The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World Volume II Part 24

a.s.shur-bani-pal, shortly after his accession, collected his forces, and marched through Syria into Egypt, where he defeated the army sent against him by Tirhakah in a great battle near the city of Kar-banit.

Tirhakah, who was at Memphis, hearing of the disaster that had befallen his army, abandoned Lower Egypt, and sailed up the Nile to Thebes, whither the forces of a.s.shur-bani-pal followed him; but the nimble Ethiopian retreated still further up the Nile valley, leaving all Egypt from Thebes downwards to his adversary. a.s.shur-bani-pal, upon this, reinstated in their former governments the various princes and rulers whom his lather had originally appointed, and whom Tirhakah had expelled; and then, having rested and refreshed his army by a short stay in Thebes, returned victoriously by way of Syria to Nineveh.

Scarcely was he departed when intrigues began for the restoration of the Ethiopian power. Neco and some of the other Egyptian governors, whom a.s.shur-bani-pal had just reinstated in their posts, deserted the a.s.syrian side and went over to the Ethiopians. Attempts were made to suppress the incipient revolt by the governors who continued faithful; Neco and one or two of his copartners in guilt were seized and sent in chains to a.s.syria; and some of the cities chiefly implicated, as Sais, Mendes, and Tanis (Zoan), were punished. But the efforts at suppression failed. Tirliakah entered Upper Egypt, and having established himself at Thebes, threatened to extend his authority once more over the whole of the Nilotic valley. Thereupon a.s.shur-bani-pal, having forgiven Neco, sent him, accompanied by a strong force, into Egypt; and Tirhakah was again compelled to quit the lower country and retire to Upper Egypt, where he soon after died. His crown fell to his step-son, Urdamane, who is perhaps the Rud-Amun of the Hieroglyphics. This prince was at first very successful. He descended the Nile valley in force, defeated the a.s.syrians near Memphis, drove them to take refuge within its walls, besieged and took the city, and recovered Lower Egypt. Upon this a.s.shur-bani-pal, who was in the city of a.s.shur when he heard the news, went in person against his new adversary, who retreated as he advanced, flying from Memphis to Thebes, and from Thebes to a city called Kipkip, far up the course of the Nile. a.s.shur-bani-pal and his army now entered Thebes, and sacked it. The plunder which was taken, consisting of gold, silver, precious stones, dyed garments, captives male and female, ivory, ebony, tame animals (such as monkeys and elephants) brought up in the palace, obelisks, etc., was carried off and conveyed to Nineveh.

Governors were once more set up in the several cities, Psammetichus being probably among them; and, hostages having been taken to secure their fidelity, the a.s.syrian monarch returned home with his booty.

Between his first and second expedition into Egypt, a.s.shur-bani-pal was engaged in warlike operations on the Syrian coast, and in transactions of a different character with Cilicia. Returning from Egypt, he made an attack on Tyre, whose king, Baal, had offended him, and having compelled him to submit, exacted from him a large tribute, which he sent away to Nineveh. About the same time a.s.shur-bani-pal entered into communication with the Cilician monarch, whose name is not given, and took to wife a daughter of that princely house, which was already connected with the royal race of the Sargonids.

Shortly after his second Egyptian expedition, a.s.shur-bani-pal seems to have invaded Asia Minor. Crossing the Taurus range, he penetrated to a region never before visited by any a.s.syrian monarch; and, having reduced various towns in these parts and returned to Nineveh, he received an emba.s.sy of a very unusual character. "Gyges, king of Lydia," he tells us, "a country on the sea-coast, a remote place, of which the kings his ancestors had never even heard the name, had formerly learnt in a dream the fame of his empire, and had sent officers to his presence to perform homage on his behalf." He now sent a second time to a.s.shur-bani-pal, and told him that since his submission he had been able to defeat the Cimmerians, who had formerly ravaged his land with impunity; and he begged his acceptance of two Cimmerian chiefs, whom he had taken in battle, together with other presents, which a.s.shur-bani-pal regarded as a "tribute." About the same time the a.s.syrian monarch repulsed the attack of the "king of Kharbat," on a district of Babylonia, and, having taken Kharbat, transported its inhabitants to Egypt.

After thus displaying his power and extending his dominions towards the south-west, the north-west, and the south-east, a.s.shur-bani-pal turned his arms towards the north-east, and invaded Minni, or Persarmenia--the mountain-country about Lakes Van and Urumiyeh. Akhsheri, the king, having lost his capital, Izirtu, and several other cities, was murdered by his subjects; and his son, Vahalli, found himself compelled to make submission, and sent an emba.s.sy to Nineveh to do homage, with tribute, presents, and hostages. a.s.shur-bani-pal received the envoys graciously, pardoned Vahalli, and maintained him upon the throne, but forced him to pay a heavy tribute. He also in this expedition conquered a tract called Paddiri, which former kings of a.s.syria had severed from Minni and made independent, but which a.s.shur-bani-pal now attached to his own empire, and placed under an a.s.syrian governor.

A war of some duration followed with Elam, or Susiana, the flames of which at one time extended over almost the whole empire. This war was caused by a transfer of allegiance. Certain tribes, pressed by a famine, had pa.s.sed from Susiana into the territories of a.s.shur-bani-pal, and were allowed to settle there; but when, the famine being over, they wished to return to their former country, a.s.shur-bani-pal would not consent to their withdrawal. Urtaki, the Susianian king, took umbrage at this refusal, and, determining to revenge himself, commenced hostilities by an invasion of Babylonia. Belubager, king of the important Aramaean tribe of the Gambulu, a.s.sisted him and Saul-Mugina, in alarm, sent to his brother for protection. An a.s.syrian army was dispatched to his aid, before which Urtaki fled. He was, however, pursued, caught and defeated.

