THE KINGS OF ASSYRIA, AND SOME OF THEIR INSCRIPTIONS.

Dates from the Eponym Canon and the Assyrian Monuments; Schrader, Cuneiform Inscriptions, and the Old Testament, E. Tr., 1888, pp. 167-187.

B. C.

860.--Shalmaneser II.

854.--Battle of Karkar. War with Ahab and Benhadad.

842.--War with Hazael. Tribute of Jehu.

825.--Samsi-Ramman. 917

812.--Ramman-Nirari.

783.--Shalmaneser III.

773.--Assur-dan III.

763.--June 15th. Eclipse of the sun.

755.--Assur-Nirari.

745.--Tiglath-Pileser II.

742.--Azariah (Uzziah) heads a league of nineteen Hamathite districts against Assyria (?).

740.--Death of Uzziah (?).

738.--Tribute of Menahem, Rezin, and Hiram.

734.--Expedition to Palestine against Pekah. Tribute of Ahaz.

732.--Capture of Damascus. Death of Rezin. First actual collision between Israel and Assyria.

728.--Hoshea refuses tribute.

727.--Shalmaneser IV.

724.--Siege of Samaria begun.

722.--Sargon. Fall of Samaria.

721.--Defeat of Merodach-Baladan.

720.--Battle of Raphia. Defeat of Sabaco, King of Egypt.

715.--Subjugated people deported to Samaria. Accession of Hezekiah.

711.--Capture of Ashdod.

707.--Building of great palace of Dur-Sarrukin.

709.--Sargon expels Merodach-Baladan, and becomes King of Babylon.

705.--Assassination (?) of Sargon.

705.--Sennacherib.

704.--Embassy of Merodach-Baladan to Hezekiah.

703.--Belibus made King of Babylon.

702.--Construction of the Bellino Cylinder.

721.--Siege of Ekron. Defeat of Egypt at Altaqu. Siege of Jerusalem. Campaign against Hezekiah and Tirhakah disastrously concluded at Pelusium and Jerusalem.

681.--Murder of Sennacherib.

681.--Esar-haddon. 676.--Manasseh pays tribute.

668.--Assur-bani-pal (Sardanapalus).

608.--Death of Josiah in the battle of Megiddo against Pharaoh Necho.

The dates and names of Assyrian kings as given in Records of the Past (ii. 207, 208) do not exactly accord with these in all cases.

INSCRIPTION OF SHALMANESER II. ON THE BLACK OBELISK IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 918

It begins with an invocation to the gods Rimmon, Adar, Merodach, Nergal, Beltis, Istar, and proceeds:--

"I am Shalmaneser, the strong king, king of all the four Zones of the Sun, the marcher over the whole world, ... who has laid his yoke upon all lands hostile to him, and has swept them like a whirlwind."

It tells of his campaigns against the Hittites etc., etc.

The allusion to Jehu runs as follows:--

"The tribute of Yahua, son of Khumri, silver, gold, bowls of gold, vessels of gold, goblets of gold, pitchers of gold, lead, sceptres for the king's hand, staves, I received."

This inscription is supplemented by another on a monolith found at Karkh, twenty miles from Diarbekr (Records, iii 81-100), which mentions the battle of Karkar, with its slaughter of fourteen thousand of the enemy, among whom was Sirlai--i.e., Ahab of Israel.

II

TIGLATH-PILESER II. (CIRC. B.C. 739)

In his Records he mentions no less than five Hebrew kings--Azariah, Jehoahaz (Ahaz), Menahem, Pekah, Hoshea--as well as Rezin of Damascus, Hiram of Tyre, etc. His name perhaps means "He who puts his trust in Adar." See Records of the Past, v. 45-52; Schrader, Keilinschr., pp. 149-151; G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 254-287.

Unfortunately the inscriptions are very mutilated and fragmentary.

III

Our chief knowledge of Sargon is from the great inscription in the Palace of Khorsabad. It is translated by Prof. Dr. Jules Oppert, Records of the Past, ix. 1-21. The king's inscription at Bavian, north-east of Mosul, is in the same volume, pp. 21-28, translated by Dr. T. G. Pinches. See, too, id., vii. 21-56, xi. 15-40.

The Khorsabad inscription has these passages:--

"The great gods have made me happy by the constancy of their affection; they have granted me the exercise of my sovereignty over all kings."

He says:--

"I besieged and occupied the town of Samaria; I took twenty-seven thousand two hundred and eighty of its inhabitants captive. I took from them fifty chariots, but left them the rest of their belongings. I placed my lieutenants over them; I renewed the obligations imposed upon them by one of the kings who preceded me." [Tiglath-Pileser, whom Sargon does not choose to name.]

"Hanun, King of Gaza, and Sabaco, Sultan of Egypt, allied themselves at Raphia to oppose me. I put them to flight. Sabaco fled, and no one has seen any trace of him since. I imposed a tribute on Pharaoh, King of Egypt."

He tells us that he defeated the usurper Ilubid of Hamath, who had been a smith; burnt Karkar; and flayed Ilubid alive.

