Читать книгу The History of the Ancient Civilizations - Duncker Max - Страница 51

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To relegate Ninus and Semiramis with all their works and deeds to the realm of fiction may appear to be a startling step, going beyond the limits of a prudent criticism. Does not Ctesias state accurately the years of the reigns: Ninus reigned, according to his statement, 52 years; Semiramis was 62 years old, and reigned 42 years? Do not the chronographers assure us that in Ctesias the successors of Ninus and Semiramis, from Ninyas to Sardanapalus, the last ruler over Assyria, 34 kings, were enumerated, and the length of their reigns accurately given, and has not Eusebius actually preserved this list? Since, at the same time, we find out, through Diodorus and the chronographers, as well as through this list, that Ctesias fixed the continuance of the Assyrian kingdom at more than 1300 years, or more exactly at 1306, and the fall of the kingdom took place according to his reckoning in the year 883 B.C., Ninus must on these dates have ascended the throne in the year 2189 B.C. (883 + 1306), and the reign of Semiramis commenced in 2137 B.C. (883 + 1254). Eusebius himself puts the accession of Ninus at 2057 B.C.[27]

If in spite of these accurate statements we persist in refusing to give credit to Ctesias, Berosus remains, who, according to the evidence of the chronographers, dealt with the rule of Semiramis over Assyria. After mentioning the dynasty of the Medes which reigned over Babylon from 2458–2224 B.C., the dynasty of the Elamites (2224–1976 B.C.), of the Chaldæans (1976–1518 B.C.), and of the Arabs, who are said to have reigned over Babylon from the year 1518 to the year 1273 B.C., Berosus mentioned the rule of Semiramis over the Assyrians. "After this," so we find it in Polyhistor, "Berosus enumerates the names of 45 kings separately, and allotted to them 526 years. After them there was a king of the Chaldæans named Phul, and after him Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians, whose son, Esarhaddon, then reigned in his place."[28] If we take these 45 kings for kings of Assyria, who ruled over this kingdom after Semiramis, then, by allowing the supplements of these series of kings previously mentioned (I. 247), the era of these 45 kings will begin in the year 1273 B.C. and end in 747 B.C., and the date of Semiramis will fall immediately before the year 1273 B.C. In the view of Herodotus, Ninus was at the head of the Assyrian empire, but not Semiramis. As already observed (p. 14), he mentions Semiramis as a queen of Babylon, and does not place her higher than the middle of the seventh century B.C.;[29] but he regards the dominion of Assyria over Upper Asia as commencing far earlier. Before the Persians the Medes ruled over Asia for 156 years; before them the Assyrians ruled for 520 years; the Medes were the first of the subject nations who rebelled against the Assyrians; the rest of the nations followed their example. As the Median empire fell before the attack of the Persians in 558 B.C., the beginning of the Median empire would fall in the year 714 B.C. (558 + 156), and consequently the beginning of the Assyrian kingdom in the year 1234 B.C. (714 + 520), i.e. four or five decades later than Berosus puts the death of Semiramis. For the date of the beginning of the Assyrian dominion Herodotus and Berosus would thus be nearly in agreement. It has been assumed that the 45 kings whom the latter represents as following Semiramis were kings of Assyria, who ruled at the same time over Babylon, and were thus regarded as a Babylonian dynasty. This agreement would be the more definite if it could be supposed that, according to the view of Herodotus, the beginning of the 156 years which he gives to the Median empire was separated by an interval of some decades from the date of their liberation from the power of the Assyrians. In this case the empire of the Assyrians over Asia would not have commenced very long before the year 1273 B.C., and would have extended from that date over Babylonia. In complete contradiction to this are the statements of Ctesias, which carry us back beyond 2000 B.C. for the commencement of the Assyrian empire. They cannot be brought into harmony with the statements of Herodotus, even if the time allotted by Ctesias to the Assyrian empire (1306 years) is reckoned from the established date of the conquest of Nineveh by the Medes and Babylonians (607 B.C.). The result of such a calculation (607 + 1306) carries us back to 1913 B.C., a date far higher than Herodotus and Berosus give.

