to plan a great and decisive invasion, not only of
the already familiar highlands of Na'iri, but the re-
mote and far more inaccessible fastnesses of Urartu
itself. By this time Urza found himself well-nigh
alone, his allies having been successively detached
or cut off, like the limbs of a tree that is to be
felled. One of these, however, was still left him, a
friend, staunch to share an inevitable fate. This
was his nearest neighbor, URZANA, king of MUZAZIR,
a country which has not yet been fully identified,
and is therefore not to be found on maps, but is
thought to have been the next to Urartu in a west-
erly direction, and to the north of Lake Van.
Muzazir seems to have been, as much as Urartu it-
self, the centre and core of the Alarodian national-
ity ; perhaps more, since it was the capital of
Muzazir, which held the chief national sanctuary,
that of HALDI, the Alarodians' " great god," the
father and chief of the numerous lesser deities, who,
like those of their kindred Hittite and Canaanitic
races, were probably nothing more than local
names and forms of the one deity, as worshipped in
the different districts and cities of the race. (See
p. 107.) Even after Sargon had "killed quanti-
ties without number, people of Urza, and 250 per-
sons of his royal race," and captured all his cav-
alry, after Urza himself had fled into the moun-
tains, trusting to the fleetness of his mare to save
his life, Urzana still " refused the protection of
Asshur." Perhaps he counted on the ruggedness
of his country as a last and efficient safeguard
264 THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
against an enemy already tired and partly satiated
with slaughter and plunder. Sargon himself calls
the country a land of " inaccessible mountains im-
passable for the horses,'' and mentions that he
" recommended himself to the gods, his helpers,"
as he started on the venture with a picked corps.
When Urzana found that Sargon was actually upon
him, he suddenly lost heart, " escaped like a bird and
went to the high mountains," i. e. } into the passes
and caves where no pursuit could follow, where no
track or path could betray his hiding-places. Sar-
gon now, probably unresisted, " took the town of
Muzazir," seized on all that belonged to Urzana
his wives, his sons, his servants, cattle and treasure
of all kinds, and at last " took with him the god
Haldi " and other divinities, " and their holy vessels
in great numbers." Urza had " for five months wan-
dered about alone in the mountains," going from
heights to valleys, waiting and watching for news,
of a certainty, more hungrily than even for food.
And when the news came they broke his heart.
The situation is so highly tragical that even the
dry statement in the Assyrian official annals invests
it with a great dignity and pathos. " Urza heard
the fall of Muzazir, the capture of his god, Haldi.
He despaired on account of the victories of Asshur,
and with his own hand cut off his life. . . ." It
would seem that here was an end of Urartu and
Nairi. But nothing can equal the power of re-
bound which all those old nations seem to have
possessed. A very few years later we already find
a new king of Urartu brewing mischief in the old
THE PRIDE OF ASSHUR.
265
way, among his neighbors, and when Sargon's
successor dies, assassinated by two of his own sons,
it is to Urartu the murderers fly, certain to find
there shelter and a friendly reception.
12. The next three years passed in petty warfare,
with the object now of punishing several old allies
of Urza, some of them on very remote boundaries,
as far as Cilicia, now of settling a family quarrel in
some loyal vassal country, where two claimants for
the throne would appeal to the arbitration of the
great king, or one would apply to him for armed as-
sistance, an occurrence which became quite frequent
in this and the following reigns, or, lastly, for the
more important purpose of supporting or avenging
a friendly sovereign, whom his own people had
risen to deprive of crown or life in hatred of his
servility. These popular risings, as before noted,
were an ominous sign of the times. It was an er-
rand of this kind which took Sargon once more
into Media, this time not into the usual mountain
districts, but into a flourishing and fertile country
of hills and pastures and plains, a part of what was,
later, Media proper the ELLIP of the monuments.
The king of this country, an aged man of the name
of Dalta, had at one time been persuaded to join
the rebel Median provinces, but had very soon
prudently withdrawn from the dangerous game and
won Sargon's regard by the steadfastness with
which he kept his allegiance. " Dalta of Ellip,"
he tells us expressly, "was subject to me, and de-
voted to the worship of Asshur. Five of his towns
revolted and no longer recognized his dominion.