With some difficulty he escaped and returned to Susa, where within a year he died, without having made any fresh effort to injure or annoy his antagonist.

His death was a signal for a domestic revolution which proved very advantageous to the a.s.syrians. Urtaki had driven his older brother, Umman-aldas, from the throne, and, pa.s.sing over the rights of his sons, had a.s.sumed the supreme authority. At his death, his younger brother, Temin-Umman, seized the crown, disregarding not only the rights of the sons of Umman-aldas, but likewise those of the sons of Urtaki. As the pretensions of those princes were dangerous, Temin-Umman endeavored to seize their persons with the intention of putting them to death; but they, having timely warning of their danger, fled; and, escaping to Nineveh with their relations and adherents, put themselves under the protection of a.s.shur-bani-pal. It thus happened that in the expedition which now followed, a.s.shur-bani-pal had a party which favored him in Elam itself. Temin-Umman, however, aware of this internal weakness, made great efforts to compensate for it by the number of his foreign allies.

Two descendants of Merodach-Baladan, who had princ.i.p.alities upon the coast of the Persian Gulf, two mountain chiefs, one of them a blood-connection of the a.s.syrian crown, two sons of Belu-bagar, sheikh of the Gambulu, and several other inferior chieftains, are mentioned as bringing their troops to his a.s.sistance, and fighting in his cause against the a.s.syrians. All, however, was in vain. a.s.shur-bani-pal defeated the allies in several engagements, and finally took Temin-Umman prisoner, executed him, and exposed his head over one of the gates of Nineveh. He then divided Elam between two of the sons of Urrtaki, Umman-ibi and Tammarit, establis.h.i.+ng the former in Susa, and the latter at a town called Khidal in Eastern Susiana. Great severities were exercised upon the various princes and n.o.bles who had been captured. A son of Temin-Umman was executed with his father. Several grand-sons of Merodach-Baladin suffered mutilation, A Chaldaean prince and one of the chieftains of the Clambulu had their tongues torn out by the roots.

Another of the Gambulu chiefs was decapitated. Two of the Temin-Umman's princ.i.p.al officers were chained and flayed. Palaya, a grandson of Merodach-Baladan, was mutilated. a.s.shur-bani-pal evidently hoped to strike terror into his enemies by these cruel, and now unusual, punishments, which, being inflicted for the most part upon royal personages, must have made a profound impression on the king-reverencing Asiatics.

The impression made was, however, one of horror rather than of alarm.

Scarcely had the a.s.syrians returned to Nineveh, when fresh troubles broke out. Saul-Mugina, discontented with his position, which was one of complete dependence upon his brother, rebelled, and, declaring himself king of Babylon in his own right, sought and obtained a number of important allies among his neighbors. Umman-ibi, though he had received his crown from a.s.shur-bani-pal, joined him, seduced by a gift of treasure from the various Babylonian temples. Vaiteha, a powerful Arabian prince, and Nebo-belsumi, a surviving grandson of Merodach-Baladan, came into the confederacy; and Saul-Mugina had fair grounds for expecting that he would be able to maintain his independence. But civil discord--the curse of Elam at this period--once more showed itself, and blighted all these fair prospects. Tammarit, the brother of Ummman-ibi, finding that the latter had sent the flower of his army into Babylonia, marched against him, defeated and slew him, and became king of all Elam. Maintaining, however, the policy of his brother, he entered into alliance with Saul-Mugina, and proceeded to put himself at the head of the Elamitic contingent, which was serving in Babylonia. Here a just Nemesis overtook him. Taking advantage of his absence, a certain Inda-bibi (or Inda-bigas), a mountain-chief from the fastnesses of Luristan, raised a revolt in Elam, and succeeded in seating himself upon the throne. The army in Babylonia declining to maintain the cause of Tammarit, he was forced to fly and conceal himself, while the Elamitic troops returned home. Saul-Mugina then lost the most important of his allies at the moment of his greatest danger for his brother had at length marched against him at the head of an immense army, and was overrunning his northern provinces. Without the Elamites it was impossible for Babylon to contend with a.s.syria in the Open field.

All that Saul-Mugina could do was to defend his towns, which a.s.shur-bani-pal besieged and took, one after another. The rebel fell into his brother's hands, and suffered a punishment more terrible than any that the relentless conqueror had as yet inflicted on his captured enemies. Others had been mutilated, or beheaded; Saul-Mugina was burnt.

The tie of blood, which was held to have aggravated the guilt of his rebellion, was not allowed to be pleaded in mitigation of his sentence.

A pause of some years' duration now occurred. The relations between a.s.syria and Susiana were unfriendly, but not actually hostile. Inda-bibi had given refuge to Nebo-bel-sumi at the time of Saul Mugina's discomfiture, and a.s.shur-bani-pal repeatedly but vainly demanded the surrender of the refugee. He did not, however, attempt to enforce his demand by an appeal to arms; and Inda-bibi might have retained his kingdom in peace, had not domestic troubles arisen to disturb him. He was conspired against by the commander of his archers, a second Umman-aldas, who killed him and occupied his throne. Many pretenders, at the same time, arose in different parts of the country; and a.s.shur-bani-pal, learning how Elam was distracted, determined on a fresh effort to conquer it. He renewed his demand for the surrender of Nebo-bel-sumi, who would have been given up had he not committed suicide. Not content with this success, he (ab. B.C. 645) invaded Elam, besieged and took Bit-Inibi, which had been strongly fortified, and drove Umunan-aldas out of the plain country into the mountains. Susa and Badaca, together with twenty-four other cities, fell into his power; and Western Elam being thus at his disposal, he placed it under the government of Tammarit, who, after his flight from Babylonia, had become a refugee at the a.s.syrian court. Umman-aldas retained the sovereignty of Eastern Elam.