Is it possible in any other way to approach more closely to the beginning of the Assyrian kingdom, the date of its foundation, or the commencement of its conquests? We have already seen how the Pharaohs of Egypt, after driving out the shepherds in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries B.C., reduced Syria to subjection; how the first and third Tuthmosis, the second and third Amenophis, forced their way beyond Syria to Naharina. The land of Naharina, in the inscriptions of these kings, was certainly not the Aram Naharaim, the high land between the Euphrates and Tigris, in the sense of the books of the Hebrews. It was not Mesopotamia, but simply "the land of the stream (Nahar)." For the Hebrews also Nahar, i.e. river, means simply the Euphrates. It has been already shown that the arms of the Egyptians hardly went beyond the Chaboras to the east; and if the inscriptions of Tuthmosis III. represent him as receiving on his sixth campaign against the Syrians, i.e. about the year 1584 B.C., the tribute of Urn Assuru, i.e. of the chieftain of Asshur, consisting of 50 minæ of lapis-lazuli; if these inscriptions in the year 1579 once more mention among the tribute of the Syrians the tribute of this prince in lapis-lazuli, cedar-trunks, and other wood, it is still uncertain whether the chief of the Assyrians is to be understood by this prince. Had Tuthmosis III. really reached and crossed the Tigris, were Assuru Assyria, then from the description of this prince, and the payment of tribute in lapis-lazuli and cedar-trunks, we could draw the conclusion that Assyria in the first half of the sixteenth century B.C. was still in the commencement of its civilisation, whereas we found above that as early as the beginning of the twentieth century B.C. Babylonia was united into a mighty kingdom, and had made considerable advance in the development of her civilisation.

Our hypothesis was that the Semites, who took possession of the valley of the Euphrates, were immigrants from the south, from Arabia, and that this new population forced its way by successive steps up the river-valley. We were able to establish the fact that the earliest governments among the immigrants were formed on the lower course of the Euphrates, and that the centre of the state in these regions slowly moved upwards towards Babel. We found, further, that Semitic tribes went in this direction as far as the southern slope of the Armenian table-land.[30] In this way the region on the Tigris, afterwards called Assyria, was reached and peopled by the Semites. With the Hebrews Asshur, beside Arphaxad and Aram, beside Elam and Lud, is the seed of Shem. "From Shinar" (i.e. from Babylonia), we are told in Genesis, "Asshur went forth and built Nineveh, and Rehoboth-Ir, and Chalah, and Resen between Nineveh and Chalah, which is the great city." There is no reason to call in question this statement that Assyria was peopled and civilised from Babylonia. Language, writing, and religion exhibit the closest relationship and agreement between Babylonia and Assyria.

On the west bank of the Tigris, some miles above the confluence of the Lesser Zab, at the foot of a ridge of hills, lie the remains of an ancient city. The stamps on the tiles of these ruins tell us that the name of the city was Asshur. Tiglath Pilesar, a king of Assyria, the first of the name, whose reign, though we cannot fix the date precisely, may certainly be put about the year 1110 B.C., narrates in his inscriptions: The temple of the gods Anu and Bin, which Samsi-Bin, the son of Ismidagon, built at Asshur 641 years previously, had fallen down; King Assur-dayan had caused the ruins to be removed without rebuilding it. For 60 years the foundations remained untouched; he, Tiglath Pilesar, restored this ancient sanctuary. Tiles from this ruin on the Tigris, from this city of Asshur, establish also the fact that a prince named Samsi-Bin, son of Ismidagon, once ruled and built in this city of Asshur. They have the inscription: "Samsi-Bin, the son of Ismidagon, built the temple of the god Asshur."[31] Hence Samsi-Bin built temples in the city of Asshur to the god Asshur as well as to the gods Anu and Bin. His date falls, according as the 60 years of the inscription of Tiglath Pilesar, during which the temple of Anu and Bin was not in existence, are added to the space of 641 years or included in them, either about the year 1800 or 1740 B.C.; the date of his father Ismidagon about the year 1830 or 1770 B.C.

