The History of Antiquity, Vol. 2 (of 6)

Bin-nirar III. (810-781 B.C.), the son and successor of Samsi-Bin, raised the Assyrian power still higher. Twice he marched out against the Armenian land on the shore of Lake Van; eight times he made campaigns in the land of the rivers, i. e. Mesopotamia. In the fifth year of his reign he went out against the city of Arpad in Syria; in the eighth against the "sea-coast," i. e. no doubt against the coast of Syria. The beginning of an inscription remains from which we can see the extent of the lands over which he ruled, or which he had compelled to pay tribute. "I took into my possession," so this fragment tells us, "from the land of Siluna, which lies at the rising of the sun, onwards; viz., the land of Kib, of Ellip, Karkas, Arazias, Misu, Madai (Media), Giratbunda throughout its whole extent, Munna, Parsua, Allabria, Abdadana, the land of Nairi throughout its whole extent, the land of Andiu, which is remote, the mountain range of Bilchu throughout its whole extent to the great sea which lies in the east, i. e. as far as the Caspian Sea. I made subject to myself from the Euphrates onwards: the land of Chatti (Aram), the western land (mat acharri) throughout its whole extent, Tyre, Sidon, the land of Omri (Israel) and Edom, the land of Palashtav (Philistæa) as far as the great sea to the setting of the sun. I imposed upon them payment of tribute. I also marched against the land of Imirisu (the kingdom of Damascus), against Mariah, the king of the land of Imirisu. I actually shut him up in Damascus, the city of his kingdom; great terror of Asshur came upon him; he embraced my feet, he became a subject; 2300 talents of silver, 20 talents of gold, 3000 talents of copper, 5000 talents of iron, robes, carven images, his wealth and his treasures without number, I received in his palace at Damascus where he dwelt.595 I subjugated all the kings of the land of Chaldæa, and laid tribute upon them; I offered sacrifice at Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha, the dwellings of the gods Bel, Nebo, and Nergal."596

According to this king Bin-nirar not only maintained the predominance over Babylon which his grandfather had gained, but extended it: his authority reached from Media, perhaps from the shores of the Caspian Sea, to the shore of the Mediterranean as far as Damascus and Israel and Edom, as far as Sidon and Tyre and the cities of the Philistines. The Cilicians and Tibarenes who paid tribute to Shalmanesar are not mentioned by Bin-nirar in his description of his empire. So far as we can see, the centre of the kingdom was meanwhile extended and more firmly organised. Among the magistrates with whose names the Assyrians denote the years, at the time of Shalmanesar and his immediate successors the names of the commander-in-chief and three court officers are regularly followed by the names of the overseers of the districts of Rezeph (Resapha on the Euphrates), of Nisib (Nisibis on the Mygdonius, the eastern affluent of the Chaboras), of Arapha, i. e. the mountain-land of Arrapachitis (Albak); hence we may conclude that these districts were more closely connected or incorporated with the native land, and governed immediately by viceroys of the king. How uncertain the power and supremacy of Assyria was at a greater distance is on the other hand equally clear from the fact that Bin-nirar had to make no fewer than eight campaigns in the land of the streams, i. e. between the Tigris and the Euphrates; that he marched four times against the land of Khubuskia in the neighbourhood of Armenia, and twice against the district of Lake Van, against which his father and grandfather had so often contended.

Bin-nirar III. also built himself a separate palace at Chalah, on the western edge of the terrace of the royal dwellings, to the south of the palace of his great grandfather Assurnasirpal. In the ruins of the temple which he dedicated to Nebo have been found six standing images of this deity, two of which bear upon the pedestal those inscriptions which informed us that the wife of Bin-nirar III. was named Sammuramat (p. 45). On a written tablet dated from the year of Musallim-Adar (i. e. from the year 793 B.C.), the eighteenth year of Bin-nirar, on which is still legible the fragment of a royal decree, we also find the double impress of his seal – a royal figure which holds a lion. A second document from the time of the reign of this prince, from the twenty-sixth year of his reign (782 B.C.), registers the sale of a female slave at the price of ten and a half minæ, and gives the name of the ten witnesses to the transaction.597 The preservation of this document is the more important inasmuch as a notice in Phenician letters is written beside it. Hence we may conclude that even in the days of Bin-nirar III. the alphabetic writing was known as far as this point in the East, though the cuneiform alphabet was retained beside it, not only at that time, but down to 100 B.C., and indeed, to all appearance, down to the first century of our reckoning.598

END OF VOL. II

1

Strabo, pp. 736, 737. Arrian, "Anab." 3, 7, 7. The same form of the name, Athura, is given in the inscriptions of Darius.