But it was not long before fresh changes occurred. Tammarit, finding himself little more than puppet-king in the hands of the a.s.syrians, formed a plot to ma.s.sacre all the foreign troops left to garrison this country, and so to make himself an independent monarch. His intentions, however, were discovered, and the plot failed. The a.s.syrians seized him, put him in bonds, and sent him to Nineveh. Western Elam pa.s.sed under purely military rule, and suffered, it is probable, extreme severities.

Under these circ.u.mstances, Umman-aldas took heart, and made ready, in the fastnesses to which he had fled, for another and a final effort.

Having levied a vast army, he, in the spring of the next year, made himself once more master of Bit-Imbi, and, establis.h.i.+ng himself there, prepared to resist the a.s.syrians. Their forces shortly appeared; and, unable to hold the place against their a.s.saults, Umman-aldas evacuated it with his troops, and fought a retreating fight all the way back to Susa, holding the various strong towns and rivers in succession.

Gallant, however, as was his resistance it proved ineffectual. The lines of defence which he chose were forced, one after another; and finally both Susa and Badaca were taken, and the country once more lay at a.s.shur-bani-pal's mercy. All the towns made their submission.

a.s.shur-bani-pal, burning with anger at their revolt, plundered the capital of its treasures, and gave the other cities up to be spoiled by his soldiers for the s.p.a.ce of a month and twenty-three days. He then formally abolished Susianian independence, and attached the country as a province to the a.s.syrian empire. Thus ended the Susianian war, after it had lasted, with brief interruptions, for the s.p.a.ce of (probably) twelve years.

The full occupation given to the a.s.syrian arms by this long struggle encouraged revolt in other quarters. It was probably about the time when a.s.shur-bani-pal was engaged in the thick of the contest with Umman-ibi and Saul-Mugina that Psammetichus declared himself independent in Egypt, and commenced a war against the princes who remained faithful to their a.s.syrian suzerain. Gyges, too, in the far north-west, took the opportunity to break with the formidable power with which he had recently thought it prudent to curry favor, and sent aid to the Egyptian rebel, which rendered him effective service. Egypt freed herself from the a.s.syrian yoke, and entered on the prosperous period which is known as that of the twenty-sixth (Saite) dynasty. Gyges was less fortunate.

a.s.sailed shortly by a terrible enemy, which swept with resistless force over his whole land, he lost his life in the struggle. a.s.syria was well and quickly avenged; and Ardys, the new monarch, hastened to resume the deferential att.i.tude toward a.s.shur-bani-pal which his father had unwisely relinquished.

a.s.shur-bani-pal's next important war was against the Arabs. Some of the desert tribes had, as already mentioned, lent a.s.sistance to Saul-Mugina during his revolt against his suzerain, and it was to punish this audacity that a.s.shur-bani-pal undertook his expedition. His princ.i.p.al enemy was a certain Vaiteha, who had for allies Natun, or Nathan, king of the Nabathivans, and Ammu-ladin, king of Kedar. The fighting seems to have extended along the whole country bordering the Euphrates valley from the Persian Gulf to Syria, and thence southwards by Damascus to Petra. Petra itself, Muhab (or Moab), Hudumimtukrab (Edom), Zaharri (perhaps Zoar), and several other cities were taken by the a.s.syrians.

The final battle was fought at a place called Kutkhuruna, in he mountains near Damascus, where the Arabians were defeated with great slaughter, and the two chief, who had led the Arab contingent to the a.s.sistance of Saul-Mugina were made prisoners by the a.s.syrians.

a.s.shur-bani-pal had them conducted to Nineveh, and there publicly executed.

The annals of a.s.shur-bani-pal here terminate. They exhibit him to us as a warrior more enterprising and more powerful than any of his predecessors, and as one who enlarged in almost every direction the previous limits of the empire. In Egypt he completed the work which his father Esar-haddon had begun, and established the a.s.syrian dominion for some years, not only at Sais and at Memphis, but at Thebes. In Asia Minor he carried the a.s.syrian arms far beyond any former king, conquering large tracts which had never before been invaded, and extending the reputation of his greatness to the extreme western limits of the continent. Against his northern neighbors he contended with unusual success, and towards the close of his reign he reckoned, not only the Minni, but the Urarda, or true Armenians, among his tributaries. Towards the south, he added to the empire the great country of Susiana, never subdued until his reign: and on the west, he signally chastised if he did not actually conquer, the Arabs.

To his military ardor a.s.shur-bani-pal added a pa.s.sionate addiction to the pleasure of the chase. Lion-hunting was his especial delight.

Sometimes along the banks of reedy streams, sometimes borne mid-channel in his pleasure galley, he sought the king of beasts in his native haunts, roused him by means of hounds and beaters from his lair, and despatched him with his unerring arrows. Sometimes he enjoyed the sport in his own park of paradise. Large and fierce beasts, brought from a distance, were placed in traps about the grounds, and on his approach were set free from their confinement, while he drove among them in his chariot, letting fly his shafts at each with a strong and steady hand, which rarely failed to attain the mark it aimed at. Aided only by two or three attendants armed with spears, he would encounter the terrific spring of the bolder beasts, who rushed frantically at the royal marksman and endeavored to tear him from the chariot-board. Sometimes he would even voluntarily quit this vantage-ground, and, engaging with the brutes on the same level, without the protection of armor, in his everyday dress, with a mere fillet upon his head, he would dare a close combat, and smite them with sword or spear through the heart.

