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Pre-reform Assyrian Empire 911-745 BC After the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC, Assyria was in comparative decline for the next 150 years. The period from 1200 BC to 900 BC was a dark age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals and mass movements of people. Despite the apparent weakness of Assyria, at heart it in fact remained a solid, well defended nation whose warriors were the best in the world. Assyria was in a stronger position during this time than potential rivals such as Egypt, Babylonia, Elam, Phrygia, Urartu, Persia and Media[8] Kings such as Ashur-bel-kala, Asharid-apal-Ekur, Ashur-rabi II, Tiglath-Pileser II and Ashur-Dan II successfully defended Assyria's borders and upheld stability during this tumultuous time. Expansion up to 858 BC This long period of isolation ended with the accession in 911 BC of Adad-nirari II. He firmly subjugated the areas previously under only nominal Assyrian vassalage, conquering and deporting troublesome Aramean and Hurrian populations in the north to far-off places. Adadinirari II then twice attacked and defeated Shamash-mudammiq of Babylonia, annexing a large area of land north of the Diyala river and the towns of Hit and Zanqu in mid Mesopotamia. He made further gains over Babylonia under Nabu-shuma-ukin I later in his reign. He was succeeded by Tukulti-Ninurta II in 891 BC, who further consolidated Assyria's position and expanded northwards into Asia Minor and the Zagros Mountains during his short reign. The next king, Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC), embarked on a vast program of expansion, first conquering the peoples to the north as far as Nairi near Lake Van, then conquering the Aramaeans and Neo Hittites between the Khabur and the Euphrates. His harshness prompted a revolt that was crushed decisively in a pitched, two-day battle. Following this victory, he advanced without opposition through Aram (modern Syria) and Asia Minor as far as the Mediterranean and exacted tribute from Phrygia and Phoenicia. Ashurnasirpal II also campaigned in the Zagros Mountains in modern Iran, repressing a revolt against Assyrian rule by the Lullubi and Gutians. Unlike any before, the Assyrians began boasting in their ruthlessness around this time. Ashurnasirpal II also moved his capital to the city of Kalhu (Calah/Nimrud). The palaces, temples and other buildings raised by him bear witness to a considerable development of wealth and art. Ashurnasirpal II also built a number of citadels and fortresses such as Kar Ashurnasirpal. Reign of Shalmaneser III (858–823 BC) Ashurnasirpal's son, Shalmaneser III (858–823 BC), had a long reign of 34 years, when the capital was converted into an armed camp. Each year the Assyrian armies marched out to campaign. Babylon was occupied, and Babylonia reduced to vassalage. He fought against Urartu and marched an army against an alliance of Aramean states headed by Hadadezer of Damascus and including Ahab, king of Israel, at the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Despite Shalmaneser's description of 'vanquishing the opposition', it seems that the battle ended in a deadlock, as the Assyrian forces were withdrawn soon afterwards. Shalmaneser took the neo Hittite state of Carchemish in 849 BC, and in 841 BC marched an army against Hazael, King of Damascus, besieging the city and forcing tribute, but not taking it. He also brought under tribute Jehu of Israel, and the Phoenician states of Tyre, and Sidon. His black obelisk, discovered at Kalhu, records many military exploits of his reign.[2] Rebellion at the end of his reign The last four years of Shalmaneser's life were disturbed by the rebellion of his eldest son Ashur-nadin-aplu that nearly proved fatal to Assyria. Twenty seven cities, including Assur, Arbela, Arrapkha (Kirkuk) and other places joined the pretender. The rebellion was not directed primarily against the king, but rather against the provisional governors such as Dayan-Ashur who had assumed disproportionate power. The revolt was quashed with difficulty by Shamshi-Adad V, Shalmaneser's second son, who succeeded him upon his death in 824 BC. The long and bitter civil war had allowed the Babylonians to the south, the Medes, Manneans and Persians to the north and east and the Arameans and neo Hittites in the west to largely shake off Assyrian rule, and Shamshi-Adad V took the remainder of his reign to reassert control over these peoples. During this period Urartu took the opportunity to reassert its influence on the region. As a result of all these events, Assyria did not expand further during the reign of Shamshi-Adad V. Adad-nirari III was a boy when succeeding his