In any case it is clear that a place of the name of Asshur, the site of which is marked by the ruins of Kileh-Shergat, was inhabited about the year 1800 B.C., and that about this time sanctuaries were raised in it. The name of the place was taken from the god specially worshipped there. As Babel (Gate of El) was named after the god El, Asshur was named after the god of that name. The city was Asshur's city, the land Asshur's land. Beside the city of Asshur, about 75 miles up the Tigris, there must have been at the time indicated a second place of the name of Ninua (Nineveh), the site of which is marked by the ruins of Kuyundshik and Nebbi Yunus (opposite Mosul), since, according to the statement of Shalmanesar I., king of Assyria, Samsi-Bin built another temple here to the goddess Istar.[32] Ismidagon, as well as Samsi-Bin, is called in the inscription of Tiglath Pilesar I. "Patis of Asshur." The meaning of this title is not quite clear; the word is said to mean viceroy. If by this title a vice-royalty over the land of Asshur is meant, we may assume that Assyria was a colony of Babylonia—that it was under the supremacy of the kings of Babylon, and ruled by their viceroys. But since at a later period princes of Assyria called themselves "Patis of Asshur," as well as "kings of Asshur," the title may be explained as meaning that the old princes of Assyria called themselves viceroys of the god of the land, of the god Asshur. Moreover, it would be strange that a colony of Babylonia, which was under the supremacy of that country, should make its protecting god a deity different from that worshipped in Babylonia.

From this evidence we may assume that about the year 1800 B.C. a state named Asshur grew up between the Tigris and the Lesser Zab. This state must have passed beyond the lower stages of civilisation at the time when the princes erected temples to their gods at more than one chief place in their dominions, when they could busy themselves with buildings in honour of the gods after the example of the ancient princes of Erech and Nipur, of Hammurabi, and his successors at Babylon. With this result the statements in the inscriptions of Tuthmosis III do not entirely agree. Two hundred years after the time of Ismidagon and Samsi-Bin they speak only of the chief of Asshur, and of tribute in lapis-lazuli and tree-trunks; but this divergence is not sufficient to make us affirm with certainty that the "Assuru" of Tuthmosis has no reference whatever to Assyria. If we were able to place the earliest formation of a state on the Lower Euphrates about the year 2500 B.C., the beginnings of Assyria, according to the inferences to be drawn from the evidence of the first Tiglath Pilesar and the tiles of Kileh-Shergat, could not be placed later than the year 2000 B.C.

Beside Ismidagon and Samsi-Bin, the inscriptions of Tiglath Pilesar and the tiles of the ruins of Kileh-Shergat mention four or five other names of princes who belong to the early centuries of the Assyrian empire, but for whom we cannot fix any precise place. The date of the two kings, who on Assyrian tablets are the contemporaries of Binsumnasir of Babylon, Assur-nirar, and Nabudan, could not have been fixed with certainty if other inscriptions had not made us acquainted with the princes who ruled over Assyria in succession from 1460—1280 B.C.[33] From these we may assume that Assur-nirar and Nabudan must have reigned before this series of princes, i.e. before 1460 B.C., from which it further follows that from about the year 1500 B.C. onwards Assyria was in any case an independent state beside Babylon. We found above that the treaty which Assur-bil-nisi, king of Assyria, concluded about the year 1450 B.C. with Karaindas, king of Babylon, for fixing the boundaries, must have been preceded by hostile movements on the part of both kingdoms. We saw that Assur-bil-nisi's successor, Busur-Assur, concluded a treaty with the same object with Purnapuryas of Babylon, and that Assur-u-ballit, who succeeded Busur-Assur on the throne of Assyria, gave his daughter in marriage to Purnapuryas. In order to avenge the murder of Karachardas, the son of Purnapuryas by this marriage, who succeeded his father on the throne of Babylon, Assur-u-ballit invaded Babylonia and placed Kurigalzu, another son of Purnapuryas, on the throne. We might assume that about this time, i.e. about 1400 B.C., the borders of Assyria and Babylonia touched each other in the neighbourhood of the modern Aker-Kuf, the ancient Dur-Kurigalzu.[34] Assur-u-ballit, who restored the temple of Istar at Nineveh which Samsi-Bin had built, was followed by Pudiel, Bel-nirar, and Bin-nirar.[35] The last tells us, on a stone of Kileh-Shergat, that Assur-u-ballit conquered the land of Subari, Bel-nirar the army of Kassi, that Pudiel subjugated all the land as far as the distant border of Guti; he himself overcame the armies of Kassi, Guti, Lulumi and Subari; the road to the temple of the god Asshur, his lord, which had fallen down, he restored with earth and tiles, and set up his tablet with his name, "on the twentieth day of the month Muhurili, in the year of Salmanurris."[36]

