History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12)

* Our only knowledge of Tiglath-pileser II. is from a brick, on which he is mentioned as being the grandfather of Ramman- nirari II.

** The names Chaldaea and Chaldaeans being ordinarily used to designate the territory and people of Babylon, I shall employ the term Kaldu or Kalda in treating of the Aramaean tribes who constituted the actual Chaldaean nation.

It has been supposed, not without probability, that a certain Simashshikhu, Prince of the Country of the Sea, who immediately followed the last scion of the line of Pashe,* was one of their chiefs. He endeavoured to establish order in the city, and rebuilt the temple of the Sun destroyed by the nomads at Sippar, but at the end of eighteen years he was assassinated. His son Eamukinshurnu remained at the head of affairs some three to six months; Kashshu-nadinakhe ruled three or six years, at the expiration of which a man of the house of Bazi, Eulbar-shakinshumi by name, seized upon the crown. His dynasty consisted of three members, himself included, and it was overthrown after a duration of twenty years by an Elamite, who held authority for another seven.*

* The name of this prince has been read Simbarshiku by Peiser, a reading adopted by Rost; Simbarshiku would have been shortened into Sibir, and we should have to identify it with that of the Sibir mentioned by Assur-nazir-pal in his Annals, col. ii. 1. 84, as a king of Karduniash who lived before his (Assur-nazir-pal's) time (see p. 38 of the present volume).

** The name of this king may be read Edubarshakin-shumi. The house of Bazi takes its name from an ancestor who must have founded it at some unknown date, but who never reigned in Chaldaea. Winckler has with reason conjectured that the name subsequently lost its meaning to the Babylonians, and that they confused the Chaldaean house of Bazi with the Arab country of Bazu: this may explain why in his dynasties Berosos attributes an Arab origin to that one which comprises the short-lived line of Bit-Bazi.

*** Our knowledge of these events is derived solely from the texts of the Babylonian Canon published and translated by G. Smith, by Pinches, and by Sayce. The inscription of Nabubaliddin informs us that Kashu-nadinakhe and Eulbar- shakinshumu continued the works begun by Simashshiku in the temple of the Sun at Sippar.

It was a period of calamity and distress, during which the Arabs or the Aramaeans ravaged the country, and pillaged without compunction not only the property of the inhabitants, but also that of the gods. The Elamite usurper having died about the year 1030, a Babylonian of noble extraction expelled the intruders, and succeeded in bringing the larger part of the kingdom under his rule.*

* The names of the first kings of this dynasty are destroyed in the copies of the Royal Canon which have come down to us. The three preceding dynasties are restored as follows:--

Five or six of his descendants had passed away, and a certain Shamash-mudammiq was feebly holding the reins of government, when the expeditions of Ramman-nirari III. provoked war afresh between Assyria and Babylon. The two armies encountered each other once again on their former battlefield between the Lower Zab and the Turnat. Shamash-mudammiq, after being totally routed near the Yalman mountains, did not long survive, and Naboshumishkun, who succeeded him, showed neither more ability nor energy than his predecessor. The Assyrians wrested from him the fortresses of Bambala and Bagdad, dislodged him from the positions where he had entrenched himself, and at length took him prisoner while in flight, and condemned him to perpetual captivity.*

* Shamash-mudammiq appears to have died about 900. Naboshumishkun probably reigned only one or two years, from 900 to 899 or to 898. The name of his successor is destroyed in the Synchronous History; it might be Nabubaliddin, who seems to have had a long life, but it is wiser, until fresh light is thrown on the subject, to admit that it is some prince other than Nabubaliddin, whose name is as yet unknown to us.

His successor abandoned to the Assyrians most of the districts situated on the left bank of the Lower Zab between the Zagros mountains and the Tigris, and peace, which was speedily secured by a double marriage, remained unbroken for nearly half a century. Tukulti-ninip II. was fond of fighting; "he overthrew his adversaries and exposed their heads upon stakes," but, unlike his predecessor, he directed his efforts against Nairi and the northern and western tribes. We possess no details of his campaigns; we can only surmise that in six years, from 890 to 885,* he brought into subjection the valley of the Upper Tigris and the mountain provinces which separate it from the Assyrian plain. Having reached the source of the river, he carved, beside the image of Tiglath-pileser I., the following inscription, which may still be read upon the rock. "With the help of Assur, Shamash, and Ramman, the gods of his religion, he reached this spot. The lofty mountains he subjugated from the sun-rising to its down-setting; victorious, irresistible, he came hither, and like unto the lightning he crossed the raging rivers."**

* The parts preserved of the Eponym canon begin their record in 893, about the end of the reign of Ramman-nirari IL The line which distinguishes the two reigns from one another is drawn between the name of the personage who corresponds to the year 890, and that of Tukulti-ninip who corresponds to the year 889: Tukulti-ninip II., therefore, begins his reign in 890, and his death is six years later, in 885.