. 266 THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
I came to his aid, I besieged and occupied these
towns, I carried the men and their goods away into
Assyria, with numberless horses." "I gladdened
the heart of Dalta," we are told by another text,
" and re-established tranquillity in his country." On
this occasion Sargon pacified several more districts
which either had rebelled or been infected by wan-
dering Median tribes from the eastern steppes, and
received the submission of as many as forty-five
"chiefs" of Median towns, who sent several thou-
sands of horses, and " asses and sheep an innumer-
able quantity."
13. Not very different was the occasion which
drew Sargon's army once more and for the last
time to the shores of the Western Sea. The peo-
ple of Ashdod, the Philistine city, had risen, put to
death the king who had been enthroned by the
Assyrian and submissively clung to his protection,
and placed in his stead a man of their own choice,
a certain Yaman (or Yavan), "not heir to the
throne." They had prepared for defence, fortified
the city, enclosed with a deep moat or ditch ; sup-
plied it with water by " bringing the springs of the
mountains." The people of Philistia, Judah, Edom
and Moab " were speaking treason. The people and
their evil chiefs, to fight against me, unto Pharaoh,
the king of Egypt, a monarch who could not save
them, their presents carried and besought his alli-
ance." * Yet with all these preparations, military
* Cylinder discovered and translated by Geo. Smith, in " Assyrian
Discoveries," pp. 290 ff.
THE PRIDE OF ASSHUR.
267
and diplomatic, such was the terror which then at-
tended the Assyrian name, that on the mere report of
the army's approach, the upstart king fled to the
borders of Ethiopia, " and no trace of him was
seen," leaving " his gods, his wife and sons, the
treasures, possessions and precious things of his pal-
ace, together with the inhabitants of the country to
be carried into captivity." The cities, however, ac-
cording to Sargon's invariable practice, were rebuilt
and filled with captives from the East, who were
made " the same as Assyrians." As to the help from
Egypt, it never came, any more than it had come to
Samaria. Indeed, the king of Ethiopia (and Egypt,
since the Ethiopian dynasty was still reigning *)
threw himself on the Assyrian's mercy, bound
Yaman in iron chains and delivered him. By this
act of arrant treachery, this breach of trust and hos-
pitality, a further respite was gained for Egypt.
14. It appears that the king did not lead this expe-
dition in person, although he speaks of it in the first
person in his inscriptions. The prophet Isaiah ex-
pressly says that the " Tartan came unto Ashdod
when Sargon, the king of Assyria, sent him, and he
fought against it and took it " (xx. 1). It is diffi-
cult to find out from the monuments every time
the Assyrian kings sent generals to conduct a cam-
paign, because they mostly relate the course of it
in their own name and take the credit to them-
* Such is the opinion of E. Schrader ; but some other scholars
differ from him and think the country named here is not Ethiopia.
This is, however, one of those open points, a discussion of which
would ill suit a popular narrative.
2 68 THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
selves ; yet it is certain that Sargon must have
spent some of his time in his own kingdom, for he
was a sovereign who attended much and wisely to
affairs at home ; and besides, he found a special at-
traction in a project and occupation which he had
greatly at heart, and of which more anon.
15. There was nothing now any longer to delay
the grand closing scene of this stupendous reign :
the struggle for Babylon. Twelve years the Chal-
dean had sat on the throne of the great South-
ern capital in defiance of Sargon, who, after inflict-
ing a passing chastisement on his ally and sup-
porter, the king of Elam, had been forced to leave
him unmolested, and even in a way to acknowledge
him, since he repeatedly calls him "king of Bab-
ylon." Of course, however, the usurper's insolent
success was a thorn in his flesh, and a sore in his
eye, and the longer he was compelled to treasure up
his revenge, the more terrible it would descend
when once he could give his undivided attention to
a war which he meant to be crushing and deadly.