When the supply of lions fell short, or when he was satiated with this kind of sport. a.s.shur-bani-pal would vary his occupation, and content himself with game of an inferior description. Wild bulls were probably no longer found in a.s.syria or the adjacent countries, so that he was precluded from the sport which, next to the chase of the lion occupied and delighted the earlier monarchs. He could indulge, however, freely in the chase of the wild a.s.s still to this day a habitant of the Mesopotamian region; and he would hunt the stag, the hind, and the ibex or wild goat. In these tamer kinds of sport he seems, however, to have indulged only occasionally--as a light relaxation scarcely worthy of a great king.

a.s.shur-bani-pal is the only one of the a.s.syrian monarchs to whom we can ascribe a real taste for learning and literature. The other kings were content to leave behind them some records of the events of their reigns, inscribed on cylinders, slabs, bulls, or lions, and a few dedicatory inscriptions, addresses to the G.o.ds whom they especially wors.h.i.+pped.

a.s.shur-bani-pal's literary tastes were far more varied--indeed they were all-embracing. It seems to have been under his direction that the vast collection of clay tablets--a sort of Royal Library--was made at Nineveh, from which the British Museum has derived perhaps the most valuable of its treasures. Comparative vocabularies, lists of deities and their epithets, chronological lists of kings and eponyms, records of astronomical observations, grammars, histories, scientific works of various kinds, seems to have been composed in the reign, and probably at the bidding of this prince, who devoted to their preservation certain chambers in the palace of his grandfather, where they were found by Mr.

Layard. The clay tablets on which they were inscribed lay here in such mult.i.tudes in some instances entire, but more commonly broken into fragments--that they filled the chambers _to the height of a foot or more from the floor_. Mr. Layard observes with justice that "the doc.u.ments thus discovered at Nineveh probably exceed [in amount of writing] all that has yet been afforded by the monuments of Egypt." They have yielded of late years some most interesting results, and will probably long continue to be a mine of almost inexhaustible wealth to the cuneiform scholar.

As a builder, a.s.shur-bani-pal aspired to rival, if not even to excel, the greatest of the monarchs who had preceded him. His palace was built on the mound of Koyunjik, within a few hundred yards of the magnificent erection of his grandfather, with which he was evidently not afraid to challenge comparison. It was built on a plan unlike any adopted by former kings. The main building consisted of three arms branching from at common centre, and thus in its general shape resembled a gigantic T.

The central point was reached by a long ascending gallery lined with sculptures, which led from a gateway, with rooms attached, at a corner of the great court, first a distance of 190 feet in a direction parallel to the top bar of the T, and then a distance of 80 feet in a direction at right angles to this, which brought it down exactly to the central point whence the arms branched. The entire building was thus a sort of cross, with one long arm projecting from the top towards the left or west. The princ.i.p.al apartments were in the lower limb of the cross. Here was a grand hall, running nearly the whole length of the limb, at least 145 feet long by 28 feet broad, opening towards the east on a great court, paved chiefly with the exquisite patterned slabs of which a specimen has already been given, and communicating towards the west with a number of smaller rooms, and through them with a second court, which looked towards the south-west and the south. The next largest apartment was in the right or eastern arm of the cross. It was a hall 108 feet long by 24 feet wide, divided by a broad doorway in which were two pillar-bases, into a square antechamber of 24 feet each way, and an inner apartment about 80 feet in length. Neither of the two arms of the cross was completely explored; and it is uncertain whether they extended to the extreme edge of the eastern and western courts, thus dividing each of there into two; or whether they only reached into the courts a certain distance. a.s.suming the latter view as the more probable, the two courts would have measured respectively 310 and 330 feet from the north-west to the south-east, while they must have been from 230 to 250 feet in the opposite direction. From the comparative privacy of the buildings, and from the character of the sculptures, it appears probable that the left or western arm of the cross formed the hareem of the monarch.

The most remarkable feature in the great palace of a.s.shur-bani-pal was the beauty and elaborate character of the ornamentation. The courts were paved with large slabs elegantly patterned. The doorways had sometimes arched tops beautifully adorned with rosettes, lotuses, etc. The chambers and pa.s.sages were throughout lined with alabaster slabs, bearing reliefs designed with wonderful spirit, and executed with the most extraordinary minuteness and delicacy. It was here that were found all those exquisite hunting scenes which have furnished its most interesting ill.u.s.trations to the present history. Here, too, were the representations of the private life of the monarch, of the trees and flowers of the palace garden, of the royal galley with its two banks of oars, of the libation over four dead lions, of the temple with pillars supported on lions, and of various bands of musicians, some of which have been already given. Combined with these peaceful scenes and others of a similar character, as particularly a long train, with game, nets, and dogs, returning from the chase, which formed the adornment of a portion of the ascending pa.s.sage, were a number of views of sieges and battles, representing the wars of the monarch in Susiana and elsewhere.

Reliefs of a character very similar to these last were found by Mr.

Layard in certain chambers of the palace of Sennacherib, which had received their ornamentation from a.s.shur-bani-pal. They were remarkable for the unusual number and small size of the figures, for the variety and spirit of the att.i.tudes, and for the careful finish of all the little details of the scenes represented upon them. Deficient in grouping, and altogether dest.i.tute of any artistic unity, they yet give probably the best representation that has come down to us of the confused _melee_ of an a.s.syrian battle, showing us at one view, as they do, all the various phases of the flight and pursuit, the capture and treatment of the prisoners, the gathering of the spoil, and the cutting off the heads of the slain. These reliefs form now a portion of our National Collection. A good idea may be formed of them from Mr. Layard's Second Series of Monuments, where they form the subject of five elaborate engravings.