** This inscription and its accompanying bas-relief are mentioned in the Annals of Assur-nazir-pal.

He did not live long to enjoy his triumphs, but his death made no impression on the impulse given to the fortunes of his country. The kingdom which he left to Assur-nazir-pal, the eldest of his sons, embraced scarcely any of the countries which had paid tribute to former sovereigns. Besides Assyria proper, it comprised merely those districts of Nairi which had been annexed within his own generation; the remainder had gradually regained their liberty: first the outlying dependencies--Cilicia, Melitene, Northern Syria, and then the provinces nearer the capital, the valleys of the Masios and the Zagros, the steppes of the Khabur, and even some districts such as Lubdi and Shupria, which had been allotted to Assyrian colonists at various times after successful campaigns. Nearly the whole empire had to be reconquered under much the same conditions as in the first instance. Assyria itself, it is true, had recovered the vitality and elasticity of its earlier days. The people were a robust and energetic race, devoted to their rulers, and ready to follow them blindly and trustingly wherever they might lead. The army, while composed chiefly of the same classes of troops as in the time of Tiglath-pileser I.,--spearmen, archers, sappers, and slingers,--now possessed a new element, whose appearance on the field of battle was to revolutionize the whole method of warfare; this was the cavalry, properly so called, introduced as an adjunct to the chariotry. The number of horsemen forming this contingent was as yet small; like the infantry, they wore casques and cuirasses, but were clothed with a tight-fitting loin-cloth in place of the long kilt, the folds of which would have embarrassed their movements. One-half of the men carried sword and lance, the other half sword and bow, the latter of a smaller kind than that used by the infantry. Their horses were bridled, and bore trappings on the forehead, but had no saddles; their riders rode bareback without stirrups; they sat far back with the chest thrown forward, their knees drawn up to grip the shoulder of the animal.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in bronze on the gate of Balawat. The Assyrian artist has shown the head and legs of the second horse in profile behind the first, but he has forgotten to represent the rest of its body, and also the man riding it.

Each horseman was attended by a groom, who rode abreast of him, and held his reins during an action, so that he might be free to make use of his weapons. This body of cavalry, having little confidence in its own powers, kept in close contact with the main body of the army, and was not used in independent manouvres; it was associated with and formed an escort to the chariotry in expeditions where speed was essential, and where the ordinary foot soldier would have hampered the movements of the charioteers.*

* Isolated horsemen must no doubt have existed in the Assyrian just as in the Egyptian army, but we never find any mention of a body of cavalry in inscriptions prior to the time of Assur-nazir-pal; the introduction of this new corps must consequently have taken place between the reigns of Tiglath-pileser and Assur-nazir-pal, probably nearer the time of the latter. Assur-nazir-pal himself seldom speaks of his cavalry, but he constantly makes mention of the horsemen of the Aramaean and Syrian principalities, whom he incorporated into his own army.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bronze bas-reliefs of the gate of Balawat.

The army thus reinforced was at all events more efficient, if not actually more powerful, than formerly; the discipline maintained was as severe, the military spirit as keen, the equipment as perfect, and the tactics as skilful as in former times. A knowledge of engineering had improved upon the former methods of taking towns by sapping and scaling, and though the number of military engines was as yet limited, the besiegers were well able, when occasion demanded, to improvise and make use of machines capable of demolishing even the strongest walls.*

* The battering-ram had already reached such a degree of perfection under Assur-nazir-pal, that it must have been invented some time before the execution of the first bas- reliefs on which we see it portrayed. Its points of resemblance to the Greek battering-ram furnished Hoofer with one of his mam arguments for placing the monuments of Khorsabad and Koyunjik as late as the Persian or Parthian period.

The Assyrians were familiar with all the different kinds of battering-ram; the hand variety, which was merely a beam tipped with iron, worked by some score of men; the fixed ram, in which the beam was suspended from a scaffold and moved by means of ropes; and lastly, the movable ram, running on four or six wheels, which enabled it to be advanced or withdrawn at will. The military engineers of the day allowed full rein to their fancy in the many curious shapes they gave to this latter engine; for example, they gave to the mass of bronze at its point the form of the head of an animal, and the whole engine took at times the form of a sow ready to root up with its snout the foundations of the enemy's defences. The scaffolding of the machine was usually protected by a carapace of green leather or some coarse woollen material stretched over it, which broke the force of blows from projectiles: at times it had an additional arrangement in the shape of a cupola or turret in which archers were stationed to sweep the face of the wall opposite to the point of attack.