One thing he found time to attend to even in the
midst of the manifold occupations with which those
twelve years were crowded. He took care to keep
on excellent terms with the priesthood of Babylon
and the other great temple-cities, that wealthy and
influential class being at the head of the discontent-
ed party, and stimulated their loyalty to Assyria
and their hatred to the Chaldean ruler, on whom
they looked in the light of a foreigner and intruder,
by frequent and great gifts to the different temples,
duly recorded in his inscriptions. Merodach-Bala-
THE PRIDE OF ASSHUR. 2 6g
dan, on bis side, well knew that the day of reckoning
must come, and prepared against it, by using all the
resources at his command, with great foresight and
activity. In the first place, was he not the " king of
the sea ? " " He had established his dwelling amidst
the Sea of the Rising Sun ; he trusted in the sea and
the retreat of the marshes." This alludes to his he-
reditary principality of Bit-Yakin, and the marshy
tract by the mouths of the great rivers (which were
still separate at that time), extending all the way to
Elam, and affording him very secret means of com-
munication and flight in case of need. But more
than all he trusted to foreign alliances and diplo-
matic negotiations. The close connection which he
had kept up with the king of Elam, Sutruk-Nan-
KHUNDI, the successor of his former friend, Khum-
banigash, was felt to be insufficient, and Sargon
complains that " against the will of the gods of Bab-
ylon, the city of Bel who judges the gods," Mero-
dach-Baladan, "the deceiver, the wicked," " had ex-
cited all the nomadic tribes of the desert against
him," as well as all the countries of Shumir and
Accad, and for twelve years had been "sending out
embassies." Now we know with what object " em-
bassies were sent " in those days. (See p. 74)
16. Of one such embassy we find a detailed and
life-like account in an unexpected quarter in the
Hebrew Book of Kings. For it seems that Mero-
dach-Baladan, knowing that the king of Judah,
Hezekiah, had so far kept a strict neutrality, which
he did not break even when the sister-kingdom
perished miserably under his eyes, concluded that
270
THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
the Hebrew monarch would be a useful ally to se-
cure, since his resources, husbanded during a long
peace, must amount to something considerable, and
if he and the few other unannexed Syrian States
could only be brought to act once more in concert,
they might, between them, even yet make trouble
for Sargon, when he should be engaged in the
marshes by the Gulf. Now it so happened that
Hezekiah had been ill almost unto death. He had
set his house in order, not expecting to live, and
his recovery appeared so wonderful as to be con-
sidered miraculous. The fame of it spread through
all the lands ; as well as that of his great wealth and
prosperity. The Hebrew Book of Chronicles in-
forms us that he " had exceeding much riches and
honor; and he provided him treasures for silver,
and for gold, and for precious stones, and for spices,
and for shields, and for all manner of goodly vessels ;
storehouses also for the increase of corn and oil,
and stalls for all manner of beasts, and flocks in
folds. Moreover, he provided him cities and pos-
sessions of flocks and herds in abundance, for
God had given him very much substance." Such
rumors must have been very tantalizing to one in
so great need of treasure and support as Merodach-
Baladan, and he determined to find out just how
much truth there was in them. The illness and
marvellous recovery of Hezekiah supplied him with
an opportunity and a plausible pretext for the open
sending of " an embassy." So he sent letters and
a present to Hezekiah.
17. We can well imagine the stately reception of
THE PRIDE OF ASSHUR.
271
the ambassadors, and the great flourishes of Oriental
courtesy with which they discharged their ostensible
mission. That the conference soon touched on
other things, and that the wily Chaldeans began to
draw out the Jewish monarch by flattering his vanity,
we are left to infer from the statement immediately
following: "And Hezekiah hearkened unto them,
and showed them all the house of his precious things,
the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the pre-
cious oil, and the house of his armor, and all that
was found in his treasures ; there was nothing in his
house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed
them not." The good king evidently had somewhat
lost his head in his pride and self-complacency, and
acted on impulse without the advice or even knowl-
edge of his wisest councillor, for we are next told
that, " Then came Isaiah the prophet unto King
Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men ?
and from whence came they unto thee? And Hez-
ekiah said, They are come from a far country, even
from Babylon." This curt and anything but can-
did answer still further aroused, or rather confirmed
the suspicions of the prophet-minister, who then
asked the king point-blank : " What have they seen
in thine house?" Thus taken directly to task,
Hezekiah defiantly told the whole truth: "All
that is in mine house have they seen ; there is noth-
ing among my treasures that I have not showed
them." Then Isaiah was very wroth, for he knew
that a great harm had been done, since accounts of
the embassy, and the treasures and the secret con-
ferences, were sure to reach the ear of the king of
272
THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
Assyria, whose spies and agents were at all the
allied or vassal courts. And the prophet, in no gentle
or measured terms, told the king what the conse-
quences of his folly would be at a not very distant
future time : " Hear the word of Yahveh : Behold,
the days come that all that is in thine house, and
that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto
this day, shall be carried to Babylon." And he
added that "even the king's sons should be taken
away and become servants in the palace of the
king of Babylon." By this time Hezekiah had
become conscious of his blunder, and his reply to
this terrible threat shows some shamefacedness, not
untinged with sullenness : " Good is the word of
Yahveh which thou hast spoken. Is it not so,
if peace and truth shall be in my days?" If Judah
really was implicated, together with Edom and
Moab, in the rising of Ashdod, as we are given to
understand on Geo. Smith's cylinder (see p. 36),
it was perhaps in consequence of this " embassy."