Besides his own great palace at Koyun-jik, and his additions to the palace of his grandfather at the same place, a.s.shur-bani-pal certainly constructed some building, or buildings, at Nebbi Yunus, where slabs inscribed with his name and an account of his wars have been found. If we may regard him as the real monarch whom the Greeks generally intended by their Sardanapalus, we may say that, according to some cla.s.sical authors, he was the builder of the city of Tarsus in Cilicia, and likewise of the neighboring city of Anchialus; though writers of more authority tells us that Tarsus, at any rate, was built by Sennacherib.

It seems further to have been very generally believed by the Greeks that the tomb of Sardanapalus was in this neighborhood. They describe it as a monument of some height, crowned by a statue of the monarch, who appeared to be in the act of snapping his fingers. On the stone base was an inscription in a.s.syrian characters, of which they believed the sense to run as follows:--"Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, built Tarsus and Anchialus in one day. Do thou, O stranger, eat, and drink, and amuse thyself; for all the rest of human life is not worth so much as _this_"--"this" meaning the sound which the king was supposed to be making with his fingers. It appears probable that there was some figure of this kind, with an a.s.syrian inscription below it, near Anchialus; but, as we can scarcely suppose that the Greeks could read the cuneiform writing, the presumed translation of the inscription would seem to be valueless. Indeed, the very different versions of the legend which are given by different writers sufficiently indicate that they had no real knowledge of its purport. We may conjecture that the monument was in reality a stele containing the king in an arched frame, with the right hand raised above the left, which is the ordinary att.i.tude, and an inscription below commemorating the occasion of its erection. Whether it was really set up by this king or by one of his predecessors, we cannot say. The Greeks, who seem to have known more of a.s.shur-bani-pal than of any other a.s.syrian monarch, in consequence of his war in Asia Minor and his relations with Gyges and Ardys, are not unlikely to have given his name to any a.s.syrian monument which they found in these parts, whether in the local tradition it was regarded as his work or no.

Such, then, are the traditions of the Greeks with respect to this monarch. The stories told by Ctesias of a king, to whom he gives the same name, and repeated from him by later writers, are probably not intended to have any reference to a.s.shur-bani-pal, the son of Esar-haddon, but rather refer to his successor, the last king. Even Ctesias could scarcely have ventured to depict to his countrymen the great a.s.shur-bani-pal, the vanquisher of Tirhakah, the subduer of the tribes beyond the Taurus, the powerful and warlike monarch whose friends.h.i.+p was courted by the rich and prosperous Gyges, king of Lydia, as a mere voluptuary, who never put his foot outside the palace gates, but dwelt in the seraglio, doing woman's work, and often dressed as a woman. The character of a.s.shur-bani-pal stands really in the strongest contrast to the description--be it a portrait, or be it a mere sketch from fancy--which Ctesias gives of his Sardanapalus. a.s.shur-bani-pal, was beyond a doubt one of a.s.syria's greatest kings. He subdued Egypt and Susiana; he held quiet possession of the kingdom of Babylon; he carried his arms deep into Armenia; he led his troops across the Taurus, and subdued the barbarous tribes of Asia Minor. When he was not engaged in important wars, he chiefly occupied himself in the chase of the lion, and in the construction and ornamentation of temples and palaces. His glory was well known to the Greeks. He was no doubt one of the "two kings called Sardanapalus," celebrated by h.e.l.lanicus; he must have been "the warlike Sardanapalus" of Cailisthenes; Herodotus spoke of his great wealth; and Aristophanes used his name as a by-word for magnificence. In his reign the a.s.syrian dominions reached their greatest extent, a.s.syrian art culminated, and the empire seemed likely to extend itself over the whole of the East. It was then, indeed, that a.s.syria most completely answered the description of the Prophet--"The a.s.syrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great; the deep set him up on high with her rivers running about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field.

Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long, because of the mult.i.tude of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of the heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt _all great nations_. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of G.o.d could not hide him; the fir-trees were not like his boughs; and the chestnut-trees were not like his branches; _nor any tree in the garden of G.o.d was like unto him in his beauty_."

In one respect, however, a.s.syria, it is to be feared, had made but little advance beyond the spirit of a comparatively barbarous time. The "lion" still "tore in pieces for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin."

Advancing civilization, more abundant literature, improved art, had not softened the tempers of the a.s.syrians, nor rendered them more tender and compa.s.sionate in their treatment of captured enemies. Sennacherib and Esar-haddon show, indeed, in this respect, some superiority to former kings. They frequently spared their prisoners, even when rebels, and seem seldom to have had recourse to extreme punishments. But a.s.shur-bani-pal reverted to the antique system of executions, mutilations, and tortures. We see on his bas-reliefs the unresisting enemy thrust through with the spear, the tongue torn from the mouth of the captive accused of blasphemy, the rebel king beheaded on the field of battle, and the prisoner brought to execution with the head of a friend or brother hung round his neck. We see the scourgcrs preceding the king as his regular attendants, with their whips pa.s.sed through their girdles; we behold the operation of flaying performed either upon living or dead men; we observe those who are about to be executed first struck on the face by the executioner's fist. Altogether we seem to have evidence, not of mere severity, which may sometimes be a necessary or even a merciful policy, but of a barbarous cruelty, such as could not fail to harden and brutalize alike those who witnessed and those who inflicted it. Nineveh, it is plain, still deserved the epithet of "a b.l.o.o.d.y city," or "a city of bloods." a.s.shur-bani-pal was harsh, vindictive, unsparing, careless of human suffering--nay, glorying in his shame, he not merely practised cruelties, but handed the record of them down to posterity by representing them in all their horrors upon his palace walls.