2

Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 27; 5, 12: Adiabene Assyria ante dicta. Ptolemæus (6, 1) puts Adiabene and Arbelitis side by side. Diodorus, 18, 39. Arrian, Epit. 35: τὴν μὲν μἑσην τῶν ποταμῶν γῆν καὶ τὴν Ἀρβηλῖτιν ἔνειμε Ἀμφιμάχῳ.

3

Polyb. 5, 54. The border line between the original country of Assyria and Elam cannot be ascertained with certainty. According to Herodotus (5, 52) Susa lay 42 parasangs, i. e. about 150 miles, to the south of the northern border of Susiana. Hence we may perhaps take the Diala as the border between the later Assyria and Elam. The use of the name Assyria for Mesopotamia and Babylonia, as well as Assyria proper, in Herodotus (e. g. 1, 178) and other Greeks, – the name Syria, which is only an abbreviation of Assyria (Herod. 7, 63), – arises from the period of the supremacy of Assyria in the epoch 750-650 B.C. Cf. Strabo, pp. 736, 737, and Nöldeke, ΑΣΣΥΡΙΟΣ, Hermes, 1871 (5), 443 ff.

4

The Euphrates, which Diodorus mentions 2, 3 and also 2, 27, is not to be put down to a mistake of Ctesias, since Nicolaus (Frag. 9, ed. Müller) describes Nineveh as situated on the Tigris in a passage undoubtedly borrowed from Ctesias. The error belongs, as Carl Jacoby ("Rhein. Museum," 30, 575 ff.) has proved, to the historians of the time of Alexander and the earliest Diadochi, who had in their thoughts the city of Mabog (Hierapolis), on the Euphrates, which was also called Nineveh. The mistake has passed from Clitarchus to the narrative of Diodorus.

5

Steph. Byzant. Χαύων, χώρα τῆς Μηδίας, Κτησίας ἐν πρώτῳ Περτικῶν. Η δὲ Σεμιραμις ἐντεῦθεν ἐξελαύνει, κ. τ. λ.

6

Diod. 1, 56.

7

Frag. 7, ed. Müller.

8

Frag. 1, 2, ed. Müller; cf. Justin. 1, 1.

9

Anonym. tract. "De Mulier." c. 1.

10

Diod. 2, 21.

11

Nicol. Frag. 8, ed. Müller.

12

1, 184.

13

Strabo, pp. 80, 529, 737; Lucian, "de Syria dea," c. 14.

14

Herod. 1, 102.

15

Xenoph. "Anab." 3, 4, 6-10.

16

Diodorus tells us himself (2, 7) that in writing the first 30 chapters of his second book he had before him the book of Clitarchus on Alexander. Carl Jacoby (loc. cit.) – by a comparison with the statements in point in Curtius, who transcribed Clitarchus, and by the proof that certain passages in the narrative of Diodorus which relate to Bactria and India are in agreement with passages in the seventeenth book, in which Diodorus undoubtedly follows Clitarchus; that certain observations in the description of Babylon in Diodorus can only belong to Alexander and his nearest successors; that certain preparations of Semiramis for the Indian campaign agree with certain preparations of Alexander for his Indian campaign, and certain incidents in Alexander's battle against Porus with certain incidents in the battle of Semiramis against Stabrobates; and finally by showing that the situation of the ancient Nineveh was unknown to the historians of the time of Alexander, who were on the other hand acquainted with a Nineveh on the Euphrates (Hierapolis, Mabog; Plin. "Hist. Nat." 5, 23; Ammian. Marcell. 14, 8, 7) – has made it at least very probable that Diodorus had Ctesias before him in the revision of Clitarchus. We may allow that Clitarchus brought the Bactrian Oxyartes into the narrative, unless we ought to read Exaortes in Diodorus; but that the name of the king in Ctesias was Zoroaster is in my opinion very doubtful. The sources of Ctesias were stories related by Persians or Medes from the epic of West Iran. That this should put Zoroaster at the time of Ninus, and make him king of the Bactrians, in order to allow him to be overthrown by the Assyrians, is very improbable. Whether Ctesias ascribed to Semiramis the building of Egbatana is also very doubtful; that he mentioned her stay in Media, and ascribed to her the building of the road over the Zagrus and the planting of gardens, follows from the quotation of Stephanus given above. Ctesias has not ascribed to her the hanging gardens at Babylon. Diodorus makes them the work of a later Syrian king, whom Ctesias would certainly have called king of Assyria. Ctesias too can hardly have ascribed to her the obelisk at Babylon (Diod. 2, 11); so at least the addition of Diodorus, "that it belonged to the seven wonders," seems to me to prove.

