King Mesha's dearly-bought success in the war
of deliverance (see p. 126), had again become a
formidable neighbor and harassed them in the
south-east ; but their most ruthless foes were the
icings of Damascus. Hazael and his son, Ben-
HADAD III., gradually conquered and annexed al-
most the whole country east of the Jordan the
rich, hilly woodland and pasture lands of Gilead
and Bashan. Of all the might which had enabled
228 THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
Ahab to send so great a force into the field (see
pp. 126-127), nothing was left but 50 horsemen,
10 chariots, and 10,000 footmen : " for the king
of Syria destroyed them and made them like dust
in the threshing" (Second Kings, xiii. 7). The
same fate would have befallen Judah, but that the
king bought off Hazael, when he already had " set
his face to go up to Jerusalem : " he " took all the
hallowed things that his fathers, kings of Judah,
had dedicated, and his own hallowed things, and
all the gold that was found in the treasures of the
house of the Lord, and of the king's house, and
sent it to Hazael, king of Syria ; and he went away
from Jerusalem " (Second Kings, xii. 18). But the
fate from which the king of Judah had saved the
sacred city at such heavy cost, he drew on it him-
self at the hands of the king of Israel, whom he
unwisely and gratuitously provoked into a war
which ended most disastrously for himself. u Judah
was put to the worse before Israel, and they fled
every man to his tent." The king of Judah himself
was made captive ; the king of Israel entered Jeru-
salem by a breach made in the city wall, "and he
took all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that
were found in the house of the Lord and in the treas-
ures*of the king's house, the hostages also, and re-
turned to Samaria " (Second Kings, xiv. 14). It
strikes one as a little singular that there should have
been so much to take, after we have just been told
that all had been taken out of both temple and royal
treasure-house to be given to the king of Syria.
This only shows that one must be cautious in dealing
THE SECOND EMPIRE.
229
with Oriental phraseology and not accept sweeping
statements without mental reservations.
9. Those were dreary times for both Jewish states
which, not content with the wars they had to sup-
port unceasingly against all their surrounding neigh-
bors, could not keep the peace with each other, so
great was their ever-increasing mutual hatred and
jealousy. But Judah, at least, with the exception of
an occasional family tragedy and family conspiracy,
enjoyed some measure of internal security under
the unchanging rule of the House of David, while
Israel, founded by an adventurer, was fated from
the first to be the prize of any hand bold enough
to seize the crown, and at this period had finally
plunged into a tangle of lawlessness and civil
strife, to which there was only one possible end
rapid and inglorious dissolution. And indeed,
scarcely had Menahem, soon after his abject sub-
mission, rather suddenly died and his son Peka-
HIAH ascended the throne, when the latter was in
his turn murdered by " PEKAH, his captain," son of
Remaliah, who straightway made alliance with the
new king of Syria, Rezin, that they might jointly
iall on Judah. The king who then reigned at Jeru-
salem was Ahaz, very young and newly come to
power. His inexperience may have been an incen-
tive to his enemies, who, moreover, had reason to
consider him as being in the bad graces of the
Assyrian conqueror, since the name of the king of
Judah was not among those of the princes who did
homage to him in 738. Yet the grandfather of
Ahaz, Azariah (also called Uzziah), is mentioned
230
THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
in an inscription as having paid tribute some time dur-
ing the long siege of Arpad, probably during the last
year of his own reign. The absence of Judah from
among the tribute-paying countries must, therefore,
have been looked upon in the light of a revolt, and
is the more significant, that its immediate neigh-
bors, Edom, Moab, and Amnion, are also absent.
This seems to point to some feeble attempt of
Judah at a temporary defensive alliance with her
hereditary and unrelenting foes. Such an attempt
at independence at that time, under the very out-
stretched wings of the Assyrian lion, even as they
" filled the breadth of the land," was sheer folly.
