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

Though the cities of Judah were lost, and Sennacherib lay in the south of Judah with a mighty army, though hundreds of thousands had been carried away, and Jerusalem itself was now shut up, Isaiah was nevertheless more zealous and earnest in urging the people and the king to resistance than he had previously been in advising them to desist from the undertaking. The line of destruction would soon reach the Assyrians, they would not march into Jerusalem; Jehovah would rescue the remnant of Judah. "Lo! the Assyrian," thus Isaiah represents Jehovah as saying, "the rod of mine anger and the staff of mine indignation is in his hand. Against the people of my wrath I will send him to take the spoil, and to tread them down like the mire of the street.303 But it shall come to pass that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith: I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the princes like a valiant man. My hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people, and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent. Shall I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols? Shall the axe boast against him that heweth therewith; or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? As if the rod led him that bears it, or the staff raised the man. Therefore the Lord of hosts will send a blight upon his fatness, and a firebrand will destroy his splendour, and diminish the glory of his forest and his fruitful field, and the remnant of the trees will be so few, that a child may write them.304 When thou shalt cease to desolate, thou shalt be desolated: when thou shalt make an end to plunder, they shall plunder thee.305 Jehovah hath determined it from the days of old, and from distant times he hath established it. I have suffered it to take place that the Assyrian destroyed the cities and made them heaps of ruins, and that their inhabitants were put to shame, of small power, as grass of the field. But I know the insolence of the mighty, and his going out and coming in, saith Jehovah. For the sake of his insolence, and because his tumult has come up into my ears, I will put my ring in his nose, and my bit in his mouth, and carry him back on the way that he came. O my people that dwelleth in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian. He smote thee with the rod, and lifted up his staff against thee. Yet a little while and my indignation shall cease, and mine anger shall turn to their destruction, and in that day his burden shall be taken from thy shoulder, and his yoke from thy back.306 The king of Assyria shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with a shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return. And I will defend this city to save it for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David.307 As I have purposed so shall it come to pass. I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot.308 Lo! a noise of many nations, which make a noise like the sound of mighty waters. But Jehovah shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the whirling dust before the wind. And behold at evening trouble, and before the morning they are not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us."309

No doubt the Assyrians threw up trenches and besieging towers round the city; no doubt they endeavoured to destroy the walls and gates. But Jerusalem was saved. The army of Tirhaka, though it appeared very late in Syria, did not fail to come. Sennacherib had time to bring the siege of Ekron to an end, to execute the leaders of the rebellion, to carry away a part of the population, and set up Padi again as the prince of Ekron (p. 127), before the Egyptians and Ethiopians came. He retired before their approach from Libnah to Timnath and Eltekeh, in order, no doubt, to be nearer the part of his army which was besieging Jerusalem, and to be able to withdraw troops from it for the decisive battle. Of this battle, which took place near Eltekeh, he tells us that he was victorious in it; that he took captive charioteers and sons of the princes of Egypt, and charioteers of the king of Meroe in the conflict. But while in other cases the hostile king is invariably mentioned by name, Tirhaka's name is wanting; Sennacherib speaks quite vaguely of the kings of Egypt (sarrani mat Mussuri) and the king of Meroe (sar mat Miluhhi), who came to aid Ekron, of sons of the kings of Egypt, of charioteers of the kings of Meroe, whom he captured; captive sons of princes are also mentioned elsewhere in the inscriptions. Further, Sennacherib does not tell us, as is usual elsewhere, how many of the enemy were killed, how many prisoners he took, that the enemy fled, and that he pursued them. If we add to this that the siege of Jerusalem ends suddenly according to the account of the Hebrews, that Sennacherib's army did not appear afterwards in Syria, although he sat for 20 years on the throne of Assyria after this battle, we cannot fail to see that Sennacherib, if not completely defeated at Eltekeh, must have suffered the severest losses – losses of such weight that they compelled him to retire immediately after the battle, and break off the siege of Jerusalem on the spot.