17

"Catasterism." c. 38; Hygin. "Astronom." 2, 41. In Diodorus Aphrodite, enraged by a maiden, Derceto, imbues her with a fierce passion for a youth. In shame she slays the youth, exposes the child, throws herself into the lake of Ascalon, and is changed into a fish. For this reason the image of the goddess Derceto at Ascalon has the face of a woman and the body of a fish (2, 4).

18

Diod. 2, 17, init.

19

Georg. Syncell. p. 119, ed. Bonn.

20

Diod. 1, 56.

21

"De Iside," c. 24.

22

Diod. 2, 4, init.

23

Herod. 1, 7.

24

Lucian, "De Syria dea," c. 33, 14, 38. The name Semiramoth is found 1 Chronicles xv. 18, 20; xvi. 5; 2, xvii. 8.

25

Ctesias in Strabo, p. 785.

26

Agathias, 2, 24.

27

Diod. 2, 21; Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 56; 2, p. 11, ed. Schöne; Syncellus, "Chron." 1, 313, 314, ed. Bonn; Brandis, "Rer. Assyr. tempor. emend." p. 13 seq.

28

Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 26, ed. Schöne.

29

1, 184, 187.

30

Vol. i. 512.

31

Ménant, "Annal." p. 18.

32

G. Smith, "Discov." p. 249.

33

The date of Tiglath Adar is fixed by the statement of Sennacherib that he lost his seal to the Babylonians 600 years before Sennacherib took Babylon, i. e. about the year 1300 B.C. As the series of seven kings who reigned before Tiglath Adar is fixed, Assur-bil-nisi, the first of these, can be placed about 1460 B.C. if we allow 20 years to each.

34

Vol. i. p. 262.

35

This series, Pudiel, Bel-nirar and Bin-nirar, is established by tiles of Kileh-Shergat, and the fact that it joins on to Assur-u-ballit, by the tablet of Bin-nirar discovered by G. Smith, in which he calls himself great grandson of Assur-u-ballit, grandson of Bel-nirar, and son of Pudiel; G. Smith, "Discov." p. 244.

36

G. Smith, "Discov." pp. 244, 245.

37

E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 20; "Records of the Past," 7, 17.

38

Ménant, "Annal." p. 73.

39

G. Smith, loc. cit. p. 249.

40

G. Smith, loc. cit. p. 250; E. Schrader, "A. B. Keilinschriften," s. 294. As Sennacherib states that he brought back this seal from Babylon after 600 years, and as Sennacherib took Babylon twice in 704 and 694 B.C., the loss of it falls either in the year 1304 or 1294 B.C. As he brings back the Assyrian images of the gods at the second capture (694 B.C.), the seal of Tiglath Adar may have been brought back on this occasion.

41

G. Smith, loc. cit. p. 250.

42

So the passage runs according to a communication from E. Schrader. On the reading Adarpalbitkur as against the readings Ninpalazira and Adarpalassar, see E. Schrader, "A. B. Keilinschriften," s. 152. On what Ménant ("Annal." p. 29) grounds the assumption that Belkudurussur was the immediate successor of Tiglath Adar I cannot say; it would not be chronologically impossible, but the synchronistic tablet merely informs us that Adarpalbitkur was the successor of Belkudurussur; G. Rawlinson, "Mon." 2, 49. Still less am I able to find any foundation for the statement that Binpaliddin of Babylon, the opponent of Belkudurussur and Adarpalbitkur, was a vassal-king set up by Assyria. The date of Tiglath Pilesar I. is fixed by the Bavian inscription, which tells us that Sennacherib at his second capture of Babylon brought back out of that city the images of the gods lost by Tiglath Pilesar 418 years previously (Bav. 43-50), at the period between 1130 and 1100 B.C. If he began to reign 1130, then the five kings before him (the series from Adarpalbitkur to Tiglath Pilesar is fixed by the cylinder of the latter), allowing 20 years to each reign, bring us to 1230 B.C. for the beginning of Belkudurussur. To go back further seems the more doubtful, as Tiglath Pilesar put Assur-dayan, the third prince of this series, only 60 years before his own time.

