will not pour out another drink-offering until I shall have gone and
fought with him." '

" Concerning this threat which Teumman had spoken, I prayed ta
the great Ishtar. I approached to her presence, I bowed down at
her feet, I besought her divinity to come and to save me. Thus :
' O goddess of Arbela, I am Asshurbanipal, king of Asshur, the crea-
ture of thy hands, [chosen by thee and ?] thy father (Asshur) to restore
the temples of Assyria and to adorn the holy cities of Accad. I have
sought to honor thee, and I have gone to worship thee.' .... * O
thou queen of queens, goddess of war, lady of battles, Queen of the
gods, who in the presence of Asshur thy father speakest always in
my favor, causing the hearts of Asshur and Marduk to love me. . . .
Lo ! now, Teumman, king of Elam, who has sinned against Asshur
thy father, and Marduk thy brother, while I, Asshurbanipal, have
been rejoicing their hearts, he has collected his soldiers, amassed
his army, and has drawn his sword to invade Assyria. O thou
archer of the gods, come like a .... in the midst of the battle,
destroy him and crush him with a fiery bolt from heaven 1'

" Ishtar heard my prayer. ' Fear not ! ' she replied, and caused my
heart to rejoice. ' At the lifting up of thy hands, thine eyes shall be
satisfied with the judgment. I will grant thee favor.'

* The translation is that of Mr. Fox Talbot, in " Records of the
Past," (Vol. VII., pp. 67, 68), with here and there a trifling altera-
tion after George Smith.



388 THE S TOR Y OF ASS YRIA .

" In the night-time of that night in which I had prayed to her, a
certain seer lay down and had a dream. In the middle of the night
Ishtar appeared to him and he related the vision to me thus :

u ' Ishtar who dwells in Arbela came unto me begirt right and left
with flames, holding her bow in her hand, and riding in her open
chariot as if going to battle. And thou didst stand before her. She
addressed thee as a mother would her child. She smiled upon thee,
she, Ishtar, the highest of the gods, and gave thee a command.
Thus: Take [this bow] she said, to go to battle with! Wherever
thy camp shall stand, I will come to it. Then thou didst say to her,
thus : O Queen of the goddesses, wherever thou goest, let me go
with thee ! Then she made answer to thee, thus : I will protect
thee ! And I will march with thee at the time of the feast of Nebo.
Meanwhile eat food, drink wine, make music, and glorify my divin-
ity, until I shall come and this vision shall be fulfilled ' {Hencefor-
ward the seer appears to speak in his own person) :

" ' Thy heart's desire shall be accomplished. Thy face shall not
grow pale with fear. Thy feet shall not be arrested : thou shalt not
even scratch thy skin in the battle. In her benevolence she defends
thee, and she is wroth with all thy foes. Before her a fire is blown
fiercely to destroy thy enemies.' " *

16. Never was omen more brilliantly fulfilled.
Asshurbanipal met Teumman on the banks of the
Ulai (the classical Eulaeus) where he had forti-
fied himself, in order to close the approach to his
capital, Shushan, on this the least protected side,
and utterly defeated him. The river was "choked
with corpses." Teumman himself, being wounded,
yielded to the urging of his son, who said to him,
" The battle do not continue," and together they
fled into the woods. But their chariot having

* How strangely close in general outline is the parallel between
this incident of the vision and that of Hezekiah spreading Sennach-
erib's letter of defiance before the Lord, and praying loudly for help,
then the prophet comforting him and saying to him in the name of
Yahveh, " I have heard thee ! " (See p. 309. )




389



390



THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.



broken down, they were soon reached by the As-
syrians who were in pursuit, and after a brief stand
they were both thrown down and beheaded. The
fugitive princes were among the pursuers and the
report spread that one of them, Tammaritu,
Urtaki's youngest son, cut off his uncle's head with
his own hand. The somewhat meagre narrative
given by the cylinders is amply compensated by
the sculptures in Asshurbanipal's palace, which rep-
resent the successive scenes of this war in its small-
est details, with short inscriptions above the prin-
cipal groups, telling exactly what the actors are
doing or even saying. Thus over the figure of a
wounded man surrendering himself, there is this
inscription : " Urtaku, the relative of Teumman, who
was wounded by an arrow, regarded not his life. To
cut off his own head he bade the son of Asshur, thus:
1 I surrender. My head cut off. Before the king thy
lord set it ; may he take it for a good omen." "
Want of space forbids our setting before our read-
ers more than one specimen of these battle-scenes ;
but it is a very complete one ; a careful perusal of
the intricate composition will show almost every
characteristic detail of an Assyrian battle. It is,
besides, of particular interest, because it includes
the death of Teumman : the wounded king is kneel-
ing, with extended, imploring hands, while his son
still defends him with drawn bow. Above them
the inscription runs thus : " Teumman with a sharp
command to his son had said, ' Draw the bow.' ' The
interest in another of these scenes is centred on
a chariot driving at full speed, with a warrior in it



THE DECLINE OF ASSHUR.