Bin-nirar's son and successor was Shalmanesar I., who ascended the throne of Assyria about 1340 B.C. We learnt above from Genesis, that "Asshur built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Resen and Chalah." Assur-nasirpal, who ruled over Assyria more than 400 years after Shalmanesar I., tells us that "Shalmanesar the mighty, who lived before him, founded the ancient city of Chalah."[37] It is thus clear that Assyria before the year 1300 B.C. obtained a third residence in addition to the cities of Asshur and Nineveh. Like Asshur and Nineveh, it lay on the banks of the Tigris, about 50 miles to the north of Asshur, and 25 to the south of Nineveh. It was not, however, like Asshur, situated on the western bank of the river, but on the eastern, like Nineveh, a little above the junction of the Upper Zab, in a position protected by both rivers, and thus far more secure than Asshur. Shalmanesar also built in both the old residences of Asshur and Nineveh. Tiles of Kileh-Shergat bear the stamp, "Palace of Shalmanesar, son of king Bin-nirar."[38] His buildings in Nineveh are certified by an inscription, in which Shalmanesar says: "The temple of Istar, which Samsi-Bin, the prince who was before me, built, and which my predecessor Assur-u-ballit restored, had fallen into decay in the course of time. I built it up again from the ground to the roof. The prince who comes after me and sees my cylinder (p. 37), and sets it again in its place, as I have set the cylinder of Assur-u-ballit in its place, him may Istar bless; but him who destroys my monument may Istar curse and root his name and race out of the land."[39] In the same inscription Shalmanesar calls himself conqueror of Niri, Lulumi and Musri, districts for which—at any rate for the two last—we shall have to look in the neighbourhood of Nineveh, in the chain of the Zagrus. The son of Shalmanesar I. was Tiglath Adar; he completed the restoration of the temple of Istar at Nineveh, and fought with such success against Nazimurdas of Babylon that he placed on his seal this inscription: "Tiglath Adar, king of the nations, son of Shalmanesar, king of Asshur, has conquered the land of Kardunias." But he afterwards lost this very seal to the Babylonians, who placed it as a trophy in the treasure-house of Babylon (about 1300 B.C.).[40]

These are the beginnings of the Assyrian kingdom according to the indications of the monuments. After the series of kings from Assur-bil-nisi to Tiglath Adar, whose dates come down from about the year 1460 to about 1280 B.C., there is a gap in our knowledge of some decades. After this we hear at first of new struggles with Babylon. In these Belkudurussur of Assyria (about 1220 B.C.) lost his life. The Babylonians, led by their king, Binpaliddin, invaded Assyria with a numerous army in order to take the city of Asshur. But Adarpalbitkur, the successor of Belkudurussur, succeeded in forcing them to retire to Babylon.[41] Of Adarpalbitkur his fourth successor proudly declares that "he was the protector of the might of Asshur, that he put an end to his weakness in his land, that he arranged well the army of the land of Assyria."[42] His son, Assur-dayan (about 1180 B.C.) was able to remove the war again into the land of Babylonia; he claims to have carried the booty from three places in Babylonia—Zab, Irriya and Agarsalu—to Assyria.[43] It was he who had carried away the ruins of the fallen temple which Samsi-Bin had built at Asshur to Anu and Bin, but had not erected it again. According to the words of his great-grandson, "he carried the exalted sceptre, and prospered the nation of Bel; the work of his hands and the gifts of his fingers pleased the great gods; he attained great age and long life."[44] Of Assur-dayan's son and successor, Mutakkil-Nebu (about 1160 B.C.), we only find that "Asshur, the great lord, raised him to the throne, and upheld him in the constancy of his heart."[45] Mutakkil-Nebu's son, Assur-ris-ilim (between 1150 and 1130 B.C.) had to undergo severe struggles against the Babylonians, who repeatedly invaded Assyria under Nebuchadnezzar I. At length Assur-ris-ilim succeeded in repulsing Nebuchadnezzar, and took from him 40 (50) chariots of war with a banner. Tiglath Pilesar, the son of Assur-ris-ilim, says of the deeds of his father, doubtless with extreme exaggeration, "he conquered the lands of the enemy, and subjugated all the hostile lands."[46]