The young king of Judah understood this, "and
his heart was moved, and the heart of his people,
as the trees of the forest are moved with the wind "
(Isaiah, vii. 2). But the prophet spoke comfort to
him in the name of Yahveh : " Be quiet ; fear not,
neither let thine heart be faint, because of these
two tails of firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin
of Syria and of the son of Remaliah, saying let us
go up against Judah and vex it, and let us make a
breach therein for us. . . . It shall not stand, neither
shall it come to pass " (Isaiah, viii. 4). " Before
the child " (who has just been born) " shall have
knowledge to cry, My father and my mother, the
riches of Damascus shall be carried away before the
king of Assyria" (ix. 11-12). "The Lord will cut
off from Israel, head and tail, palm-branch and rush
in one day." So Ahaz took heart, and of many
pressing evils chose the least, and averted the immi-
nent harm, at least for the time being, by imploring
THE SECOND EMPIRE. 23 1
the conqueror's assistance, for Judah was sore beset,
not only by Israel and Syria in the north, but by
Edom and the Philistines in the south. (See Second
Chronicles, xxviii. 17-18.) " So Ahaz sent messen-
gers to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, saying, I am
thy servant and thy son : come up and save me out
of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the
hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me."
Such a message would have been wasted breath,
unless weighted with great gifts ; so " Ahaz took
the silver and gold* that was found in the house of
the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house,
and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria.
And the king of Assyria hearkened to him "
(Second Kings, xv. 7-9).
10. We are not told where the messengers of
Ahaz found Tiglath-Pileser. The last two years he
had been away in the North and East, where disturb-
ances in Urartu and the Zagros claimed his personal
attention. Victorious as usual, he was, however, at
liberty to turn his mind once more to the affairs of
the West, which were shaping themselves very much
to his liking. This expedition, which all but dealt
Israel the long impending death-blow, is called in
the annotated Eponym Canon " To Philistia," prob-
ably because the king did pass through the Jewish
lands into those of the Philistines. Moreover, the
description very well covers what we would mean
by saying " To Palestine." Israel's resistance was
'Another version (Second Chronicles, xxviii. 21) says, "a por-
ti*M." This more moderate estimate must be the true one.
23^
THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
quickly broken. P'ekah was assassinated, perhaps for
having involved the country in this unequal struggle ;
perhaps for refusing to end it by submission. At any
rate, the usurper who succeeded him, HOSHEA, for-
mally acknowledged himself as the vassal of the king
of Assyria, holding the throne at his pleasure and
under him. Of this revolution, which surely took
place spontaneously and only sought the conquer-
or's sanction when accomplished, the Assyrian
claims all the credit : " Pakaha (Pekah), their
king, / killed!' he says ; " AUSI (Hoshea) I placed
Hoshea over tnem -" I n tne same vaunting spirit
kin^over d ne exaggerates the completeness of his
tribute a ?f conquest. " The distant land of Bit-
judak^73i f Khumri . . . . the whole of its inhabitants,
B,c * with their goods, I carried away to As-
shur." The biblical historians (Second Kings, xv. 29)
specify several cities and districts, making in all
about half of Israel, adding, however, in perfect ac-
cordance with the inscriptions, " and he carried them
captive to Assyria." There is another tribute-list
for this year (734 B.C.), which includes all the kings
so conspicuously absent from that of four years be-
fore Tahuhazi mat Jaudai (Ahaz of Tudah),
those of Ammon, Moab and Edom, a document
sufficiently eloquent in its bareness. The same list
contains the names of the kings of Arvad, Ascalon
and Gaza ; Tyre is omitted this time, and not with-
out reason, as we shall see.*
* This is one of the places where biblical chronology is hopelessly
at variance with the dates given by the monuments and the Eponym
Canon. The compiler of the Book of Kings says that Pekah reigned
THE SECOND EMPIRE. 233
1 1. Having delivered Ahaz from one of his foes,
and left him to reign in Jerusalem as his son and
servant, i. e., his humble vassal, Tiglath-Pileser turned
all his force against the other and more formidable
one, Rezin of Syria. The inscription wherein the
siege of Damascus (which lasted two years) and the
taking of it are described is unfortunately so fear-
fully mutilated that very few whole sentences can
be made out. There is enough, at all events, to
show that the Syrian army was completely routed,
chariots, infantry, cavalry and all; that Rezin, "to
save his life, took to flight all alone, and entered his
capital through the great gate ; " that Tiglath-Pileser
captured some of his captains alive and had them
impaled, then " shut him in like a bird in a cage,"
destroyed the magnificent plantations of trees " not
to be numbered," which surrounded the capital, " not
leaving as much as a single tree." All this confirms
and completes the simple statement in Second Kings
(xv. 9) : " And the king of Assyria went up against
Damascus and took it, and carried the people of it
captive to Kir (not identified) and slew Rezin."
twenty years. Now it has been seen that Menahem was still reigning
in 738, and Pekah was put to death, and succeeded by Hoshea in 734.