This result Sennacherib's inscriptions conceal by speaking very vaguely of the enemy, and bringing into prominence some captures, which may have been effected even by the defeated side in the battle. This concealment was aided by the fact that the rulers who rose again in the districts of Egypt under Sabakon – the "hereditary lords," who maintained themselves under Sabakon's successors – could be described as kings, while their sovereign, Tirhaka, could be kept in the background, and made to appear as the king of Meroe. Of more importance is the attempt in the annals to give the appearance of a favourable issue to the campaign in Syria, by altering the chronology of the events. They represent that, which took place before the battle of Eltekeh, as taking place after it; the invasion of Judah, the negotiations with Hezekiah, his payment of tribute, which according to the account of the Hebrews took place before the battle at Eltekeh, when Sennacherib was at Lachish, they put after the battle, so that Sennacherib's campaign appears to close with the submission of Hezekiah. The inscriptions do not give any false facts: they even mention the attempt to seduce the soldiers of Hezekiah, saying that "the good warriors, whom he had brought to Jerusalem for defence, were inclined to submission;" they only alter the order, and represent the capture of Ekron, the shutting up and siege of Jerusalem, the division of the land in the south of Judah among Ashdod, Ekron, and Gaza, and, finally, the payment of tribute by Hezekiah, as coming after the battle of Eltekeh, whereas these events preceded it; and in their usual manner they exaggerate the payments of Hezekiah, when they represent him as sending "his daughters" to Nineveh. That the inscription of Nebbi Yunus mentions the subjugation of the land of Judah (Jehuda) and its king Hezekiah (Chazakiyahu), beside the dethronement of Luli of Sidon,310 has no basis beyond the tribute of 330 talents.

To the Hebrews the rescue from the most grievous distress, the sudden departure of the Assyrians from the walls of Jerusalem, could appear only as a decree of Jehovah, as the work of his mighty arm. When Isaiah announced to Hezekiah the word of Jehovah: "I will protect this city, and save it for my own and my servant David's sake" – the Books of the Kings continue – "It came to pass in the selfsame night that the angel of Jehovah went out, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000 men.311 And when they arose in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. Then Sennacherib departed, and went and returned, and dwelt in Nineveh." In most complete contrast to his father Ahaz, who had sacrificed his son to Moloch, and altered the arrangements of the temple at Jerusalem after an Assyrian model (p. 78), Hezekiah was sincerely devoted to the worship of Jehovah. He had "removed the high places, broken the pillars, and destroyed the Astartes;" he had made thorough regulations for the purification, arrangement, and elevation of the worship, and taken measures for the better maintenance of the priests and Levites.312 The revision by the prophetic hand, in which we possess the Books of Kings, naturally derives all the misery which fell upon Israel and Judah from the idolatry of the kings, who for this reason, no doubt, are made to sacrifice on the hills more frequently than was really the case, to offer incense to strange gods, and pray to all the host of heaven. The more easy was it, on the other hand, to believe that the sudden, most unhoped-for rescue of the pious king was brought about by the direct interposition of Jehovah, and the announcement of the great prophet fulfilled on the spot.

The priests of Memphis, or the interpreter, gave the following account of the meeting of Sennacherib and the Egyptians to Herodotus: Sethos, a priest of Hephæstus (of Ptah of Memphis), ruled over Egypt, when Sanacheribus, the king of the Arabs and Assyrians, led a great army against Egypt. Of the warriors in Egypt none would go against him, for Sethos had despised them, as though he had no need of them, treated them badly, and taken away the plots of land which they had possessed under former kings. In despair Sethos lamented in the temple before the image of the god, and the god appeared to him in a dream, and bade him be of good courage; he would suffer no harm if he marched out against the enemies; the god would himself send him helpers. So Sethos marched out with those who would follow of their own will – none of the warriors followed – and pitched his camp near Pelusium. Then field-mice spread over the camp of the enemies, and gnawed to pieces their quivers, their bows, and shield-handles; and when on the next morning they fled away without arms, many of them were slain. "And now this king," so Herodotus concludes his narrative, "stands in stone in the temple of Hephæstus (of Ptah), with a mouse in his hand, and says by his inscription – 'Look on me, and be pious.'"313 Neither the list of Manetho nor the monuments mention or know a priest Sethos of Memphis, who ruled over Egypt in the days of Sennacherib. The opponent of Sennacherib from the Nile, whose name is passed over in his inscriptions, was Tirhaka, the king of Napata and Egypt, as the Hebrews tell us, and the statement has been already confirmed by the monuments of Egypt.

CHAPTER VII.