39*



who holds aloft a man's head. The inscription
above informs us that this is Teumman's head car*
ried from the field.

17. It was eventually taken to Nineveh, where it
figured in the king's triumphal procession, when,
" with the conquests of Elam and the spoil which by
command of Asshur his hands had taken, with mu-
sicians making music, into Nineveh he entered with
rejoicings." The head of Teumman had been tied
on a string and hung around the neck of one of his
chief allies and friends, a prince of the marshes, who
had been captured alive, and now walked in the pro-
cession. The two envoys whom Teumman had sent
to demand the fugitive princes, and who had been
detained prisoners, first learned their master's fate
by beholding this miserable show. At sight of it
they tore their beards, and one of them ran himself
through with his sword, while Teumman's head was
11 raised on high " in front of (or above) the great
gate of Nineveh, and exposed before the eyes of the
people, who reviled it. Then began the executions.
Those captives who had the misfortune to be of
high birth and exalted rank were put to death under
the most barbarous tortures, some in Nineveh,
others in Arbela. What the annals pass over in a
few matter-of-fact words, the sculptures but too viv-
idly bring before us, with the usual explanatory
inscriptions. For instance :".... who against
Asshur the god, my father uttered great curses,
their tongues I pulled out, I tore off their skins/' above
a scene where both these tortures are represented.
Jt was under these ghastly auspices that the fugitive



39 2



THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.



princes were restored to their country, arid one of
them, UMMANIGASH, a son of Urtaki, was placed
on the throne, while his younger brother, Tamma-
ritu, received the government of an important
province of Elam. These things happened about
655 B.C.

18. It is a curious instance of providential retribu-
tion that Asshurbanipal, one of the most ruthless,
complacently cruel of even Assyrian monarchs,
should have met with ingratitude whenever he did
really confer benefits. Thus he certainly had been
a good brother to Shamash-Shumukin, the young
viceroy of Babylon, whose power and income he had
confirmed and increased. Yet the latter planned
his overthrow and very nearly succeeded in achiev-
ing it. Whether he would have been content with
establishing an independent royalty for himself in
Babylonia, or whether he meditated ultimately seiz-
ing on the Assyrian crown also, there is nothing to
indicate with any certainty. At all events, he went
to work with as much craftiness and far-sightedness
as Merodach-Baladan had ever done, and brought
about a coalition as extensive and which proved
more nearly successful, because the times were more
ripe and; the measure of oppression and hatred
fuller. Many of the actors in the drama were the
same as 1 fifty years ago : now, as then, the conspira-
tor's chief reliance was placed on Egypt, where
Psammetik was eagerly watching his chance (see p.
380), and whose name was sufficient to give " the
kings of Khatti " courage to rise. It was at this
time that the defection of Gyges the Lydian took



THE DECLTNE OF ASSHUR.



393



place, of whom Asshurbanipal complains that he
sent troops to the king of Egypt (see p. 380). Last-
ly, Ummanigash, the new king of Elam, joined the
coalition, his loyalty not being proof against the
prospect of recovering his country's political inde-
pendence combined with the heavy bribe offered by
Shamash-Shumukin. He even effected a reconcilia-
tion with the son of Teumman, and incited him to
action, saying : " Go ; against Assyria revenge the
slaying of thy father." Shamash-Shumukin found
no difficulty, it appears, in gaining over to his cause
Babylon itself, and the great cities of the South,
" seats of the gods," although Asshurbanipal had
been most lavish in adorning their temples with
gold and silver, and setting up in them images of
the gods. All these preparations, which must have
taken some years, were carried on with the utmost
secrecy and skill, and just before the outbreak the
wily viceroy, who, as the inscriptions pointedly say,
" was speaking good, but in his heart was choosing
evil," the better to lull his brother into dangerous
security, sent to Nineveh one of those compliment-
ary embassies so much in use among Orientals. The
envoys were received with the most brotherly cor-
diality, clothed in robes of honor, feasted at the
king's own table and dismissed with costly presents.
This last blind gave time to mature the plet, and
the outbreak found Asshurbanipal unsuspecting
and unprepared.

