captivity, "so that there was never a son left him, save
Jehoahaz (Ahaziah), the youngest of his sons."
*** Kuenen has proposed to take the whole account of the
reign of Joram, son of Ahab, and transfer it to that of
Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, and this theory has been approved by
several recent critics and historians. On the other hand,
some have desired to connect it with the account of the
siege of Samaria in Ahab's reign. I fail to see any
reasonable argument which can be brought against the
authenticity of the main fact, whatever opinion may be held
with regard to the details of the biblical narrative.
Ben-hadad did not long survive the reverse he had experienced; he
returned sick and at the point of death to Damascus, where he was
assassinated by Hazael, one of his captains. Hebrew tradition points to
the influence of the prophets in all these events. The aged Elijah had
disappeared, so ran the story, caught up to heaven in a chariot of fire,
but his mantle had fallen on Elisha, and his power still survived in
his disciple. From far and near Elisha's counsel was sought, alike by
Gentiles as by the followers of the true God; whether the suppliant was
the weeping Shunamite mourning for the loss of her only son, or Naaman
the captain of the Damascene chariotry, he granted their petitions, and
raised the child from its bed, and healed the soldier of his leprosy.
During the siege of Samaria, he had several times frustrated the enemy's
designs, and had predicted to Joram not only the fact but the hour of
deliverance, and the circumstances which would accompany it. Ben-hadad
had sent Hazael to the prophet to ask him if he should recover, and
Elisha had wept on seeing the envoy--"Because I know the evil that thou
wilt do unto the children of Israel; their strongholds wilt thou set on
fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash
in pieces their little ones, and rip up their women with child. And
Hazael said, But what is thy servant which is but a dog, that he should
do this great thing? And Elisha answered, The Lord hath showed me that
thou shalt be king over Syria." On returning to Damascus Hazael gave the
results of his mission in a reassuring manner to Ben-hadad, but "on the
morrow... he took the coverlet and dipped it in water, and spread it on
his face, so that he died."
The deed which deprived it of its king^ seriously affected Damascus
itself. It was to Ben-hadad that it owed most of its prosperity; he it
was who had humiliated Hamath and the princes of the coast of Arvad, and
the nomads of the Arabian desert. He had witnessed the rise of the
most energetic of all the Israelite dynasties, and he had curbed its
ambition; Omri had been forced to pay him tribute; Ahab, Ahaziah, and
Joram had continued it; and Ben-hadad's suzerainty, recognised more or
less by their vassals, had extended through Moab and Judah as far as the
Bed Sea. Not only had he skilfully built up this fabric of vassal states
which made him lord of two-thirds of Syria, but he had been able to
preserve it unshaken for a quarter of a century, in spite of
rebellions in several of his fiefs and reiterated attacks from Assyria;
Shalmaneser, indeed, had made an attack on his line, but without
breaking through it, and had at length left him master of the field.
This superiority, however, which no reverse could shake, lay in himself
and in himself alone; no sooner had he passed away than it suddenly
ceased, and Hazael found himself restricted from the very outset to the
territory of Damascus proper.* Hamath, Arvad, and the northern peoples
deserted the league, to return to it no more; Joram of Israel called on
his nephew Ahaziah, who had just succeeded to Jehoram of Judah, and both
together marched to besiege Bamoth.
* From this point onward, the Assyrian texts which mentioned
_the twelve kings of the Khati_, Irkhulini of Hamath and
Adadidri (Ben-hadad) of Damascus, now only name _Khazailu of
the country of Damascus_.
The Israelites were not successful in their methods of carrying on
sieges; Joram, wounded in a skirmish, retired to his palace at Jezreel,
where Ahaziah joined him a few days later, on the pretext of inquiring
after his welfare. The prophets of both kingdoms and their followers
had never forgiven the family of Ahab their half-foreign extraction, nor
their eclecticism in the matter of religion. They had numerous partisans
in both armies, and a conspiracy was set on foot against the absent
sovereigns; Elisha, judging the occasion to be a propitious one,
despatched one of his disciples to the camp with secret instructions.