The tiles of a heap of ruins at Asshur bear the inscription, "Tiglath Pilesar, the favoured of Asshur, has built and set up the temple of his lord the god Bin." At the four corners of the foundation walls of this building were discovered four octagonal cylinders of clay, about a foot and a half in height, on the inscriptions of which this king repeats the narrative of the deeds of the first five years of his life. He restored the royal dwelling-places and the fortresses of the land which were in a bad condition, and planted again the forests of the land of Asshur; he renovated the habitation of the gods, the temples of Istar and Bilit in the city of Asshur. At the beginning of his reign Anu and Bin, his lords, had bidden him set up again the temple which Samsi-Bin had once built for them. This he accomplished; he caused the two great deities to enter into their high dwelling-places and rejoiced the heart of their great divinity. "May Anu and Bin grant me prosperity for ever, may they bless the work of my hands, may they hear my prayer and lead me to victory in war and in fight, may they subdue to my dominion all the lands which rise up against me, the rebellious nations and the princes, my rivals, may they accept my sacrificial offerings for the continuance and increase of my race; may it be the will of Asshur and the great gods to establish my race as firm as the mountains to the remotest days."[47]

These cylinders tell us of the campaign of Tiglath Pilesar. First he defeated 20,000 Moschi (Muskai) and their five kings. He marched against the land of Kummukh, which rebelled against him; even that part of the inhabitants which fled into a city beyond the Tigris which they had garrisoned he overcame after crossing the Tigris. He also conquered the people of Kurkhië (Kirkhië) who came to their help; he drove them into the Tigris and the river Nami, and took prisoner in the battle Kiliantaru, whom they had made their king; he conquered the land of Kummukh throughout its whole extent and incorporated it with Assyria.[48] After this he marched against the land of Kurkhië; next he crossed the Lower Zab and overcame two districts there. Then he turned against the princes of the land of Nairi (he puts the number of these at 23); these, and the princes who came from the upper sea to aid them, he conquered, carried off their flocks, destroyed their cities, and imposed on them a tribute of 1200 horses and 2000 oxen. These battles in the north were followed by a campaign in the west. He invaded the land of Aram, which knew not the god Asshur, his lord;[49] he marched against the city of Karkamis, in the land of the Chatti; he defeated their warriors on the east of the Euphrates; he crossed the Euphrates in pursuit of the fugitives and there destroyed six cities. Immediately after this the king marched again to the East, against the lands of Khumani and Musri and imposed tribute upon them.

"Two-and-forty lands and their princes," so the cylinders inform us, "from the banks of the Lower Zab as far as the bank of the Euphrates, the land of the Chatti, and the upper sea of the setting sun, all these my hand has reached since my accession; one after the other I have subjugated them; I have received hostages from them and laid tribute upon them."[50] "This temple of Anu and Bin and these towers," so the inscription of the cylinders concludes, "will grow old; he who in the succession of the days shall be king in my place at a remote time, may he restore them and place his name beside mine, then will Anu and Bin grant to him prosperity, joy and success in his undertakings. But he who hides my tablets, and erases or destroys them, or puts his name in the place of mine, him will Anu and Bin curse, his throne will they bring down, and break the power of his dominion, and cause his army to flee; Bin will devote his land to destruction, and will spread over it poverty, hunger, sickness, and death, and destroy his name and his race from the earth. On the twenty-ninth day of Kisallu, in the year of In-iliya-allik."[51]

In memory of his achievements against the land of Nairi, Tiglath Pilesar also set up a special monument. On a rock at one of the sources of the Eastern Tigris near Karkar we see his image hewn in relief. He wears the tall cap or kidaris; the hair and beard are long and curled; the robe falls in deep folds to the ancles. The inscription runs: "By the grace of Asshur, Samas and Bin, the great gods, my lords, I, Tiglath Pilesar, am ruler from the great sea of the west land (mat acharri) to the lake of the land of Nairi. Three times I have marched to the land of Nairi."[52] The first subjugation of this district could not, therefore, have been complete.

