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

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Sargon took, and the narrative of the subjection of the Pekod, we are told: "The rest of the inhabitants of the land of Aram had put their hopes in Merodach Baladan and Sutruk Nanchundi, and gathered on the river Ukni. I put them to flight." After this Sargon takes several cities of Elam; Sutruk Nanchundi retires before him into the mountains. Merodach Baladan heard this in his palace at Babylon; he left the city at night with his warriors, directed his steps to the land of Elam, and sent a considerable weight of silver to Sutruk Nanchundi, to induce him to send aid. "I marched at once to Babylon, sacrificed to the gods, and set up my power in the midst of the palace of Merodach Baladan." "In the thirteenth year of my reign, Merodach Baladan compelled the cities of Ur and Larsam to pay him tribute, collected his forces at Dur Yakin, and there fortified himself. I went boldly against him, threw his warriors and horses into confusion; I cut down the people of the Pekod and Marsiman, and took the symbols of their kingdom. And Merodach Baladan acknowledged his weakness; he abandoned the sceptre and throne, and kissed the earth in the presence of my emissary. I summoned him, and received him into favour. Dur Yakin I burnt; I laid regular tribute on the upper and lower land of Bit Yakin. While I punished the Chaldæans and Aramæans, and made my power felt by the Elamites, my viceroy, in the land of Kui (Cilicia), in the regions of the setting sun, attacked Mita, the Moschian, took two fortresses and 2400 men, freemen and slaves. To complete his subjugation, Mita sent his envoy with his tribute as far as the coast of the Eastern sea, and acknowledged the power of the god Asshur. The seven kings of Yatnan (Cyprus) also brought their tribute into my presence at Babylon; gold, silver, and the products of their land, and kissed my feet."234

      These accounts show that Sargon's war against Merodach Baladan occupied two years (710 and 709 B.C.). In the first campaign the Babylonians were defeated in the field; the Aramæans dispersed; the Elamites, among whom the sovereignty had been meanwhile transferred from Humbanigas to Sutruk Nanchundi, driven back, and the cities of Babylonia taken. Merodach Baladan abandons Babylon, and retires to the lower Euphrates, to the land of his nation. Sargon ascends the throne of Babylon, and takes the title, "King of Babel, of Sumir and Accad," which Tiglath Pilesar had borne before him. The second campaign ends with the capture and destruction of Dur Yakin, with the subjugation of the whole region of the Euphrates as far as the shore of the Persian Gulf, and the receiving of Merodach Baladan into favour. According to the astronomical canon, Arkeanus ascended the throne of Babylon in the year 709 B.C. Arkeanus can only be Sargon (Sarrukin). One of the tablets, which contains contracts about the sale of parcels of land, slaves, and loans, from the time of Sargon, bears the date: "Month Sebat, year of Muttakkil-Assur, viceroy of Gozan; fifteenth year of Sargon, king of Asshur, third year of his reign in Babylon."235 As Sargon certainly cannot have ascended the throne of Babylon later than the year 709 B.C., the year 707-706 would be the third year of his reign over Babylonia; the canon of the Assyrian rulers actually puts the year of Muttakkil-Assur at the year 706 B.C.

      The campaigns of the unwearied Sargon did not end with the subjugation of the whole region of Babylonia. The Annals and Fasti narrate how he overthrew Mutallu of Kummukh (Gumathene), who had united himself with Argistis, king of Ararat, who must have taken the place of Urza (p. 99), and that he planted there people from Bit Yakin (707 B.C.). The land of Ellip, which he had previously subjugated, remained faithful to him as long as king Dalta lived. After his death his sons Nibi and Ispabara contended for the throne. The former sought help from Sutruk Nanchundi of Elam; Ispabara vowed allegiance to him (Sargon). To support Ispabara, Sargon sent troops to the land of Ellip, the position of which we can only so far ascertain from the inscriptions, as to know that it bordered on Media (p. 101) as well as Elam. Nibi's warriors and the Elamites were defeated; Nibi was taken prisoner, his adherents were crucified, and Ispabara became the prince of the whole land (706 B.C.).236

