The Assyrian Empire

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 13, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 31.

The Assyrian Empire.

(Concluded.)

In the year 731 B. C., Tiglath-Pileser again overran Babylonia, and in 729 B. C. offered sacrifices to the Babylonian gods in Babylon and all the principal cities. He was succeeded B. C. 727 by Shalmaneser IV, having re-established the power of Assyria throughout Syria, Palestine, and Phœnicia, to the borders of Egypt.

Shalmaneser reigned six years. His most important act was his invasion of Israel and siege of Samaria. 2 Kings 17:3–6; 18:9–12. He was succeeded in 722 B. C., by Sargon.

Sargon warred successively in Susiana (Elam), in Syria, in Armenia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kurdistan, Media, and Babylonia. About 711 B. C., he took Ashdod (Isa. 20:1), and went on from there and invaded Egypt and subdued Ethiopia. Isa. 20:3–5. Having completely reduced Syria, humiliated Egypt, and struck terror into the tribes of the north and east, he determined on a great expedition against Babylon. About the same year that Sargon took his seat on the Assyrian throne, Merodach-Baladan took possession of Babylon and established his authority there as king. While Sargon was engaged in his Syrian and Egyptian wars, Merodach-Baladan held undisputed sway in Babylon, but in his twelfth year, which was Sargon's twelfth year also, Sargon, as stated above, made his great expedition into that country. Merodach-Baladan, however, did not even await the invader, but left Babylon and fled to his own former city, Beth-Yakin, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, near the mouth of the Euphrates. There Sargon attacked him, defeated his army, and drove the troops into their own dyke, in which many of them were drowned. Merodach-Baladan took refuge within the walls of the city, which Sargon besieged, took, plundered, and burnt, and took Merodach-Baladan prisoner, and carried him captive into Assyria.

"The power of Babylon was broken. Henceforth the Assyrian rule is maintained over the whole of Chaldea and Babylonia, with few and brief interruptions, to the close of the [Assyrian] empire. The reluctant victim struggles in his captor's grasp, and now and then for a short space shakes it off; but it is only to be seized again with a firmer gripe, until at length his struggles cease, and he resigns himself to a fate which he has come to regard as inevitable." —Seven Great Monarchies, Second Monarchy, chap. 9, par. 149.

"Indeed, it may be said that from the invasion of Tiglath-Pileser to the revolt of Nabopolassar, Babylonia ceased to have any separate existence. It was governed by Assyrian kings, or the viceroys they appointed, and the only attempts to recover independence were made under the leadership of the Chaldean chiefs. It becomes nothing more than an important province of Assyria." —Encyc. Brit., art. Babylonia and Assyria, par. 9.

In B. C. 705, Sargon was succeeded by his son Sennacherib, "the greatest of all the Assyrian monarchs." This was the Sennacherib of whom so much is said in the Bible. He reigned twenty-four years. About the time of his accession, Merodach-Baladan escaped from his Assyrian prison, and fled to Babylon, and again assumed the title of king, but Sennacherib soon followed, and overran the country, and Merodach-Baladan escaped into Susiana. About B. C. 700 Merodach-Baladan returned to Babylon, and, in conjunction with a certain Susub, again organized a revolt. Sennacherib again proceeded to Babylon, and again Merodach-Baladan fled, this time to an island in the Persian Gulf, and abandoned to Sennacherib's mercy his brothers and all of his partisans. After this he is never heard of more. Babylon was captured, burnt, and ruined by Sennacherib, and its inhabitants sold into slavery.

Sennacherib was succeeded in B. C. 681 to 680, by his son Esar-haddon (Isa. 37:38). To prevent the revolts that were so frequent in Babylonia, Esar-haddon determined to rebuild Babylon and make it the second capital of his empire. Accordingly he restored many of the people who had been carried away, brought back the captured gods, rebuilt the walls and temples, built a house for his son, and a palace for himself. And this is why it was that when the "captains of the host of the king of Assyria" had taken Manasseh of Judah captive, they "carried him to Babylon." The king of Assyria was at Babylon, and the "captains of the host must carry their captive king to the king of Assyria, who was at Babylon, and Esar-haddon was this "king of Assyria" to whom Manasseh was carried (2 Chron. 33:11). In the reign of no other king of Assyria, except perhaps Esar-haddon's son, would a captive have been carried to Babylon.

Esar-haddon was succeeded by his son Asshur-bani-pal, in the year 668 B. C. Asshur-bani-pal was the "grand monarch" of the grand empire of Assyria. "In his reign the Assyrian dominions reached their greatest extent," and Assyrian art reached its highest development. Then it was that the Assyrian stood in the grandeur and glory, afterward described by the prophet of God:—

"Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches; for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him; the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; not any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches; so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him." Eze. 31:3–9.

"In the middle part of this prince's reign, Assyria was paramount over the portion of western Asia included between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Halys on the one hand, and the Caspian Sea and the great Persian Desert on the other. Southwards the boundary was formed by Arabia and the Persian Gulf, northwards . . . it did not extend so far as the northern frontier of Armenia. Besides her Asiatic dominions, Assyria possessed also at this time a portion of Africa, her authority being acknowledged as far as the latitude of Thebes. The countries included within the limits thus indicated, and subject, during the period in question, to Assyrian influence, were chiefly the following: Susiana, Chaldea, Babylonia, Media, Matiene or the Zagros Range, Mesopotamia; parts of Armenia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia; Syria, Phœnicia, Palestine, Idumæa, a portion of Arabia, and almost the whole of Egypt." —Seven Great Monarchies, Second Monarchy, chap. 9, par. 252 (ninth from the end). See also Labberton's Historical Atlas, Map 3.