father in 810 BC, and for four years until 806 BC, his mother, Queen Semiramis (Sammuramat) ruled as regent in his stead. Many legends abound regarding this queen; however she is mentioned little in Assyrian records of the time. In 806 BC Adad-nirari III took the reins of power. He invaded the Levant and subjugated the Arameans, Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, neo Hittites and Edomites. He entered Damascus and forced tribute upon its king Ben-Hadad III. He next turned to Iran, and subjugated the Persians, Medes and Manneans, and penetrating as far as the Caspian Sea. His next targets were the Chaldean and Sutu tribes of south eastern Mesopotamia whom he conquered and reduced to vassalage. Period of stagnation, 782–745 BC Adad-nirari III died prematurely in 782 BC and this led to a period of true stagnation. Shalmaneser IV (782 - 773 BC) seems to have wielded little authority, and a victory over Argishti I, king of Urartu at Til Barsip is accredited to a general ('Turtanu') named Shamshi-ilu who does not even bother to mention his king. Shamshi-ilu also scored victories over the Arameans and neo Hittites, and again, takes personal credit at the expense of his king. Ashur-dan III ascended the throne in 772 BC. He proved to be a largely ineffectual ruler who was beset by internal rebellions in the cities Ashur, Arrapkha and Guzana. He failed to make further gains in Babylonia and Aram (Syria). His reign was also marred by Plague and an ominous Solar Eclipse. Ashur-nirari V became king in 754 BC, his reign seems to have been one of permanent revolution, and he appears to have barely left his palace in Nineveh until he was deposed by Tiglath-pileser III in 745 BC bringing a resurgence to Assyria. Tiglath-Pileser III, 744-727 BC Main article: Tiglath-Pileser III Deportation of Israelites by the Assyrian Empire When Tiglath-Pileser III ascended the throne Assyria was in the throes of a revolution. Civil war and pestilence were devastating the country, and many of its most northerly colonies in Asia Minor had been wrested from it by Urartu. In 746 BC the city of Kalhu joined the rebels, and on the 13th of Iyyar in the following year, an Assyrian general (Turtanu) named Pulu, took the name of Tiglath-pileser III, seized the crown, and made sweeping changes to the Assyrian government, considerably improving its efficiency and security. The conquered provinces were organized under an elaborate bureaucracy, with the king at the head — each district paying a fixed tribute and providing a military contingent. The Assyrian forces at this time became a professional standing army, that by successive improvements became an irresistible fighting machine; and Assyrian policy was henceforth directed toward reducing the whole civilized world into a single empire, throwing its trade and wealth into Assyrian hands. These changes are often identified as the beginning of the "Second Assyrian Empire". When Tiglath-Pileser III had ascended the throne of Assyria, he invaded Babylonia, defeated its king Nabonassar, and abducted the gods of Šapazza; the Assyrian-Babylonian Chronicle informs us (ABC 1 Col.1:5). After subjecting Babylon to tribute, defeating Urartu and conquering the Medes, Persians and Neo-Hittites, Tiglath-Pileser III directed his armies into Aramea, of which large swathes had regained independence, and the commercially successful Mediterranean seaports of Phoenicia. He took Arpad near Aleppo in 740 BC after a siege of three years, and razed Hamath. Azariah, king of Judah had been an ally of the king of Hamath, and thus was compelled by Tiglath-Pileser to do him homage and pay yearly tribute. Invasion of Israel (738 BC) In 738 BC, in the reign of Menahem, king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser III occupied Philistia (Palestine) and invaded Israel, imposing on it a heavy tribute (2 Kings 15:19). Ahaz, king of Judah, engaged in a war against Israel and Aramea, appealed for help to the Assyrian king by means of presents of gold and silver (2 Kings 16:8); Tiglath-Pileser III accordingly "marched against Damascus, defeated and put king Rezin to death, and besieged the city itself". Leaving part of his army to continue the siege, he advanced, ravaging with fire and sword the provinces east of the Jordan (Nabatea, Moab and Edom), Philistia, and Samaria; and in 732 BC he took the chief Aramean state of Damascus, deporting many of its inhabitants and the Israelite inhabitants of Samaria to Assyria. He also forced tribute from the Arabs of the deserts in the Arabian peninsula. In 729 BC, Tiglath-Pileser III went to Babylonia and captured Nabu-mukin-zeri, the king of Babylon (ABC 1 Col.1:21). He had himself crowned as King Pulu of Babylon. Tiglath-Pileser