ESARHADDON

Sennacherib had been compelled to retire from Syria before the Egyptians and Ethiopians, before the army of Tirhaka. If he did not seek to compensate this failure by new campaigns to Syria, if he omitted to attempt the subjugation of Syria a second time, the reason obviously lay in the fact, that his arms were occupied nearer home by the rebellion of Babylonia, the attitude of Merodach Baladan in South Chaldæa, and his combination with Elam. We are acquainted with the series of rebellions and struggles which Sennacherib had to meet here, till in the year 694 B.C. he finally succeeded in overcoming the confederates leagued against him in a great battle, and capturing the city of Babylon (p. 118). Yet even after these important successes, Sennacherib's armies, so far as we see, never appeared again in Syria. The Books of the Hebrews tell us nothing of any further attacks of Sennacherib on Judah: they merely say: "Sennacherib afterwards remained in Nineveh." The accounts preserved in the inscriptions of the campaigns of Sennacherib do not go beyond the capture of Babylon: the account which reaches furthest down is dated 691 B.C. Of the next ten years, during which Sennacherib continued to sit on the throne of Assyria, we have no connected information. Even the inscriptions which collect the acts of Sennacherib, the inscription of Nebbi Yunus, and the inscription of Bavian, end their account of his military deeds with the battle of Chaluli and the capture of Babylon. Indications lead to the conclusion that Sennacherib, even in this last decade of his reign, was so actively engaged in contests on the lower Euphrates and against Elam, that he was compelled to leave Syria to her fate. The fragment of an inscription speaks of Sennacherib's wars against a queen of the Arabs; in an inscription of his successor also we hear of a conquest of Sennacherib in Arabia.314 Tiglath Pilesar had fought against Samsieh, the queen of the Arabs, Sargon had received tribute from her, and Sargon and Tiglath Pilesar had also received the tribute of the Sabæans.315 Herodotus, as we saw (p. 141), calls Sennacherib the king of "the Arabians and Assyrians," from which we may conclude that in the tradition of Egypt, on which this account given by Herodotus of Sennacherib was based, he was a ruler to whom a considerable part of Arabia was subject. In the inscriptions of the successor of Sennacherib, we find at his accession Nabuzir, a son of Merodach Baladan, in possession of Bit Yakin, the land of the sea, the old domain of his race.316 He must, therefore, have won it back in Sennacherib's time, and though he may have had to pay tribute he must have maintained his conquest. Lastly, we hear that Halludus, the successor of Uman Minanu of Elam, made a vigorous resistance to Sennacherib, and that Sennacherib won from him Bit Imbi, a border fortress.317

Sennacherib's inscriptions repeatedly inform us that he caused trees to be felled on Mount Amanus, i. e. in the neighbourhood of Cilicia, for his buildings.318 Inscriptions from the third and ninth years of Sennacherib also mention the fact that captive Cilicians were compelled to work at these buildings (p. 107), and in the inscription of Nebbi Yunus, the mention of the Syrian campaign of Sennacherib is followed by the statement, that he reduced the Cilicians, who inhabited the forests, and destroyed their cities.319 Sennacherib, therefore, must have maintained by repeated contests the dominion over the Cilicians, which Sargon had already gained (p. 103). Polyhistor tells us that Sennacherib in Assyria heard of the landing of a Grecian army in Cilicia; he hastened thither and defeated the Greeks, after losing many of his own people; in remembrance of this victory he caused his image to be set up there, with an inscription in Chaldæan letters, as evidence of his bravery and skill, and built the city of Tarsus after the model of Babylon. In the somewhat different account of Abydenus, Sennacherib, after subjugating Babylon, defeated a fleet of the Greeks in a naval battle off the coast of Cilicia, founded the temple of Anchiale, set up brazen pillars with an inscription of his achievements, and built the city of Tarsus after the model of Babylon, so that the Cydnus flowed through Tarsus in the same manner as the Euphrates through Babylon. Hellanicus had already told the Greeks that Tarsus and Anchiale had been built by a ruler of Babylon, and the companions of Alexander of Macedon saw near the walls of Anchiale the picture of a king of Assyria, with the right hand raised.320

After an eventful reign of 24 years, Sennacherib came to an end even more miserable than the end of his father (681 B.C.321). "When Sennacherib was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god," so we find in the Books of Kings, "his sons Adramelech and Nergal Sarezer slew him with the sword. They escaped into the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead."322 According to Polyhistor, Ardumuzanes, the son of Sennacherib, was the treacherous assassin of his father; in Abydenus Nergilus succeeds Sennacherib; Nergilus was slain by his son Adrameles, who was killed by his brother Axerdis, and his army driven back to the city of Bizana (in Armenia).323 The canon of the Assyrians merely mentions at the year 681 B.C., "Assur-akh-iddin (Esarhaddon) ascends the throne."324 Sennacherib's inscriptions told us that after the campaign in which he had driven Merodach Baladan out of Bit Yakin, he had placed his eldest son, Assurnadin, as regent over Babylon (p. 115). Of this Assurnadin we only know this fact: we hear nothing of his later fortunes. On a tablet, Sennacherib states that he has set apart golden chains, ivory, and precious stones, a mina and a half in weight, for his son Esarhaddon.325 Esarhaddon, therefore, a fourth son of Sennacherib, wrested from his brothers, Adramelech and Nergal Sarezer, the murderers of his father, the fruit of their evil deeds, and became Sennacherib's successor.