No serious consequences, however, seem to have
come of it, at all events until the next reign.
18. The moment Sargon was secure and disen-
gaged on all sides, Merodach-Baladan knew his time
had come, and bravely opened hostilities by refus-
ing to send tribute. Sargon, who throughout this
campaign elaborately acts the part of champion to
the gods of Babylonia and deliverer of the great
Southern capital and temple-cities, solemnly prefaces
his narrative with the announcement that Marduk
himself, the great god of Babylon (it is noteworthy
that Asshur is not mentioned on this occasion, nor
THE PRIDE OF ASSHUR.
273
any of the special gods of Assyria) chose him
among all the kings as his avenger, " elevated his
head in the land of Shumir and Accad, and aug-
mented his forces, in order to make him prevail
against the Chaldeans, a people rebellious and per-
verse." He knew that he had to do with no de-
spicable foe. Yet in the conflict which now began,
the Chaldeans were, from the first, not triumphant.
Sargon displayed consummate generalship, marching
down with an army divided into two corps, of which
he commanded one himself. The fortresses which
protected Babylonia from the north yielded to the
king's advance, and the nomadic Aramaean tribes, as
well as some Babylonian ones, who had been detailed
to the north as a sort of light vanguard to receive
and detain the enemy, having been beaten, at once
dispersed. The other army corps, meanwhile, oper-
ating east of the Tigris, was harassing Elam, taking
from it fortresses and whole districts, not to speak
of captives, cattle and other plunder, and preventing
the junction between the Elamite and Chaldean
forces. Thus Sargon, cautiously but steadily ad-
vancing, crossed the Euphrates and took up his
headquarters in one of the Chaldean cities.
19. Merodach-Baladan did not wait for him in
Babylon. In the hope that he might even yet ob-
tain the necessary support from Elam, if he went
over personally, he left the capital " in the night-
time, like an owl," and reached Elam, by a route
which he succeeded in keeping secret. He found
Sutruk-Nankhundi, who had fled " into the far
mountains to save his life," unwilling to engage any
18
274 THE ST ORY OF ASSYRIA.
deeper in so risky a struggle. In vain Merodach-
Baladan offered such valuable presents as he could
at the moment dispose of : his throne, his sceptre,
his royal parasol, all of pure silver, " a considerable
weight," the Elamite was deaf to arguments and
bribes. Then the Chaldean, in his anger, took by vio-
lence and drove away as much cattle as he could lay
hands on, and returned by the same secret ways by
which he had come not to Babylon, but to his own
capital by the sea, DUR YAKIN, which he proceeded
to prepare for a last and desperate stand.
20. For Babylon was no longer open to him. No
sooner had he left in that abrupt and undignified
manner, than a solemn and worshipful delegation
from that city and its great suburb, Borsip, com-
posed of high dignitaries and officers, and also
" learned men of books," doubtless priests, went
forth to seek Sargon at his headquarters, bearing
with them images of the two cities' tutelary deities
Bel and Nebo, with their consorts, and to entreat
him to take possession of the deserted capital,
which he immediately did, and not only offered ex-
piatory sacrifices, but during the interval of calm
which followed, was allowed to perform that myste-
rious and hallowing ceremony which is described as
"taking the hands of Bel." This was the work of
the first year's campaign.
21. Merodach-Baladan, in the mean time, was still
in full possession of his own principality, and had in-
trenched himself in his capital of Dur-Yakin, whither
he had transported " the gods living in " several other
cities, to save them from capture. He also had
THE PRIDE OF ASSHUR.
275
forced a contribution from Ur, Larsam and other
Babylonian cities, and, it would appear, had carried
away their gods, too, but not in a friendly spirit.