III died in 727 BC, and was succeeded by Shalmaneser V. However, King Hoshea of Israel suspended paying tribute, and allied himself with Egypt against Assyria in 725 BC. This led Shalmaneser to invade Syria (2 Kings 17:5) and besiege Samaria (capital city of Israel) for three years (ABC 1 Col.1:27). Sargonid dynasty Sargon II, 721-705 BC An Assyrian winged bull, or lamassu, from Sargon's palace at Dur-Sharrukin. Shalmaneser V died suddenly in 722 BC while laying siege to Samaria, and the throne was seized by Sargon II, the Turtanu (commander-in-chief of the army, which the Old Testament refers to as Tartan), who then quickly took Samaria, effectively ending the northern Kingdom of Israel and carrying 27,000 people away into captivity into the Israelite Diaspora. (2 Kings 17:1–6, 24; 18:7, 9). Sargon II waged war in his second year (721 BC) against the king of Elam, Humban-Nikash I, and his ally Marduk-apal-iddina II (the biblical Merodach-Baladan), the Chaldean ruler of Babylon, who had thrown off Assyrian rule (2 Kings 20:12), but Sargon was unable to dislodge him on this occasion, as told in ABC 1 Col.1:31-37. Sargon, able to contain the revolt but not actually retake Babylon on this occasion, turned his attention again to Urartu and Aramea, taking Carchemish in 717, as well as re conquering the Medes, Persians and Manneans, penetrating the Iranian Plateau as far as Mount Bikni and building several fortresses. Urartu suffered a crushing defeat, its capital city was sacked and its king Rusas committed suicide in shame. The neo Hittite states of northern Syria were conquered, as was Cilicia and Commagene. Assyria was belligerent towards Babylonia for ten years while Marduk-apla-iddina ruled Babylon (ABC 1 Col.1:41-42). In 710 BC, Sargon attacked Babylonia and defeated Marduk-apla-iddina, who fled to his protectors in Elam (ABC 1 Col.2:1-3). As a result of this victory the Greek rulers of Cyprus gave allegiance to Assyria and king Midas of Phrygia, fearful of Assyrian power, offered his hand in friendship. Sargon also built a new capital at Dur Sharrukin ("Sargon's City") near Nineveh, with all the tribute Assyria had collected from various nations. Sennacherib, 705–681 BC In 705 BC, Sargon was killed in battle while driving out the Cimmerians, who had come down from their homeland on the shores of The Black Sea and attacked the Assyrian-ruled colonies and peoples in Iran, forcing its Persian subjects southwards from their original lands around Urmia. He was succeeded by his son Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:13; 19:37; Isa. 7:17, 18), who moved the capital to Nineveh and made the deported peoples work on improving Nineveh's system of irrigation canals. His first task was to affirm his control over Cilicia, which was attempting to rebel with Greek help. Sennacherib marched into Cilicia, defeating the rebels and their Greek allies. He also reasserted Assyria's mastery of Corduene in Asia Minor. The Egyptians had begun agitating peoples within the Assyrian empire in an attempt to gain a foothold in the region. As a result, in 701 BC, Hezekiah of Judah, Lule king of Sidon, Sidka, king of Ascalon and the king of Ekron formed an alliance with Egypt against Assyria. Sennacherib attacked the rebels, conquering Ascalon, Sidon and Ekron and defeating the Egyptians and driving them from the region. He marched toward Jerusalem, destroying 46 towns and villages (including the heavily defended city of Lachish) in his path. This is graphically described in Isaiah 10; exactly what happened next is unclear (the Bible says an angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers at Jerusalem after Hezekiah prayed in the temple)[9] Sennacherib's account says Judah paid him tribute and he left. The Hebrew Bible states that Hezekiah did pay tribute once, and the Assyrians left, but returned a second time when the soldiers were then killed; however what is certain is that Sennacherib failed to actually capture Jerusalem. Marduk-apla-iddina had returned to Babylonia during the reign of Sennacherib. The Assyrian king attacked him in 703 BC outside Kish and defeated him. Sennacherib plundered Babylonia and pursued Marduk-apla-iddina through the land. At his return to Assyria, Sennacherib installed a puppet ruler, Bel-ibni as king of Babylon (ABC 1 Col.2:12-23). Bel-ibni however committed hostilities, so Sennacherib returned to Babylon in 700 BC and captured him and his officers. Sennacherib instead installed his own son Ashur-nadin-shumi on the throne of Babylon (ABC 1 Col.2:26-31). Assyrian warship, a bireme with pointed bow, 700 BC Sennacherib launched a campaign against Elam in 694 BC and ravaged the land. In retaliation, the king of Elam attacked