As this monument proves, Tiglath Pilesar's campaigns could not have ended with the fifth year of his reign. From the synchronistic tablets we can ascertain that he had to undergo severe struggles with the Babylonians. Marduk-nadin-akh of Babylon invaded Assyria, crossed the Tigris, and the battle took place on the Lower Zab. In the next year, according to the same tablets, Tiglath Pilesar is said to have taken the border-fortresses of Babylon, Dur-Kurigalzu, Sippara, Babili and Upi (Opis ?).[53] However this may be, Tiglath Pilesar in the end was at a disadvantage in his contest with the Babylonians. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, tells us, "The gods of the city Hekali, which Marduk-nadin-akh, king of the land of Accad, had taken in the time of Tiglath Pilesar, king of Asshur, and carried to Babylon 418 years previously, I have caused to be brought back again from Babylon and put up again in their place." A Babylonian tablet from the tenth year of Marduk-nadin-akh of Babylon appears to deal with loans on conquered Assyrian territory.[54]

When Tiglath Pilesar ascended the throne about the year 1130 B.C. the empire of Assyria, as his inscriptions show, had not as yet made any extensive conquests beyond the circle of the native country. The Muskai, i.e. the Moschi, whom we have found on the north-western slopes of the Armenian mountains, against whom Tiglath Pilesar first fought, had forced their way, as the cylinders tell us, into the land of Kummukh.[55] As the inhabitants of the land of Kummukh are conquered on the Tigris and forced into it, while others escape over the Tigris and defend a fortified city on the further side of the river, as the land itself is then incorporated with Assyria, we must obviously look for it at no great distance to the north on both shores of the Upper Tigris. We shall hardly be in error, therefore, if we take this land to be the district afterwards called Gumathene, on the Tigris, which Ammianus describes as a fruitful and productive land, i.e. as the canton of Amida.[56] The next conflicts of Tiglath Pilesar took place on the Lower Zab, i.e. at the south-eastern border of the Assyrian country. Further to the south, on the Zagrus, perhaps in the district of Chalonitis, or between the Lower Zab and the Adhim, or at any rate to the east, we must look for the land of Khumani and the land of Musri. The image at Karkar, Tiglath Pilesar's monument of victory, gives us information about the position of the land of Nairi. It comprises the mountain cantons between the Eastern Tigris and the upper course of the Great Zab, where that river traverses the land of Arrapachitis (Albak). The lake of the land of Nairi, to which the inscription of Karkar extends the rule of Tiglath Pilesar, and the upper sea from which auxiliaries come to the princes of the land of Nairi, are both, no doubt, Lake Van. The inhabitants of Nairi are not like those of the land of Kummukh, incorporated with Assyria, they have merely to pay a moderate tribute in horses and oxen. The campaign of Tiglath Pilesar against Karkamis (Karchemish) proves that the dominion of Assyria before his reign did not reach the Euphrates. He marches against the land of Aram and has then to fight with the army of Karchemish on this side, i.e. on the east side of the Euphrates; the results which he obtained on this campaign to the west of the Euphrates he does not himself rate very highly. We saw that in the end he remained at a disadvantage in his contest with Babylon. On the other hand, in campaigns which took place in years subsequent to the attempt against Karchemish, he must have forced his way to the west far beyond the Euphrates, in order to be able to boast on the monument at Karkar "that he ruled from the sea of Nairi as far as the great sea of the west land," i.e. to the Mediterranean. Hence we have to assume that he went forth from Karchemish westwards almost as far as the mouth of the Orontes. We should be more accurately informed on this matter if the fragment of an inscription on an obelisk beside an inscription of Assurnasirpal, who reigned more than 200 years after Tiglath Pilesar, could be referred to Tiglath Pilesar. The fragment speaks in the third person of the booty gained in hunting by a king, which is given in nearly the same totals as the results of Tiglath Pilesar's hunts on his cylinders. These represent him as slaying 120 lions and capturing 800. The fragment speaks of 120 and 800 lions, of Amsi killed in Charran on the Chabor, of Rim whom the king slew before the land of Chatti at the foot of Mount Labnani (Lebanon), of a crocodile (nasukh) which the king of Musri sent as a present. The hunter, it is said, ruled from the city of Babylon, in the land of Accad, as far as the land of the west (mat acharri).[57]