The acts of Esarhaddon show that he was a prince of energy, and knew how to guide the reins with a strong hand. His father's reign had not been poor in results, but still he had not been able to maintain the dominion of Sargon in its full extent: he had been compelled to give up Syria. Esarhaddon was not only able to recover this loss, he raised Assyria to a height which she had never attained before. Shalmanesar II. had trodden Syria, received the tribute of Israel, and reduced the west of Iran to submission; Tiglath Pilesar II. had seen Arachosia, received the homage of Judah, and ruled over Babylonia; Sargon had held sway over Syria and Babylonia, Cilicia and Media; Esarhaddon kept the west of Iran in submission; he not only extended the dominion of Assyria further to the north than any of his predecessors; he reduced Babylon to certain obedience, his armies passed far beyond the borders of Syria, and of Asia towards the south-west.

According to a cylinder found at Kuyundshik and much injured at the beginning, Esarhaddon with his army hastened to Nineveh; Asshur, Samas, Bel, Nebo, and Istar, had fortunately placed him on the throne of his father. In Nineveh he heard that Nabu-zir, the son of Merodach Baladan, the lord of Bit Yakin, had attacked the faithful overseer of Ur (Mugheir), had smitten him with the sword, and refused homage. Esarhaddon sends his troops against Nabu-zir, who flies before them to Elam: Nahid Merodach, the brother of Nabu-zir, comes from Elam to pay homage to Esarhaddon; he receives the land of the sea-coast, the inheritance of his brother. "Without fail," we are further told, "he came each year to Nineveh, with rich presents to kiss my feet."326 The inscription of a second cylinder, found at Nebbi Yunus, mentions the same event. "Nabu-zir," we are told, "trusted in Elam, but he did not by that means save his life. I requested his brother Nahid Merodach to do homage to me. He hastened from Elam to Nineveh, and kissed my feet; the whole of the sea-coast I gave to him."327 "Samas-ibni, prince of Bit Dakkur in Chaldæa, took land in possession which belonged to the sons of Babylon and Borsippa. I gave it back to them, and put Nabu-Sallim, the son of Balasu, on the throne, who became my servant."328 On a third cylinder (Aberdeen) Esarhaddon says: "At the beginning of my reign, on my first warlike enterprise, I established myself firmly on the seat of my dominion." He marches to Babylon, makes prisoners, assembles the warriors, and all the tribes of the inhabitants of Kardunias, assumes the crown, and bids the chiefs prostrate themselves before him.329 That Esarhaddon bore the crown of Babylon is told us in the current title of his inscriptions: "King of Asshur, king of Babel, king of Sumir and Accad (king of Kardunias)." According to the astronomical canon, Asaridinus (Assur-akh-iddin) reigns over Babylon from the beginning of the year 680 B.C. to the end of the year 668 B.C. Over Assyria Esarhaddon reigned from 681 to 668 B.C.

Esarhaddon appears to have adopted a different method from his fathers for securing his dominion over Babylonia. So far as we can see, he attempted to pacify and win the Babylonians by mild regulations, by setting up the temples destroyed by his father, and restoring the city. A tablet of Esarhaddon narrates in detail the wars which Sennacherib carried on against Babylonia, and then mentions the destruction of the city in order to conclude with the enumeration of the buildings which he, Esarhaddon, erected in Babylon.330 According to the cylinder Aberdeen, Esarhaddon, at his coronation in Babylon, liberated the prisoners whom he had taken; according to the cylinder of Nebbi Yunus, he restored, as already mentioned, to the sons of Babylon and Borsippa the land which Samas-ibni of Bit Dakkur had taken from them. The cylinder Aberdeen tells us that Esarhaddon fixed the year and the day for the building, i. e. for the restoration of Bit Saggatu – it was the chief temple of Babylon, the sanctuary of Bel Merodach, the protecting deity of the city (I. 295) – that he had bricks made for this building, that he restored the injured temples of the gods, and the walls of Babylon, Imgur-Bel, and Nivit Bel.331 Bricks of the ruin-heaps of Amram Ibn Ali, on the site of the ancient Babylon, bear the stamp: "To the god of Merodach, his lord, Esarhaddon, king of Asshur, king of Babel, begun and built the altars of Bit Saggatu."332 On the cylinder of Nebbi Yunus, Esarhaddon says: "When Samas, Bel, Nebo, Istar of Nineveh, and Istar of Arbela had given me the victory over my enemies, out of the booty of foreign lands, which my hand reduced by the aid of the great god, my lord, I built (36 great) temples in the cities of Assyria and Babylonia, covered them with silver and gold, and made them to shine as the day."333