It has been generally supposed that a.s.shur-bani-pal died about B.C. 648 or 647, in which case he would have continued to the end of his life a prosperous and mighty king. But recent discoveries render it probable that his reign was extended to a much greater length--that, in fact, he is to be identified with the Cinnelada.n.u.s of Ptolemy's Canon, who held the throne of Babylon from B.C. 647 to 626. If this be so, we must place in the later years of the reign of a.s.shur-bani-pal the commencement of a.s.syria's decline--the change whereby she pa.s.sed from the a.s.sailer to the a.s.sailed, from the undisputed primacy of Western Asia to a doubtful and precarious position.

This change was owing, in the first instance, to the rise upon her borders of an important military power in the centralized monarchy, established, about B.C. 640, in the neighboring territory of Media.

The Medes had, it is probable, been for some time growing in strength, owing to the recent arrival in their country of fresh immigrants from the far East. Discarding the old system of separate government and village autonomy, they had joined together and placed themselves under a single monarch; and about the year B.C. 634, when a.s.shur-bani-pal had been king for thirty-four years, they felt themselves sufficiently strong to undertake an expedition against Nineveh. Their first attack, however, failed utterly. Phraortes, or whoever may have been the real leader of the invading army, was completely defeated by the a.s.syrians; his forces were cut to pieces, and he himself was among the slain.

Still, the very fact that the Medes could now take the offensive and attack a.s.syria was novel and alarming; it showed a new condition of things in these parts, and foreboded no good to the power which was evidently on the decline and in danger of losing its preponderance. An enterprising warrior would doubtless have followed up the defeat of the invader by attacking him in his own country before he could recover from the severe blow dealt him; but the aged a.s.syrian monarch appears to have been content with repelling his foe, and made no effort to retaliate.

Cgaxares, the successor of the slain Median king, effected at his leisure such arrangements as he thought necessary before repeating his predecessor's attempt. When they were completed--perhaps in B.C. 632--he led his troops into a.s.syria, defeated the a.s.syrian forces in the field, and, following up his advantage, appeared before Nineveh and closely invested the town. Nineveh would perhaps have fallen in this year; but suddenly and unexpectedly a strange event recalled the Median monarch to his own country, where a danger threatened him previously unknown in Western Asia.

When at the present day we take a general survey of the world's past history, we see that, by a species of fatality--by a law, that is, whose workings we cannot trace--there issue from time to time out of the frozen bosons of the North vast hordes of uncouth savages--brave, hungry, countless--who swarm into the fairer southern regions determinedly, irresistibly; like locusts winging their flight into a green land. How such mult.i.tudes come to be propagated in countries where life is with difficulty sustained, we do not know; why the impulse suddenly seizes them to quit their old haunts and move steadily in a given direction, we cannot say: but we see that the phenomenon is one of constant recurrence, and we therefore now scarcely regard it as being curious or strange at all. In Asia. Cimmerians, Scythians, Parthians, Mongols, Turks; in Europe, Gauls, Goths, Huns, Avars, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards, Bulgarians, have successively ill.u.s.trated the law, and made us familiar with its operation. But there was a time in history before the law had come into force; and its very existence must have been then unsuspected. Even since it began to operate, it has so often undergone prolonged suspension, that the wisest may be excused if, under such circ.u.mstances, they cease to bear it in mind, and are as much startled when a fresh ill.u.s.tration of it occurs, as if the like had never happened before. Probably there is seldom an occasion of its coming into play which does not take men more or less by surprise, and rivet their attention by its seeming strangeness and real unexpectedness.

If Western Asia had ever, in the remote ages before the a.s.syrian monarchy was established, been subject to invasions of this character--which is not improbable--at any rate so long a period had elapsed since the latest of them, that in the reigns of a.s.shur-pani-pal and Cyaxares they were wholly forgotten and the South reposed in happy unconsciousness of a danger which might at any time have burst upon it, had the Providence which governs the world so willed. The Asiatic steppes had long teemed with a nomadic population, of a war-like temper, and but slightly attached to its homes, which ignorance of its own strength and of the weakness and wealth of its neighbors had alone prevented from troubling the great empires of the South. Geographic difficulties had at once prolonged the period of Ignorance, and acted as obstructions, if ever the idea arose of pus.h.i.+ng exploring parties into the southern regions; the Caucasus, the Caspian, the sandy deserts of Khiva and Kharesm, and the great central Asiatic mountain-chains, forming barriers which naturally restrained the northern hordes from progressing in this direction. But a time had now arrived when these causes were no longer to operate; the line of demarcation which had so long separated North and South was to be crossed; the flood-gates were to be opened, and the stream of northern emigration was to pour itself in a resistless torrent over the fair and fertile regions from which it had hitherto been barred out. Perhaps population had increased beyond all former precedent; perhaps a spirit of enterprise had arisen; possibly some slight accident--the exploration of a hunter hard pressed for food, the chattering tongue of a merchant, the invitation of a traitor--may have dispelled the ignorance of earlier times, and brought to the knowledge of the hardy North the fact that beyond the mountains and the seas, which they had always regarded as the extreme limit of the world, there lay a rich prey inviting the coming of the spoiler.