Asshur-bani-pal reigned forty-two years, till about 626 B. C. He was succeeded by his son Bel-zakir-iskun, who soon found his empire threatened on three sides—Media, Babylonia, and Egypt. Media was now organized into a powerful monarchy under Phraortes, and advanced upon Assyria from the east; Babylonia threw off the Assyrian yoke; and Psammeticus of Egypt invaded the Assyrian dominions on the west and laid siege to Ashdod. This danger to his empire was promptly met by Bel-zakir-iskun. He immediately raised two armies, one of which he placed under the command of Nabopolassar (Nabu-pal-uzur), and sent it to subdue the revolted Babylonia; the other he, in person, led to meet the coming forces of Media. Nabopolassar so effectually performed his appointed service as to merit and receive from his sovereign the honorable title of "King of Babylon." Bel-zakir-iskun met the Medes, drove them back, and pursued them into their own country, where he finally brought them to bay in the plain of Rhages, and inflicted upon them a crushing defeat, in which the Median king was slain.

Phraortes, however, was immediately succeeded by his son Cyaxeres, who continued the war and finally succeeded in driving the king of Assyria out of Media, and in his turn invaded Assyria, and threatened a siege of Nineveh, but was just then recalled to his own country by the ravages of barbarians from the north. As the barbarians of Germany afterward poured down upon the Roman Empire, so now the barbarous Scythian hordes poured into Media. "On they came . . . like a flight of locusts, countless, irresistible—swarming into Iberia and Upper Media—finding before them a garden, and leaving it behind them a howling wilderness." Cyaxeres met them, was defeated, and was compelled to make terms with the invaders, and to pay an annual tribute.

But the Scythians did not confine themselves to Media. They swept down through the passes of the Zagros Mountains into Assyria. "The tide swept on. Wandering from district to district, plundering everywhere, settling nowhere, the clouds of horse passed over Mesopotamia, the force of the invasion becoming weaker as it spread itself, until in Syria it reached its term through the policy of the Egyptian king, Psammeticus." "Psammeticus went out and met these barbarians, and by rich presents tempted them to turn aside and not invade Egypt." The power of the Scythians continued about fourteen years, when finally Cyaxeres invited all the chiefs to a banquet, got them all drunk, put them all to death, and then succeeded in driving their hordes back into Scythia.

During these years Bel-zakir-iskun died, and was succeeded by Asshur-emid-ilin, the Saracus of the Greek writers. Assyria had been greatly weakened by the invasion of the Scyths; more so, indeed, than had Media; and immediately enemies rose up on all sides. Nabopolassar, who had now for about fifteen years been consolidating and strengthening his power at Babylon, determined to possess that province, in his own right. To make success certain, he entered into an alliance with Necho, king of Egypt, who in 612 B. C. had succeeded Psammeticus, then, by virtue of this alliance, sent an embassy to Cyaxeres of Media, asking him to join in a triple alliance, and all together attack the Assyrian Empire.

The king of Media was only too glad of such a golden opportunity to complete the enterprise from which he had been turned by the Scythic invasion, and, without a moment's delay, accepted the proposition. And to more closely bind the alliance, the king of Media gave, in marriage, his daughter Amyitis to Nebuchadnezzar the son of Nabopolassar. In the year 610 B. C., these united powers invaded Assyria. Necho came out of Egypt, hurrying on to join the other powers (2 Kings 23:29; 2 Chron. 35:20, 21), when Josiah king of Judah went out to stop him. Josiah was slain, his army defeated, and Necho pushed on to the Euphrates, laid siege to Carchemish (2 Chron. 35:20), an Assyrian fortress, the center of a province, and the link that connected Assyria and Syria. He captured Carchemish, and occupied it with his army, thus at one stroke severing all the Assyrian territory west of the Euphrates. Necho fixed his headquarters "at Riblah in the land of Hamath," and exercised his power as suzerain

over the kingdom of Judah and the provinces round about. 2 Kings 23:33–35.

Nabopolassar and Cyaxeres both went up against the king of Assyria himself, and besieged Nineveh. Saracus, after exhausting every means of resistance, burned himself in his palace, and Nineveh was destroyed.

Thus perished forever, the Assyrian Empire, after an independency of more than a thousand years, and an ascendancy of about six hundred and ninety years.

There followed a division of the territories that had formed the Assyrian Empire. West of the Euphrates fell to Necho; the northern mountainous region was annexed to Media; and all the rest was held by Nabopolassar as king of Babylon. And so arose the kingdom of Babylon of the Bible. A. T. J.

NOTE.—The authority which we have mainly followed in this sketch of the Assyrian Empire, is, "The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World," by Canon Rawlinson. In connection with this, we have consulted the "Encyclopedia Britannica," ninth edition; "The Ancient Empires of the East," by Prof. A. H. Sayce; "Ancient History of the East," by Lenormant and Chevallier; and "Ancient History from the Monuments, Assyria," by Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum; especially have we followed Mr. Smith in the order of events from the death of Asshur-bani-pal to the division of the empire among the allied conquerors.