Of Esarhaddon's relations to Elam, the inscriptions only tell us that he strongly fortified a border-city against Elam.334 The tribes of the Arabs were reduced far and wide. The cylinder of Nebbi Yunus mentions the city of Adumu, the fortress of the Arabs, which Sennacherib took;335 he, Esarhaddon, made Tabua, a woman brought up in his palace, queen of the Arabs, and increased by 65 camels the tribute paid to his father. When Hazael, the prince of another Arabian tribe, died, Esarhaddon put his son Yahlu on the throne, and raised the tribute paid by Hazael by 10 minæ of gold, 50 camels, and payments of other kinds.336 The distant land of Bazu had been trodden by none of his forefathers; he advanced thither; six princes of this region, Kisu, Akbaru, Mansaku, Habizu, Niaru, Habanamru, and two queens, Yapah and Bailu, he slew; their gods, their possessions, and their people, he carried off to Assyria; the king of the Gambul, who dwelt in the marshes and waters (in the region at the mouth of the Euphrates), submitted, and brought presents and tribute.337

In the East, Esarhaddon kept the tribes of the Medes in subjection. The cylinder of Nebbi Yunus says: "The land of Patusarra, a region in the neighbourhood of – , in the midst of the distant land of Media, on the border of the land of Bikni, of the copper-mountains – this land none of the kings, my forefathers, had subjugated. Sitirparna and Iparna, the princes of the strong places, had not bowed before me; I carried them to Assyria, with their subjects, horses, chariots, oxen, sheep, asses, as rich booty." "Arpis, Zanasana, Ramatiya, the princes of the cities of Partakka, Partukka, and Uraka-Zabarna in the land of Media, the position of which was distant, who in the days of the kings, my forefathers, had not trodden the soil of Assyria, – the fear of Asshur my lord threw them down; they brought for me to my chief city, Nineveh, their great beasts, copper (?), the product of their mines, bowed themselves with folded hands before me, and besought my favour. I placed my viceroys over them, who united the inhabitants of those regions with my kingdom; I laid upon them burdens, and a fixed tribute."338

Of Esarhaddon's acts in the North, we learn that he drove out the inhabitants of the land of Van from their dwellings, that he trod down the inhabitants of the land of Chilaki (Cilicia), and the Duha who dwelt in the forests of the land of Tabal. Twenty-one fortresses, and the small places round them, he took and burnt down; and carried away the inhabitants. Tiuspa of the land of Gimirai (Cimmeria), which lay in the far distance, submitted to him.339

The most important achievements of Esarhaddon were accomplished in the West. On the cylinder of Kuyundshik, the expulsion of Nabu-zir, and the establishment of Nahid Merodach his brother in Bit Yakin, to which the cylinder of Nebbi Yunus adds the subjugation of Bit Dakkur, is followed by a campaign of Esarhaddon to Syria, which must, therefore, fall in the year 679 or 678 B.C. Sennacherib had dethroned Elulæus of Sidon in the year 701 B.C., and put Ithobal in his place (p. 125.) Ithobal was no longer at the head in Sidon. Esarhaddon tells us, that Abdimilkut of Sidon, and Sanduarri, a king in the mountain-land (therefore, no doubt, a prince of Lebanon), united against him. "Abdimilkut trusted in his position by the great sea, and threw off my yoke."340 "The great city of Sidon," so we are told on a cylinder of Nebbi Yunus, "which lies on the sea, I attacked; all their places, fortresses and dwellings, I destroyed; I threw them into the sea. Abdimilkut, who had fled before the face of my warriors into the middle of the sea, I seized like a fish, and cut off his head. His possessions, gold, silver, and precious stones, the treasures of his palace, his innumerable people, oxen, sheep, and asses, I carried away to Assyria. The princes of the land of Chatti (Syria) I collected. I caused a new city to be built, and called it the city of Esarhaddon. The people which my bow had taken in the lands and on the sea of the rising sun (i. e. the inhabitants carried away from Bit Yakin), I settled there, and placed my viceroys over them. I caught Sanduarri like a bird in the midst of the mountains, and caused his head to be cut off. The heads of Sanduarri and Abdimilkut I hung up beside the heads of their chiefs, and marched to Nineveh."341