The condition of the northern barbarians, less than two hundred years after this time, has been graphically portrayed by two of the most observant of the Greeks, who themselves visited the Steppe country to learn the character and customs of the people. Where civilization is unknown, changes are so slow and slight, that we may reasonably regard the descriptions of Herodotus and Hippocrates, though drawn in the fifth century before our era, as applying, in all their main points, to the same race two hundred years earlier. These writers describe the Scythians as a people coa.r.s.e and gross in their habits, with large fleshy bodies, loose joints, soft swollen bellies, and scanty hair. They never washed themselves; their nearest approach to ablution was a vapor-bath, or the application of a paste to their bodies which left them glossy on its removal. They lived either in wagons, or in felt tents of a simple and rude construction; and subsisted on mare's milk and cheese, to which the boiled flesh of horses and cattle was added, as a rare delicacy, occasionally. In war their customs were very barbarous.

The Scythian who slew an enemy in battle immediately proceeded to drink his blood. He then cut off the head, which he exhibited to his king in order to obtain his share of the spoil; after which he stripped the scalp from the skull and hung it on his bridle-rein as a trophy.

Sometimes he flayed his dead enemy's right arm and hand, and used the skin as a covering for his quiver. The upper portion of the skull he commonly made into a drinking-cup. The greater part of each day he spent on horseback, in attendance on the huge herds of cattle which he pastured. His favorite weapon was the bow, which he used as he rode, shooting his arrows with great precision. He generally carried, besides his bow and arrows, a short spear or javelin, and sometimes bore also a short sword or a battleaxe. [PLATE CXLVI., Fig. 3.]

The nation of the Scythians comprised within it a number of distinct tribes. At the head of all was a royal tribe, corresponding to the "Golden Horde" of the Mongols, which was braver and more numerous than any other, and regarded all the remaining tribes in the light of slaves.

To this belonged the families of the kings, who ruled by hereditary right, and seem to have exercised a very considerable authority. We often hear of several kings as bearing rule at the same time; but there is generally some indication of disparity, from which we gather that--in times of danger at any rate--the supreme power was really always lodged in the hands of a single man.

The religion of the Scythians was remarkable, and partook of the barbarity which characterized most of their customs. They wors.h.i.+pped the Sun and Moon, Fire, Air, Earth, Water, and a G.o.d whom Herodotus calls Hercules. But their princ.i.p.al religious observance was the wors.h.i.+p of the naked sword. The country was parcelled out into districts, and in every district was a huge pile of brushwood, serving as a temple to the neighborhood, at the top of which was planted an antique sword or scimitar. On a stated day in each year solemn sacrifices, human and animal, were offered at these shrines; and the warm blood of the victims was carried up from below and poured upon the weapon. The human victims--prisoners taken in war--were hewn to pieces at the foot of the mound, and their limbs wildly tossed on high by the votaries, who then retired, leaving the b.l.o.o.d.y fragments where they chanced to fall. The Scythians seem to have had no priest caste; but they believed in divination; and the diviners formed a distinct cla.s.s which possessed important powers. They were sent for whenever the king was ill, to declare the cause of his illness, which they usually attributed to the fact that an individual, whom they named, had sworn falsely by the Royal Hearth. Those accused in this way, if found guilty by several bodies of diviners, were beheaded for the offence, and their original accusers received their property. It must have been important to keep on good terms with persons who wielded such a power as this.

Such were the most striking customs of the Scythian people, or at any rate of the Scythians of Herodotus, who were the dominant race over a large portion of the Steppe country. Coa.r.s.e and repulsive in their appearance, fierce in their tempers, savage in their habits, not individually very brave, but powerful by their numbers, and by a mode of warfare which was difficult to meet, and in which long use had given them great expertness, they were an enemy who might well strike alarm even into a nation so strong and warlike as the Medes. Pouring through the pa.s.ses of the Caucasus--whence coming or what intending none knew--horde after horde of Scythians blackened the rich plains of the South. On they came, as before observed, like a flight of locusts, countless, irresistible--swarming into Iberia and Upper Media--finding the land before them a garden, and leaving it behind them a howling wilderness. Neither age nor s.e.x would be spared. The inhabitants of the open country and of the villages, if they did not make their escape to high mountain tops or other strongholds, would be ruthlessly ma.s.sacred by the invaders, or at best, forced to become their slaves. The crops would be consumed, the herds swept off or destroyed, the villages and homesteads burnt, the whole country made a scene of desolation. Their ravages would resemble those of the Huns when they poured into Italy, or of the Bulgarians when they overran the fairest provinces of the Byzantine Empire. In most instances the strongly fortified towns would resist them, unless they had patience to sit down before their walls and by a prolonged blockade to starve them into submission. Sometimes, before things reached this point, they might consent to receive a tribute and to retire. At other times, convinced that by perseverance they would reap a rich reward, they may have remained till the besieged city fell, when there must have ensued an indescribable scene of havoc, rapine, and bloodshed. According to the broad expression of Herodotus, the Scythians were masters of the whole of Western Asia from the Caucasus to the borders of Egypt for the s.p.a.ce of twenty-eight years.