According to the inscriptions on the cylinders the land of Aram lies to the east of the Euphrates; the city of Karchemish lies on the west bank in the land of the Chatti. The Chatti are the Hittites of the Hebrews, the Cheta of the Egyptians. We found that the inscriptions of Sethos and Ramses II. extended the name of the Cheta as far as the Euphrates (I. 151, 152). But although the kingdom of the Hittites had fallen two centuries before Tiglath Pilesar crossed the Euphrates, the name still clung to this region, as the inscriptions of Tiglath Pilesar and his successors prove, more especially to the region from Hamath and Damascus as far as Lebanon. The land of the west (mat acharri) in the strict sense is, of course, to the Assyrians, from their point of view, the coast of Syria. Whatever successes Tiglath Pilesar may have gained in this direction, they were of a transitory nature.

The first of his sons to succeed him was Assur-bel-kala, whose reign we may fix in the years 1100–1080 B.C. With three successive kings of Babylon, Marduk-sapik-kullat, Saduni (?), and Nebu-zikir-iskun, he came into contact, peaceful or hostile. With the first he made a treaty of peace, with Saduni he carried on war, with Nebu-zikir-iskun he again concluded a peace, which fixed the borders. This was confirmed by intermarriage;[58] Assur-bel-kala married his daughter to Nebu-zikir-iskun, while the latter gave his daughter to Assur-bel-kala. Of the exploits of his successor, Samsi-Bin II. (1080–1060 B.C.), a second son of Tiglath Pilesar, we have no account.[59] We cannot maintain with certainty whether Assur-rab-amar, of whom Shalmanesar II. tells us that he lost two cities on the Euphrates which Tiglath Pilesar had taken,[60] was the direct successor of Samsi-Bin.

After this, for the space of more than 100 years (1040–930), there is again a gap in our knowledge. Not till we reach Assur-dayan II., who ascended the throne of Assyria about the year 930 B.C., can we again follow the series of the Assyrian kings downwards without interruption. This Assur-dayan II. is followed by Bin-nirar II., about 900; Bin-nirar, by Tiglath Adar II., who reigned from 889–883 B.C. He had to contend once more against the land of Nairi, i.e. against the region between the Eastern Tigris and the upper course of the Upper Zab. As a memorial of the successes which he gained here he caused his image to be carved beside that of Tiglath Pilesar in the rocks at Karkar (see below). Besides this, there is in existence from his time a pass, i.e. a small tablet, with the inscription, "Permission to enter into the palace of Tiglath Adar, king of the land of Asshur, son of Bin-nirar, king of the land of Asshur."[61]

Neither at the commencement nor in the course of the history of Assyria do the monuments know of a king Ninus, a queen Semiramis, or of any warlike queen of this kingdom; they do not even mention any woman as standing independently at the head of Assyria. Once, it is true, we find the name Semiramis in the inscriptions in the form Sammuramat. Sammuramat was the wife of king Bin-nirar III., who ruled over Assyria from the year 810–781 B.C. On the pedestal of two statues, which an officer of this king, the prefect of Chalah, dedicated to the god Nebo, the inscription is: "To Nebo, the highest lord of his lords, the protector of Bin-nirar, king of Asshur, and protector of Sammuramat, the wife of the palace, his lady." The name of Ninyas is quite unknown to the monuments, and of the names of the 33 kings which Ctesias gives, with their names and reigns as successors of Ninyas down to the overthrow of the kingdom and Sardanapalus (p. 26)—unless we identify the last name in the list, that of Sardanapalus, with the Assurbanipal of the inscriptions, i.e. with the ruler last but one or two according to the records—no single one agrees with the names of the monuments, which, moreover, give a higher total than six-and-thirty for the reigns of the Assyrian kings. The list of Ctesias appears to have been put together capriciously or merely invented; the lengths of the reigns are pure imagination, and arranged according to certain synchronisms.