      Sargon, who defeated the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, who subjugated Syria and Babylonia, who had gone through so many battles, came to a violent end, but not in war. He was murdered. The list of the rulers announces the naked fact in the year 705B.C., and adds the accession of his son Sennacherib, on whom fell the heavy task of maintaining the wide dominion which Sargon had won. If he did not succeed in doing this without some loss, his buildings, which he began immediately after his accession, were not inferior to those of his father. He must have commenced them at the beginning of his reign. The inscription on a cylinder (Bellino), bearing the date of the third year of Sennacherib, gives the dimensions of a palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, and describes the architecture and adornment. The kings, his fathers, had built this palace, but had not completed its splendour; the waves of the Tigris had injured the foundations; he altered the course of the Tigris, strengthened the dams, built the palace afresh, and caused lions and bulls to be hewn out of great stones.237 The remains of this structure lie on the site of the ancient Nineveh, immediately to the north of the Khosr, which flowed through the city, on the old bed of the Tigris, near the modern village of Kuyundshik. The dimensions give this palace the first place among the castles of the kings of Asshur. It rose on a terrace of more than 80 feet in height, close by the Tigris. The great porticoes were from 150 to 180 feet in length, and about 40 feet in breadth; the great gallery was 218 feet in length, and 25 feet in breadth. About 70 chambers have been discovered in this building.238 The main front lay to the north-west; two great winged bulls with human heads guarded the entrance. At the entrance of the north-east front also were two bulls of this kind. In the great portico behind this entrance, and the gallery abutting upon it, the process of building is represented on the reliefs on the walls. We see the clay pits, the workmen carrying baskets filled with clay and bricks, the great blocks intended for the images of the lions and bulls coming up the Tigris, and brought to the elevation on shore by ropes drawn by hundreds of hands. This is done by means of slips under which are placed wooden rollers. A lion, already finished, standing upright and surrounded by a wooden case, and held up by workmen with ropes and forked poles, is drawn along in this manner; the hinder end of the slip is then raised by a lever placed on wedges in order to facilitate the elevation. The overseer stands between the fore-feet of the colossus, and directs by the movement of his hands the efforts of the workmen. Sennacherib himself from his chariot watches the advance of this statue. In the same way a finished human-headed bull is drawn along by four long rows of workmen. In another chamber we see rows of servants, who carry apples and grapes, pastry and other food in baskets. The reliefs of the next porticoes and halls exhibit the warlike acts of Sennacherib; the crossing of rivers, sieges, stormings of cities in the mountain country, in the plain, in the marsh. Unfortunately the inscriptions over these have almost entirely perished along with the upper part of the walls; only a few words are legible. The inscription of the third year of Sennacherib (703 B.C.) concludes the account of this building with the words: "To him among my sons, whom Asshur in the course of the days shall summon to be lord over land and people, I say this: This palace will grow old and fall to pieces. May he set it up, restore the inscriptions and the writing of my name, and clean the images; may he offer sacrifice, and put everything in its place; so shall Asshur hear his prayer."239 The inscriptions on slabs between the thighs of the two bulls before the north-west entrance give a detailed account of the dimensions and manner of the building of this palace.240

      In the inscription on the cylinder, Sennacherib boasts that he made a canal from the Khosr through the city; that he renovated Nineveh, "the city of Istar," and made it brilliant as the sun; the prisoners, Chaldæans, Aramæans, captives from Van and Cilicia, were employed on these works.241 The adornment of Nineveh, the strengthening of its walls, are mentioned on inscriptions on slabs in the palace itself.242 Another cylinder (Smith) from the ninth year of the reign of Sennacherib (697 B.C.),243 also mentions the buildings which the king undertook for the restoration of Nineveh: the prisoners of his campaigns worked at them: Philistines and Tyrians are here added to Chaldæans, Aramæans, Armenians, and Cilicians.244 Later documents inform

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