This statement is doubtless an exaggeration; but still it would seem to be certain that the great invasion of which he speaks was not confined to Media, but extended to the adjacent countries of Armenia and a.s.syria, whence it spread to Syria and Palestine. The hordes probably swarmed down from Media through the Zagros pa.s.ses into the richest portion of a.s.syria, the flat country between the mountains and the Tigris. Many of the old cities, rich with the acc.u.mulated stores of ages, were besieged, and perhaps taken, and their palaces wantonly burnt, by the barbarous invaders. The tide then swept on. Wandering from district to district, plundering everywhere, settling nowhere, the clouds of horse pa.s.sed over Mesopotamia, the force of the invasion becoming weaker as it spread itself, until in Syria it reached its term through the policy of the Egyptian king, Psammetichus. This monarch, who was engaged in the siege of Ashdod, no sooner heard of the approach of a great Scythian host, which threatened to overrun Egypt, and had advanced as far as Ascalon, than he sent amba.s.sadors to their leader and prevailed on him by rich gifts to abstain from his enterprise. From this time the power of the invaders seems to have declined. Their strength could not but suffer by the long series of battles, sieges, and skirmishes in which they were engaged year after year against enemies in nowise contemptible; it would likewise deteriorate through their excesses; and it may even have received some injury from intestine quarrels. After awhile, the nations whom they had overrun, whose armies they had defeated, and whose cities they had given to the flames, began to recover themselves. Cyaxares, it is probable, commenced an aggressive war against such of the invaders as had remained within the limits of his dominions, and soon drove them beyond his borders. Other kings may have followed his example. In a little while long, probably, before the twenty-eight years of Herodotus had expired--the Scythian power was completely broken. Many bands may have returned across the Caucasus into the Steppe country. Others submitted, and took service under the native rulers of Asia. Great numbers were slain and except in a province of Armenia which henceforward became known as Sacasene, and perhaps in one Syrian town, which we find called Scythopolis, the invaders left no trace of their brief but terrible inroad.

If we have been right in supposing that the Scythian attack fell with as much severity on the a.s.syrians as on any other Asiatic people, we can scarcely be in error if we ascribe to this cause the rapid and sudden decline of the empire at this period. The country had been ravaged and depopulated, the provinces had been plundered, many of the great towns had been taken and sacked, the palaces of the old kings had been burnt, and all the gold and silver that was not hid away had been carried off.

a.s.syria, when the Scythians quitted her, was but the shadow of her former self. Weak and exhausted, she seemed to invite a permanent conqueror. If her limits had not much shrunk, if the provinces still acknowledged her authority, it was from habit rather than from fear, or because they too had suffered greatly from the northern barbarians. We find Babylon subject to a.s.syria to the very last; and we seem to see that Judaea pa.s.sed from the rule of the a.s.syrians under that of the Babylonians, without any interval of independence or any need of re-conquest. But if these two powers at the south-eastern and the south-western extremities of the empire continued faithful, the less distant nations could scarcely have thrown off the yoke.

a.s.shur-bani-pal, then, on the withdrawal of the barbarians, had still an empire to rule, and he may be supposed to have commenced some attempts at re-organizing and re-invigorating the governmental system to which the domination of the Scythe must have given a rude shock. But he had not time to effect much. In B.C. 626 he died, after a reign of forty-two years, and was succeeded by his son, a.s.shur-emid-ilin, whom the Greeks called Saracus. Of this prince we possess but few native records; and, unless it should be thought that the picture which Ctesias gave of the character and conduct of his last a.s.syrian king deserves to be regarded as authentic history, and to be attached to this monarch, we must confess to an almost equal dearth of cla.s.sical notices of his life and actions. Scarcely anything has come down to us from his time but a few legends on bricks, from which it appears that he was the builder of the south-east edifice at Nimrud, a construction presenting some remarkable but no very interesting features. The cla.s.sical notices, apart from the tales which Ctesias originated, are limited to a few sentences in Abydenus, and a word or two in Polyhistor. Thus nearly the same obscurity which enfolds the earlier portion of the history gathers about the monarch in whose person the empire terminated; and instead of the ample details which have crowded upon us now for many consecutive reigns, we shall be reduced to a meagre outline, partly resting upon conjecture, in our portraiture of this last king.

Saracus, as the monarch may be termed after Abydenus, ascended the throne at a most difficult and dangerous crisis in his country's history. a.s.syria was exhausted; and perhaps half depopulated by the Scythic ravages. The bands which united the provinces to the sovereign state, though not broken, had been weakened, and rebellion threatened to break out in various quarters. Ruin had overtaken many of the provincial towns; and it would require a vast outlay to restore their public buildings. But the treasury was wellnigh empty, and did not allow the new monarch to adopt in his buildings the grand and magnificent style of former kings. Still Saracus attempted something. At Calah he began the construction of a building which apparently was intended for a palace, but which contrasts most painfully with the palatial erections of former kings. The waning glory of the monarchy was made patent both to the nation and to strangers by an edifice where coa.r.s.e slabs of common limestone, unsculptured and uninscribed, replaced the alabaster bas-reliefs of former times; and where a simple plaster above the slabs was the subst.i.tute for the richly-patterned enamelled bricks of Sargon, Sennacherib, and a.s.shur-bani-pal. A set of small chambers, of which no one exceeded forty-five feet in length and twenty-five feet in its greatest breadth, sufficed for the last a.s.syrian king, whose shrunken Court could no longer have filled the vast halls of his ancestors. The Nimrud palace of Saracus seems to have covered less than one-half of the s.p.a.ce occupied by any former palace upon the mound; it had no grand facade, no magnificent gateway; the rooms, curiously misshapen, as if taste had declined with power and wealth, were mostly small and inconvenient, running in suites which opened into one another without any approaches from courts or pa.s.sages, roughly paved with limestone flags, and composed of sun-dried bricks faced with limestone and plaster. That Saracus should have been reduced even to contemplate residing in this poor and mean dwelling is the strongest possible proof of a.s.syria's decline and decay at a period preceding the great war which led to her destruction.

It is possible that this edifice may not have been completed at the time of Saracus's death, and in that case we may suppose that its extreme rudeness would have received certain embellishments had he lived to finish the structure. While it was being erected, he must have resided elsewhere. Apparently, he held his court at Nineveh during this period; and was certainly there that he made his last arrangements for defence, and his final stand against the enemy, who took advantage of his weak condition to press forward the conquest of the empire.