Not less definite is the evidence of the monuments that the pre-eminence of Assyria over Upper Asia cannot have commenced in the year 2189 or 1913 B.C., as Ctesias asserts, or as may be assumed from his data, nor in 1273, as has been deduced from the statements of Berosus, nor finally in the year 1234, according to Herodotus' statements (p. 27). Though we are able to find only approximately the dates of the kings of Assyria, whose names and deeds we have passed in review, the result is, nevertheless, that the power of Assyria in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries did not go far beyond the native country—that her forces by no means surpassed those of Babylon—that precisely in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C. the kingdom of Babylon was at least as strong as that of Assyria—that even towards the close of the twelfth century Tiglath Pilesar I. could gain no success against Babylon—that his successors sought to establish peaceful relations with Babylonia. There is just as little reason to maintain the period of 520 years which Herodotus allows for the Assyrian empire over Asia. This cannot in any case be assumed earlier than the date of Tiglath Pilesar I., who did at least cross the Euphrates and enter Northern Syria. The beginning of this empire would, therefore, be about 1130 B.C., not 1234 B.C. The date also which Herodotus gives for the close of this empire (before 700 B.C.) cannot, as will be shown, be maintained. According to this datum the decline and fall of Assyria must have began with the period in which, as a fact, she rose to the proudest height and extended her power to the widest extent. The period of 520 years can only be kept artificially by reckoning it upwards from the year 607 B.C., the year of the overthrow of the Assyrian empire; then it brings us from this date to 1127 B.C., i.e. to the time of Tiglath Pilesar I. But we saw that the conquests of Tiglath Pilesar did not extend very far, that his successes west of the Euphrates were of a transitory nature; in no case could a dominion of Assyria over Babylon be dated from his reign.

The complete agreement of the Assyrian and Babylonian style and civilisation is proved most clearly by the monuments. The names of the princes of Assyria are formed analogously to those of the Babylonians; the names and the nature of the deities which the Assyrians and Babylonians worship are the same. In Assyria we meet again with Anu the god of the high heaven, Samas the sun-god, Sin the moon-god, Bin (Ramman) the god of the thunder; of the spirits of the planets Adar, the lord of Saturn, Nebo, the god of Mercury, and Istar, the lady of Venus, in her double nature of destroyer and giver of fruit, reappear. There is only one striking difference: the special protector of Assyria, Asshur, the god of the land, stands at the head of the gods in the place of El of the Babylonians. He it is after whom the land and the oldest metropolis is named, whose representatives the oldest princes of Assyria appear to have called themselves. The name of Asshur is said to mean the good or the kind;[62] which may even on the Euphrates have been an epithet of El, which on the Tigris became the chief name of the deity. As the ancient princes of Ur and Erech, of Nipur and Senkereh, as the kings of Babel—so also the kings of Assyria, as far back as our monuments allow us to go—built temples to their gods; like them they mark the tiles of their buildings with their names; like the kings of Babel, they cause inscriptions to be written on cylinders, intended to preserve the memory of their buildings and achievements, and then placed in the masonry of their temples. The language of the inscriptions of Assyria differs from those of the Babylonian inscriptions, as one dialect from another; the system of writing is the same. The population of Assyria transferred their language and writing, their religious conceptions and modes of worship, from the Lower Euphrates to the Upper Tigris. If the princes of Erech, Nipur and Babylon had to repel the attacks of Elam, the Assyrian land, a region of moderate extent, lay under the spurs of the Armenian table-land, under the ranges of the Zagrus. The struggle against the tribes of these mountains, in the Zagrus and in the region of the sources of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and the stubborn resistance of these tribes appears to have strengthened the warlike powers of the Assyrians, and these ceaseless campaigns trained them to that military excellence which finally, after a period of exercise which lasted for centuries, won for them the preponderance over Mesopotamia and Syria, over Babylonia and Elam, no less than over Egypt.