These dates, unequivocally established by the Canon (see Schrader's
u Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament," 1883, pp. 251-258,
and page 47$, leave no room for dispute. But there is nothing aston-
ishing in this, since the parallel dates given by the Bible historians
themselves for the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel often disagree.
Besides, as monuments, Canon, and Bible history entirely agree in the
date of a most important event, the fall of Samaria, we have hold
of a principal landmark, and the mutual confirmation of the different
sources can be pronounced amply satisfactory on the whole.
234
THE SECOND EMPIRE.
235
" And King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-
Pileser," further relates the Jewish annalist. Had
we a completer and more uninjured set of this
king's inscriptions, we should probably find that the
Jewish monarch came not alone to " meet " face to
face his terrible ally and master. It was becoming
an accepted custom for vassal and friendly sover-
eigns, not only to send their tributes and gifts to
any part of the empire where the king might be at
the moment, or even into enemies' countries, but to
gather at some important point where he might be
stopping for a longer time, to do him personal hom-
age. It is probable that such gatherings took place
by royal appointment and invitation, not to say
command, and that non-attendance would have been
looked upon as a mortal offence and breach of alle-
giance and punished accordingly. What a pity we
have no description of any of these princely convoca-
tions ! They must have been festive occasions, cele-
brated with a splendor and display of which we
would fain evoke a vivid picture before our minds'
eye, and we may fancy that the grim and dreaded
host would, if only out of vanity and policy, unbend
to outward graciousness and entertain his not always
willing guests right royally, even while making them
feel the rod and yoke. That the guests, on their
side, would not be behindhand with courtly demon-
strations and dissembling lip-homage stands to rea-
son, and we have an example in the flattery prac-
tised by King Ahaz of Judah, when he professed
such admiration for the royal portable altar at which
he saw Tiglath-Pileser sacrifice at Damascus, that he
236 THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
sent to the high-priest at Jerusalem " the fashion of
the altar and the pattern of it, according to all the
workmanship thereof," desiring him to order an
exact copy of it and set it up in the house of Yahveh
against his return, and to use it entirely, instead of
the old brazen altar of Solomon, which was placed
on one side for less important ministrations. And
when he returned to Jerusalem and saw that all had
been done according to his orders, he carried his im-
itation of Assyrian customs so far, that he " drew
near unto the altar, and offered thereon. And he
burnt his burnt-offering and his meal-offering, and
poured his drink-offering, and sprinkled the blood of
his peace-offerings upon the altar," although it was
contrary to Jewish custom for the king to officiate
himself.*
12. The contumacy of Tyre was neither for-
gotten nor condoned ; but the king's presence was
becoming necessary in other parts, and the West
was in no condition to inspire much fear, so he left
his Turtan to deal with the merchant city, and
inflict on her an enormous fine, while he himself
turned his steps once more to the South, for the
Chaldean princes were vigorously pushing their ag-
gressive policy against Babylonia, where they were
bent on establishing a Chaldean monarchy ; and not
unsuccessfully, for already one of their number,
* As Max Duncker judiciously remarks : " No one can seriously
mean to assert that Ahaz remodelled his own national worship and
changed his god's altar in imitation of Rezin the arch foe's of
both Judah and Assyria, who had but just been overthrown."
(" Geschichte des Alterthums," 5th edit. vol. ii., p. 318, note.)
g
H c/i
W H
ca W
P S
z w
I 5
& p
, f
THE SECOND EMPIRE. 237
UKINZIR, (corrupted by the Greeks into CHINZIROS),
was actually king of Babylon. It appears, therefore,
that Tiglath-Pileser was received by the capital
and the great Babylonian cities like a deliverer ; his
progress through the country was triumphal, and at
each ancient shrine he paid the customary sacri-
fices to the ancestral gods. His expedition against
the sea-side princes was, on the whole, successful.
Energetic it certainly was. One of the rebellious
princes was impaled before the gate of his own
city, which was then razed to the ground. Ukin-
zir's principality, too, was laid waste, but his capital,
Sapiya, could not be taken, and was entered at last,
not by force, but treaty, while Ukinzir continued to
reign at Babylon, jointly with Tiglath-Pileser for the
last four years of the latter's reign, at least nom-
inally ; in reality he probably was his obedient vassal.