43

Sayce, "Records of the Past," 3, 31; Ménant, loc. cit. p. 31.

44

Communication from E. Schrader.

45

Cf. G. Smith, loc. cit. p. 251.

46

Vol. i. p. 263; Ménant, loc. cit. p. 32.

47

Ménant, "Annal." pp. 47, 48.

48

Column, 1, 62, seqq., 1, 89.

49

Column, 5, 44.

50

Column, 6, 39.

51

Ménant, loc. cit. p. 48.

52

Vol. i. p. 519; E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 16.

53

Ménant, loc. cit. p. 51.

54

Vol. i. p. 263; Bavian Inscrip. 48-50; Ménant, "Annal." pp. 52, 236. Inscription on the black basalt-stone in Oppert et Ménant, "Documents juridiques," p. 98. Is the name of the witness (col. 2, 27), Sar-babil-assur-issu (p. 115), correctly explained by "The king of Babel has conquered Asshur"?

55

Col. 1, 62.

56

Ammian. Marcell. 18, 9.

57

Araziki cannot be taken for Aradus, the name of which city on the obelisk and in the inscriptions of Assurnasirpal, Shalmanesar, and elsewhere is Arvadu.

58

Sayce, "Records," 3, 33; Ménant, "Annal." p. 53; "Babylone," pp. 129, 130.

59

According to G. Smith ("Discov." p. 91, 252) this Samsi-Bin II. restored the temple of Istar at Nineveh which Samsi-Bin I. had built (above, p. 3).

60

Inscription of Kurkh, "Records of the Past," 3, 93; Ménant, "Annal." p. 55.

61

Ménant, "Annal." p. 63.

62

E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 7.

63

Robinson, "Palestine," 3, 710.

64

Tac. "Hist." 5, 6.

65

Rénan, "Mission de Phénicie," p. 836.

66

Vol. i. pp. 344, 345.

67

Vol. i. p. 151.

68

Vol. i. p. 153.

69

Vol. i. p. 344.

70

The legend runs, "From the Sidonians, Mother of Kamb, Ippo, Kith(?), Sor," Movers, "Phœniz." 2, 134.

71

Isaiah xxiii. 1, 19; Jeremiah ii. 10; Ezekiel xxvii. 6; Joseph. "Antiq." 1, 6, 1.

72

Virgil, "Æn." 1, 619, 620.

73

Brandis, "Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1873, s. 645 ff.

74

Herod. 7, 90.

75

Stephan. Byz. Ἀμαθοῦς.

76

"Odyss." 8, 362; Tac. "Annal." 2, 3; Pausan. 1, 14, 6; Pompon. Mela, 2, 7.

77

Vol. i. p. 359.

78

Joseph. "in Apion." 1, 18; "Antiq." 8, 5, 3, 9, 14, 2.

79

Movers, "Phœniz." 2, 239, 240.

80

Diod. 5, 56.

81

In Homer Europa is not the daughter of Agenor but of Phœnix ("Il." 14, 321), just as Cadmus, Thasos, and Europa are sometimes children of Agenor and sometimes of Phœnix. In Hdt. 1, 2 it is Cretans who carry off Europa, the daughter of the king of Tyre.

82

Diod. 4, 2, 60; 5, 56, 57, 58, 48, 49.

83

Ephor. Frag. 12, ed. Müller.

84

Herod. 4, 147; 2, 45, 49; 5, 58, 59.

85

Frag. 8, 9, ed. Müller.

86

Frag. 40-42, 43-45, ed. Müller.

87

Frag. 163, ed. Müller.

88

"Theog." 937, 975; Pind. "Pyth." 3, 88 seqq.

89

Movers, "Phœniz." 1, 129, 131.

90

Plut. "Pelop." c. 19.

91

Pind. "Olymp." 2, 141.

92

Vol. i. 271.

93

Movers, "Phœniz." 1, 517.

94

Thac. 1, 8.

95

Vol. i. 363, 364.

96

Athenæus, p. 360.

97

Diod. 5, 58.

98

Bœckh. C. I. G. 2526.