The generals were all present at a banquet, when the messenger arrived;
he took one of them, Jehu, the son of Nimshi, on one side, anointed
him, and then escaped. Jehu returned, and seated himself amongst his
fellow-officers, who, unsuspicious of what had happened, questioned him
as to the errand. "Is all well? Wherefore came this mad fellow to thee?
And he said unto them, Ye know the man and what his talk was. And they
said, It is false; tell us now. And he said, Thus and thus spake he to
me, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Israel.
Then they hasted, and took every man his garment and put it under him on
the top of the stairs, and blew the trumpet, saying, Jehu is king."
He at once marched on Jezreel, and the two kings, surprised at this
movement, went out to meet him with scarcely any escort. The two parties
had hardly met when Joram asked, "Is it peace, Jehu?" to which Jehu
replied, "What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and
her witchcrafts are so many?" Whereupon Joram turned rein, crying to
his nephew, "There is treachery, O Ahaziah." But an arrow pierced him
through the heart, and he fell forward in his chariot. Ahaziah, wounded
near Ibleam, managed, however, to take refuge in Megiddo, where he died,
his servants bringing the body back to Jerusalem.*
* According to the very curtailed account in 2 Chron. xxii.
9, Ahaziah appears to have hidden himself in Samaria, where
he was discovered and taken to Jehu, who had him killed.
This account may perhaps have belonged to the different
version of which a fragment has been preserved in 2 Kings x.
12-17.
When Jezebel heard the news, she guessed the fate which awaited her. She
painted her eyes and tired her head, and posted herself in one of the
upper windows of the palace. As Jehu entered the gates she reproached
him with the words, "Is it peace, thou Zimri--thy master's murderer? And
he lifted up his face to the window and said, Who is on my side--who?
Two or three eunuchs rose up behind the queen, and he called to them,
Throw her down. So they threw her down, and some of her blood was
sprinkled on the wall and on the horses; and he trode her under foot.
And when he was come in he did eat and drink; and he said, See now
to this cursed woman and bury her; for she is a king's daughter." But
nothing was found of her except her skull, hands, and feet, which they
buried as best they could. Seventy princes, the entire family of Ahab,
were slain, and their heads piled up on either side of the gate. The
priests and worshippers of Baal remained to be dealt with. Jehu summoned
them to Samaria on the pretext of a sacrifice, and massacred them before
the altars of their god. According to a doubtful tradition, the brothers
and relatives of Ahaziah, ignorant of what had happened, came to salute
Joram, and perished in the confusion of the slaughter, and the line of
David narrowly escaped extinction with the house of Omri.*
* 2 Kings x. 12-14. Stade has shown that this account is in
direct contradiction with its immediate context, and that it
belonged to a version of the events differing in detail from
the one which has come down to us. According to the latter,
Jehu must at once have met Jehonadab the son of Rechab, and
have entered Samaria in his company (vers. 15-17); this
would have been a poor way of inspiring the priests of Baal
with the confidence necessary for drawing them into the
trap. According to 2 Chron. xxii. 8, the massacre of the
princes of Judah preceded the murder of Ahaziah.
Athaliah assumed the regency, broke the tie of vassalage which bound
Judah to Israel, and by a singular irony of fate, Jerusalem offered an
asylum to the last of the children of Ahab. The treachery of Jehu, in
addition to his inexpiable cruelty, terrified the faithful, even while
it served their ends. Dynastic crimes were common in those days, but the
tragedy of Jezreel eclipsed in horror all others that had preceded it;
it was at length felt that such avenging of Jahveh was in His eyes too
ruthless, and a century later the Prophet Hosea saw in the misery of his
people the divine chastisement of the house of Jehu for the blood shed
at his accession.
The report of these events, reaching Calah, awoke the ambition of
Shalmaneser. Would Damascus, mistrusting its usurper, deprived of
its northern allies, and ill-treated by the Hebrews, prove itself as
invulnerable as in the past? At all events, in 842 B.C., Shalmaneser
once more crossed the Euphrates, marched along the Orontes, probably
receiving the homage of Hamath and Arvad by the way. Restricted solely
to the resources of Damascus,
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