At Sapiya the Assyrian held one of those royal
levees which were becoming an institution, and which
enabled the kings to number their servants and
adherents, and test their loyalty by that primitive
and fallacious test the splendor of the presents
they brought.
13. On this occasion the Assyrian received the vol-
untary submission of a very exalted and powerful
personage, MARDUK-HABAL-IDDIN (usually called
MERODACH-BALADAN, as his name is rendered in the
Bible), the ruler of BlT-YAKIN, the largest and
wealthiest of the Chaldean principalities, command-
ing so large an extent of coast on the Gulf, and
thereby affording such commercial advantages that
the sons of the House of Yakin went by the flattering
38
THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
designation, " Kings of the Sea," or " the Sea-coast."
How important the Assyrian conqueror deemed
this particular addition to the number of his vassals
we can measure by the complacency and stress with
which he records the occurrence. " Marduk-habal-
iddin, son of Yakin, king of the sea-coast, from which
to the kings, my fathers, formerly none came and
kissed their feet, terrible fear of Asshur, my lord,
overwhelmed him and to Sapiya he came and kissed
my feet ; gold, the dust of his country, in abun-
dance, cups of gold, instruments of gold, the prod-
uct of the sea, . . . costly garments, gums, oxen,
and sheep, his tribute, I received." Tiglath-Pileser
had, indeed, reason to exult, judging by his lights.
But to us, judging by the light of subsequent
events, it is clear that the ambitious, crafty schemer
curbed his proud neck to the humiliating act of
homage only to gain time and mature his far-reach-
ing plans. For of all the unfortunate princes who
tendered their allegiance from helplessness or com-
pulsion, surely none meant less to keep it ; all bitter
foes of Assyria as they were at heart, he was the
only one in whom was danger, and the arrogant
conqueror, whose foot perhaps scarcely refrained
from spurning the princely form that prostrated
itself in well-feigned self-abasement, might have
shuddered in his seat of power could a prophetic
flash have revealed to him that he had before him
the man who, for fifty years to come, was to be the
evil genius of Asshur, nay, one of the indirect causes
of Asshur's fall, since he was to loosen and set in
motion some of the stones that were to crush the
THE SECOND EMPIRE. 239
northern kingdom's too-uplifted head. But it is
probable that no foreboding or warning could at
that moment have shaken " the stout heart of the
king of Asshur," or. dimmed " the glory of his high
looks. For he hath said : By the strength of my
hand I have done it, and by my wisdom ; for I am
prudent : and I have removed the bounds of the
peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and I have
brought down as a valiant man them that sit on
thrones ; and my hand hath found as a nest the
riches of the peoples ; and as one gathereth eggs
that are forsaken, have I gathered all the earth :
and there was none that moved the wing, or that
opened the mouth or chirped " (Isaiah, x. 12-14).
14. Here ends the political and military career of
>the second Tiglath-Pileser. The year 730 is marked
" In the land," i. e., the king remained in Assyria.
The two following years he seems to have gone again
to Babylon, but on peaceful and even religious
errands. The annotated Canon has this rather
obscure note for both those years : " The king takes
the hands of Bel." It is supposed to allude to some
peculiarly solemn and festive sacrifices and ceremo-
nies, in the course of which the king received the
highest religious consecration. It would be most
interesting to find out the exact meaning of the
phrase, but it is very doubtful whether anything
will turn up to enable us to do so. In 727 Tiglath-
Pileser II. died. There seems to have been peace
during the last three years of his reign, but a revolt
just at the end.
15. He was succeeded by SHALMANESER IV. In
240 THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
what manner, on what grounds, by what claims is ut-
terly unknown. Whether he was his predecessor's
son, as advanced by some scholars,* or an heir by
. a side branch, or merely an usurper, we have no
means whatever of ascertaining. If the suggestion
just made by an eminent scholar, f that this king
and one who stands on the list of Babylon under
the name of Ilulai are one and the same, just as
Tiglath-Pileser and Phul are one, there would be
great probability in favor of the first of these con-
jectures. Then it might be supposed that Phul
had a son, Ilulai, who, on .coming to the throne,
changed his own private name to a royal one, in im-
itation of his father. But these are as yet noth-
ing but conjectures. Strangely enough, we are not
much better informed on any other point concern-
ing this king, further than to have his existence
duly attested by the Eponym Canon, and his short
reign five years determined by the same document.