99

Hefter, "Götterdienste auf Rhodos," 3, 18; Welcker, "Mythologie," 1, 145; Brandis, "Munzwesen," s. 587.

100

Schol. Pind. "Pyth." 4, 88; Pausan. 3, 1, 7, 8; Steph. Byz. Μεμβλίαρος.

101

Bœckh. C. I. G. 2448.

102

Herod. 4, 147; Steph. Byz. Μῆλος.

103

Steph. Byz. Ὠλίαρος.

104

Strabo, pp. 346, 457, 472; Diod. 5, 47.

105

Vol. i. 378; Herod. 2, 51; Conze, "Inseln des Thrakischen Meeres," e. g. s. 91.

106

Strabo, p. 473; Steph. Byz. Ἴμβρος; vol. i. 378.

107

Herod. 2, 44; 6, 47.

108

Herod. 1, 105; Pausan. 1, 14, 7; 3, 23, 1.

109

Pausan. 10, 11, 5; Bœckh, "Metrologie," s. 45.

110

Pausan. 1, 2, 5; 1, 14, 6, 7.

111

Strabo, p. 377; Pausan. 1, 32, 5.

112

ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΝ ς´ γ´, 1877, and below, chap. xi.

113

Brandis, "Hermes," 2, 275 ff. I cannot agree in all points with the deductions of this extremely acute inquiry.

114

"Il." 14, 321; 18, 593; "Odyss." 19, 178; 11, 568.

115

"Odyss." 11, 523.

116

Diod. 4, 60.

117

Serv. ad "Æneid." 6, 30.

118

Hesych. ἐπ᾿ Εὐρυγύν ἀγών; Plut. "Thes." c. 15; Diod. 4, 65.

119

Apollodor. 1, 9, 26; Suidas, Σαρδώνιος γέλως.

120

Herod. 7, 110.

121

Diod. 4, 76-78; Schol. Callim. "Hymn. in Jovem," 8.

122

Istri frag. 47, ed. Müller.

123

Istri frag. 33, ed. Müller.

124

Müllenhoff, "Deutsche Alterthumskunde," i. 222.

125

Plato, "Minos," pp. 262, 266, 319, 321; "De. Legg," init.; Aristot. "Pol." 2, 8, 1, 2; 7, 9, 2.

126

Herod. 1, 171; 3, 122; 7, 169-171.

127

Herod. 1, 4.

128

Herod. 3, 122.

129

Strabo, p. 476; Steph. Byz. Ἰτανός.

130

Pausan. 3, 21, 6.

131

Aristotle, in Steph. Byz. Κύθηρα.

132

Above, p. 63.

133

Strabo, p. 479.

134

Below, chap. 11.

135

Thuc. 1, 8.

136

Herod. 7, 171.

137

Herod. 2, 44, 145.

138

Herod. 4, 147.

139

Thuc. 5, 112.

140

Herod. 5, 89; "Il." 13, 451; "Odyss." 19, 178.

141

Euseb. "Chron." 2, p. 34 seqq. ed. Schöne. Even in Diodorus, 4, 60, we find two Minoses, an older and a younger.

142

Lenormant, "Antiq. de la Troade," p. 32.

143

Genesis x. 2-4: 1 Chron. i. 5-7.

144

Kiepert, "Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1859.

145

Ezek. xxvii. 7.

146

Thuc. vi. 2.

147

Diod. v. 12.

148

Ptolem. 4, 3, 47.

149

Ai benim; Movers, "Phœniz." 2, 355, 359, 362.

150

Heracl. Pont. frag. 29, ed. Müller; Gesen. "Monum." p. 293; Olshausen, "Rh. Mus." 1852, S. 328.

151

Thuc. 6, 2.

152

Diod. 4, 83.

153

"Æn." 5, 760.

154

Diod. 4, 83; Strabo, p. 272; Athenæus, p. 374; Aelian, "Hist. An." 4, 2; 10, 50.

155

Diod. 4, 23.

156

Herod. 5, 43.

157

Steph. Byz. Σολοῦς. Sapphon. frag. 6, ed. Bergk; it is possible that Panormus on Crete may be meant.

158

Thuc. 6, 2.

159

Diod. 5, 35.

160

Diod. 4, 24, 29, 30; 5, 15; Arist. "De mirab. ausc." c. 104; Pausan. 10, 17, 2.

161