He defeated Azuri and Jaman of Ashdod, and his most persistent enemy, Merodach-Baladan, son of Jakin, King of Chaldæa.

He ends with a prayer that Assur may bless him.

IV

Bellino's Cylinder comprises the first two years of Sennacherib. It is translated by Mr. H. F. Talbot, Records of the Past, i. 22-32. It was published by Layard in the first volume of British Museum Inscriptions, pl. 63. The facsimile of it was made by Bellino.

It begins:--

"Sennacherib, the great king, the powerful king, the king of Assyria, the king unrivalled, the pious monarch, the worshipper of the great gods, ... the noble warrior, the valiant hero, the first of all kings, the great punisher of unbelievers who are breakers of the holy festivals.

"Assur, my lord, has given me an unrivalled monarchy. Over all princes he has raised triumphantly my arms.

"In the beginning of my reign I defeated Marduk-Baladan, King of Babylon, and his allies the Elamites, in the plains near the city of Kish. He fled alone; he got into the marshes full of reeds and rushes, and so saved his life."

(He proceeds to narrate the spoiling of Marduk's camp, and his palace in Babylon, and how he carried off his wife, his harem, his nobles.)

We see here an illustration of the vaunting tones of this king which are so faithfully reproduced in 2 Kings xviii.

His Bull Inscription, chiefly relating to his defeats of Merodach-Baladan, is translated by Rev. J. M. Rodwell (Records of the Past, vii. 57-64).

V

The Taylor Cylinder, so called from its former possessor, is a hexagonal clay prism found at Nineveh in 1830, and now in the British Museum (translated by Mr. H. F. Talbot, Records of the Past, i. 33-53).

The first two campaigns of Sennacherib are related as on the Bellino Cylinder. The Taylor Cylinder narrates campaigns of his first eight years.

The story of the third campaign narrates the defeat of Elulæus, King of Sidon; the tribute of Menahem, King of Samaria; the defeat of Zidka, King of Askelon; the revolt of Ekron, which deposed the Assyrian vassal Padi, and sent him in iron chains to Hezekiah; the battle of Egypt and Ethiopia at Altaqu (Eltekon, Josh. xv. 59), and the capture of Timnath. Of Hezekiah the king says:--

"And Hezekiah, King of Judah, who had not bowed down at my feet, forty-six of his strong cities, castles, and smaller towns, with warlike engines, I captured; 200,500 people, small and great, male and female, horses, sheep, etc., without number, I carried off. Himself I shut up like a bird in a cage inside Jerusalem. Siege-towers against him I constructed. I gave his plundered cities to the kings of Ashdod, Ekron, and Gaza. I diminished his kingdom; I augmented his tribute. The fearful splendour of my majesty had overwhelmed him. The horsemen, soldiers, etc., which he had collected for the fortification of Jerusalem his royal city, now carried tribute, thirty talents of gold, eight hundred of silver, scarlet, embroidered woven cloth, large precious stones, ivory couches and thrones, skins, precious woods; his daughters, his harem, his male and female slaves, unto Nineveh, my royal city, after me he sent; and to pay tribute he sent his envoy."

He then narrates his fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh campaigns against Elam, etc. His eighth was against "the children of Babylon, wicked devils," etc. He ends by describing the splendour of the palace which he built.

VI

An inscription of Esar-haddon, found at Kouyunjik, now in the British Museum, mentions his receipt of the intelligence of his father's murder by his unnatural brothers, while he was commanding his fathers army on the northern confines.

"From my heart I made a vow. My liver was inflamed with rage. Immediately I wrote letters, saying I assumed the sovereignty of my Father's House." He prayed to the gods and goddesses; they encouraged him, and in spite of a great snowstorm he reached Nineveh, and defeated his brother, because Istar stood by his side and said to their army, "An unsparing deity am I" (Records of the Past, iii, 100-108).

VII

A terra-cotta cylinder of Assur-bani-pal (the Sardanapalus of the Greeks) is now in the British Museum. It is translated by Mr. G. Smith, Records of the Past, i. 55-106, ix. 37-64; Oppert, Mémoire sur les Rapports de l'Egypte et l'Assyrie; and G. Smith, Annals of Assur-bani-pal.

Its most interesting parts relate to the campaign of his father Esar-haddon against Egypt, and how Tirhakah, King of Egypt and Ethiopia, reoccupied Memphis. He defeated the army of Tirhakah, who, to save his life, fled from Memphis to Thebes. The Assyrians then took Thebes, and restored Necho's father, Psamatik I., to Memphis and Sais, and other Egyptian kings, friends of Assyria, who had fled before Tirhakah. The kings, however, proved ungrateful, and made a league against him. He therefore threw them into fetters, and had them brought to Nineveh, but subsequently released Necho with splendid presents. Tirhakah fled to Ethiopia, where he "went to his place of night"--i.e., died.

[917] Up to the time of Tiglath-Pileser II., the Eponym Year (which is not here given) marks the second complete year of each king's reign.

[918] This Shalmaneser died about b.c. 825, after a reign of thirty-five years (Sayce in Records of the Past, v. 27-42; Oppert, Hist. des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie; Ménant, Annales des Rois d'Assyrie, 1874).