He has left no monuments, or, more probably, none
have as yet been found, and what we do know of
his deeds we learn from foreign sources, the Bible
and a late Tyrian historian. For so much seems
sure, that he occupied himself with only two impor-
Hant wars, one against Tyre and the other against
Samaria.
1 6. It seems very startling to find another king
engaged in conquering those same countries to
which a warrior of Tiglath-Pileser's stamp had
* Ed. Meyer, C. P. Tiele, Geo. Rawlinson.
t C. P. Tiele, " Assyrisch Babylonische Geschichte."
THE SECOND EMPIRE. 24 1
dealt so many, and, it would seem, finally crushing
blows. But the fact is, their resources were still
great, and if the coalition of Ahab's and Shal*
maneser II.'s time could have been enlarged and
maintained they might have stood their ground to
the end. But the hatred and jealousies between
them were too inveterate for that, and the tempta-
tion to use the conqueror's might to compass each
other's ruin too great to be resisted by races for
whom politics were a question of purely local and
selfish interests, with a short-sighted range nar-
rowly limited to the present, and to whom patri-
otism was an unknown quantity. Still, when act-
ually perishing, partial and short-lived alliances
would still be brought about between the implaca-
ble rivals and foes. But, on the whole, theirs was
the case of the bundle of sticks, which, being untied,
fall apart and are easily broken individually, while
the whole bundle would have been strong enough
to withstand any effort. At this moment, however,
a new actor had appeared on the stage and brought
a revival of energy, brief and deceptive, it is true,
but sufficient to stave off the final catastrophe yet a
little while.
17. That actor was Egypt, so long inactive, so
long out of sight ; Egypt, whose long race was
well-nigh done, whose sands were running very low,
and who was never more to stand foremost in the
place of honor among free and progressing nations.
The long course of conquests in Asia, by which she
avenged the thraldom she had endured under the
rule of Asiatic invaders (see p. 26, ff.), had been
16
242
THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
stopped by dissensions and intestine troubles at
home. Originally welded together out of many
small principalities, the monarchy of the Nile had
gradually dissolved back into its component parts,
and become divided among as many petty rulers as
there were great cities, with their temples, colleges
of priests and surrounding districts. These princes,
more often than not, were all at war with each
other and therefore exposed, exactly like the kings
and cities of Syria, Palestine and Phoenicia, and for
the same reasons, to the attacks of any neighbor
or invader. But the danger this time did not come
from Asia, where kings and peoples had enough to
engage their whole powers and attention. There
was, nearer home, a country and race which had to
avenge many centuries of oppression and contempt.
Ethiopia, the " Vile Kush " of the inscriptions in
the times of Egypt's glory, saw her opportunity
and took it. As the Alarodians of Urartu and
Nairi had borrowed the culture of their most invet-
erate foes, the Assyrians, so the Kushites of Ethi-
opia had assimilated that of their hated masters and
had become a match for them, not only in material
strength, but also in intellectual and political at-
tainments. Under able and ambitious leaders their
progress was slow, but it ended in the subjugation
of all the Egyptian principalities until the Ethio-
pian king, SHABAKA, could call himself, without
boasting, king of Egypt also. He was a wise and
moderate ruler, and governed the country with a
strong and firm, yet also a mild hand. He left
most of the petty princes in their places, but kept
THE SECOND EMPIRE.
243
them in due subjection, and Egypt could rejoice, not
only in a new era of material prosperity, but, to a
certain extent, in a renewal of her political impor-
tance.
18. This king (the So or Soh of the Bible), no
sooner had established himself on his double throne
than he realized the impending danger threatened
by the ever approaching Assyrian thunder-cloud.
When all the intervening nations had been gathered,
" like eggs that are forsaken," it was not likely that
so rich a nest as Egypt should be overlooked. And
now that even the Arabs, that movable but effec-
tive bulwark, had been subdued the intervening
nations were few indeed : the two Hebrew king -
doms and the cities of the sea-coast ; and those few
more than half undone, especially Israel. There-
fore Shabaka at once manifested his readiness to
support such of the still surviving states as had
not yet lost all vital energy and force of resistance.