He had surrounded the city with a deep and wide
moat, which he had filled with water from the Eu-
phrates by means of trenches dug for the purpose,
and which, after providing the moat with a dam, he
cut off. Nothing had been neglected ; yet such was
the generalship of Sargon, the consummate skill and
bravery of his soldiers, and such also the prestige of
invincibility which attended on his name, that Dur-
Yakin fell at once, at the first onslaught. Merodach.
Baladan fled into the citadel, leaving his own tent,
with all its royal belongings, to the conqueror ; the
city was taken, his palace utterly despoiled of " gold
and silver, and all that he possessed, the contents of
his palace, whatever it was, with considerable booty
from the town." In one inscription we are told
that not only his wife, his sons and daughters were
made prisoners, but Merodach-Baladan himself.
Another merely says : " And this Merodach-Baladan
recognizing his own weakness, was terrified ; the im-
mense fear of my royalty overwhelmed him ; he left
his sceptre and his throne ; in the presence of my
ambassador he kissed the earth ; he abandoned his
castles, fled, and his trace was no more seen." This
account must be the more correct, or else he must
have been very poorly guarded for a captive of
so much importance, since it is a fact that he escaped
and vanished from the scene, for a time, having by
no means thrown up the game, as will appear.
22. As for the city of Dur-Yakin, it was razed to the
276 THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
ground, or rather, in the literal language of the in-
scriptions, made a heap of. There were in it a cer-
tain number of people from Sippar, Nipur and Bab-
ylon, who had probably been brought there and de-
tained against their will. These Sargon sent back
to their respective cities, in honor and peace, and
" watched over them," restoring to their cities cer-
tain lands which had been taken from them years
before by some nomadic tribes, now auxiliaries of
Merodach-Baladan, and famous for their skill in arch-
ery. The nomadic tribes, Sargon tells us, he replaced
under his yoke, and restored the forgotten land
boundaries. To complete the redress of grievances
and wrongs, he restored to the different cities the
gods that had been carried out of them, and revived
the laws and observances which had been neglected.
Having done all these things, he returned to Bab-
ylon, where he was rapturously received, and de-
lighted the priesthood's hearts by his lavish bounties
to the great temples.
23. A great prestige must have attached to the
name of Sargon, if we judge from the ease with
which he triumphed over formidable obstacles;
from the feebleness of the resistance he encountered
where preparation had been made for a desperate
stand ; and especially from the terror his fame in-
spired in remote countries, as shown by the volun-
tary submissions he received. Of these, none seems
to have flattered his vanity more than an embassy
from seven kings, ruling small principalities in the
Island of Cyprus (probably originally Phoenician
colonies). This island he calls Yatnan, and with
THE PRIDE OF ASSHUR. 2 77
some exaggeration describes it as situated " at a dis-
tance of seven days' navigation, in the midst of the
Sea of the Setting Sun." As he adds that the very
names of these countries had been unknown to the
kings his fathers from the remotest times, this little
blunder may be due, not so much to love of boast-
ing as to pardonable ignorance. Anyhow, it is with
great complacency that he tells how those seven
kings, after the news of his great deeds in Syria, and
the humiliation of the king of Chaldea, " which
they heard far away," " subdued their pride and hum-
bled themselves," and " presented themselves be-
fore him in Babylon, and brought (more probably
sent) gold, silver, utensils, ebony, sandal-wood and
the manufactures of their country, and kissed his
feet." He doubtless received these advances with
becoming graciousness, and, in return for the gifts
they brought, gave the ambassadors a marble stele
with a full-length sculptured portrait of himself,
and a short inscription commemorating his principal
deeds. This stele was dutifully set up in one of the
cities of Cyprus, for- there it was found in a fine
state of preservation, and is now one of the orna-
ments of the Museum in Berlin.
24. A s-hort time before, Sargon had received in
the same manner the gifts and homage of a king of
DlLMUN, an island in the Persian Gulf, now included
in the lowlands of the coast, and also that of certain
allies of the Armenian Urza in the mountains of
the North-west who had given much trouble to his
governors, and who now at last threw up the game as
hopeless, and sent their submission all the way to
2;8
THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.
the royal camp, " by the shore of the Eastern Sea *
(the Persian Gulf). Here, in reality, ends the record