Babylonia. Ashur-nadin-shumi was captured and brought back to Elam and a new king called Nergal-ushezib was installed as ruler of Babylon (ABC 1 Col.2:36–45). The Assyrians returned the next year to Babylonia and plundered the gods of Uruk. Nergal-ušezib and his Elamite allies were defeated by Assyria, and he was taken prisoner and transported to Assyria (ABC 1 Col.2:46 – Col.3:6). Another native ruler, called Mushezib-Marduk, soon seized the throne of Babylon. He held on to it with help of his Elamite allies for four years until 689 BC, when the Assyrians retook the city (ABC 1 Col.3:13–24). Sennacherib responded swiftly by opening the canals around Babylon and flooding the outside of the city until it became a swamp, resulting in its destruction, and its inhabitants were scattered. In 681 BC, Sennacherib was murdered while praying to the god Nisroch by one or more of his own sons (allegedly named Adremelech, Abimlech and Sharezer), perhaps as retribution for his destruction of Babylon.[10][11] Assyria was originally an Akkadian kingdom which evolved in the 25th to 24th centuries BC. The earliest Assyrian kings such as Tudiya were relatively minor rulers, and after the founding of the Akkadian Empire, which lasted from 2334 BC to 2154 BC, these kings became subject to Sargon of Akkad, who united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speaking peoples of Mesopotamia under one rule. The urbanised Akkadian nation of Assyria emerged in the 21st century BC, and largely evolved from the dissolution of the Akkadian Empire. In the Old Assyrian period of the Early Bronze Age, Assyria had been a kingdom of northern Mesopotamia (modern-day northern Iraq), competing for dominance initially with the Hattians and Hurrians of Asia Minor, and the ancient Sumero-Akkadian "city states" such as Isin, Ur and Larsa, and later with Babylonia which was founded by Amorites in 1894 BC, and often under Kassite rule. During the 20th century BC, it established colonies in Asia Minor, and under the 20th century BC King Ilushuma, Assyria conducted many successful raids against the states of the south. It had experienced fluctuating fortunes in the Middle Assyrian period. Assyria had a period of empire under Shamshi-Adad I in the late 19th to mid-18th centuries BC, following this it found itself under short periods of Babylonian and Mitanni-Hurrian domination in the 17th and 15th centuries BC respectively, followed by another period of great power and empire from 1365 BC to 1074 BC, that included the reigns of great kings such as Ashur-uballit I, Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pileser I. During the ancient 'Dark Ages' Assyria remained a strong and stable nation, unlike its rivals.[6] Beginning with the campaigns of Adad-nirari II, it again became a great power, overthrowing the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt and conquering Egypt, Babylonia, Elam, Urartu, Media, Persia, Mannea, Gutium, Phoenicia/Canaan, Aramea (Syria), Arabia, Israel, Judah, Philistia, Edom, Moab, Samarra, Cilicia, Cyprus, Chaldea, Nabatea, Commagene, Dilmun and the Hurrians, Shutu and neo Hittites; driving the Nubians, Kushites and Ethiopians from Egypt; defeating the Cimmerians and Scythians; and exacting tribute from Phrygia, Magan and Punt among others. Assyria finally succumbed to a coalition of Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes/Persians, Scythians, and others at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC, and the sacking of its last capital Harran in 608 BC. More than half a century later, Babylonia and Assyria became provinces of the Persian Empire. Though the Assyrians during the reign of Ashurbanipal destroyed the Elamite civilization, the Assyrians' culture did influence the succeeding empires of the Medes and the Persians, Indo-Iranian peoples who had been dominated by Assyria.[7] The Neo-Assyrian Empire was an empire in Mesopotamian history which began in 934 BC and ended in 609 BC.[1] During this period, Assyria assumed a position as the most powerful state on earth, successfully eclipsing Babylonia, Egypt, Urartu/Armenia[2] and Elam for dominance of the Near East, Asia Minor, Caucasus, North Africa and east Mediterranean, though not until the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BC[3][4] did it become a vast empire. The Neo-Assyrian Empire succeeded the Middle Assyrian period and Middle Assyrian Empire (14th to 10th centuries BC). Some scholars, such as Richard Nelson Frye, regard the Neo-Assyrian Empire to be the first real empire in human history.[5] During this period, Aramaic was also made an official language of the empire, alongside the Akkadian language.[5] |
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