19. " In those days," he then informs us, " a seer slept in the be-
ginning of the night and dreamed a dream, thus : ' On the face of the
Moon it is written concerning them who devise evil against Asshur-



3Q4 THE S T0R Y 0F ASS YRIA -

banipal, king of Asshur. Battle is prepared. A violent death I
appoint for them. With the edge of the sword, the burning of fire,
famine, and the judgment of Nineb, I will destroy their lives.' This
I heard and trusted to the will of Sin, my lord. I gathered my army ;
against Shamash-Shumukin I directed the march."

20. Dreams and prophecies notwithstanding, it is
very doubtful whether Asshurbanipal would have
been able to weather this storm and win a respite of
fifty years for Assyria, had not the house of Elam
been hopelessly divided against itself, so that its
princes thought far more of fighting and murdering
each other than of supporting their ally. Umman.
igash, the Assyrian nominee, was dethroned by his
youngest brother, Tammaritu, who having " de-
stroyed him and part of his family with the sword,"
and wishing to remove the unfavorable impression
which he had produced on the people of Elam by
his ferocious vengeance on his uncle Teumman, flatly
denied that he had had any part in his death.
Asshurbanipal expressly states that he " spoke un-
truth concerning the head of Teumman which he
had cut off in the sight of my army, thus : ' I have
not cut off the head of the king of Elam ....'"
And when reminded of the allegiance he owed to
his former protector, he replied that he had taken
no engagement of the kind ; that " Ummanigash
only had kissed the ground in the presence of the
envoys of the king of Asshur." So he did not re-
new the alliance with Assyria, and received a further
bribe, offered by the rebellious viceroy of Babylon.
His rule, however, was but brief, notwithstanding
his attempts at winning popularity. The royal



THE DECLINE OF ASSHUR. 305

house of Elam had now arrived at that state of fee-
bleness and dissension which invites usurpers, and
such are ever ready in the persons of ambitious gen-
erals, who can rely on the devotion of their soldiers.
It was in this way that the crown of Elam was sud-
denly snatched from Tammaritu by a certain Inda-
BIGASH. Tammaritu escaped with life, and, for the
second time, fled to Nineveh, with many of his kins-
men, eighty-five in all. He kissed the royal feet,
threw dust on his hair standing at the royal foot-
stool, vowing to redeem his past offences by loyal
service, if the king would but overlook his defection.
Asshurbanipal, reflecting that the fugitives would
once more prove useful tools when he would have
time to attend to the affairs of Elam, received them
graciously, and gave them lodgings within his own
palace, where they naturally were as much prison-
ers as guests.

21. For the present, he had neither time, atten-
tion, nor forces to spare for anything but the re-
pression of the revolt in Babylonia. Egypt was al-
lowed to have its own way, and Psammetik not only
shook off the Assyrian rule, but got rid of all the
vassal princes and restored an undivided royalty in
Egypt. Gyges was left to the gods and the Cim-
merians were suffered to gain ground unchecked.
The states of Syria and the sea-coast are stated to
have joined the coalition, but no punishment is
recorded as inflicted upon them. The Medes are
not so much as mentioned, and subsequent events
prove but too well what good use they made of
the time. Having thus concentrated all his powers



396



THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.



on one task, Asshurbanipal need not, perhaps, have
boasted quite so loud of having accomplished his
" rebellious brother's " overthrow. At all events
it was complete. The siege of Babylon was so
long and severe that the inhabitants were reduced
by famine to feed on the flesh of their sons and
daughters. How the end came is only hinted at
somewhat obscurely : it is said that " the gods threw
Shamash-Shumukin in the fierce, burning fire and
destroyed his life." We often see in sieges por-
trayed on the sculptures, that the Assyrian soldiers
were in the habit of hurling firebrands into the
cities of which they stormed the walls. It is very
likely that a general conflagration may have been
caused in this manner, and that the viceroy may
have perished in it, an end which his brother, quite
in accordance with his religious ideas, regards as a
special divine judgment. The vengeance which he
took on the survivors pulling out the tongues of
some for blaspheming the name of Asshur ; throwing
others into pits among the stone bulls and lions set
up by Sennacherib, i.e., probably in the gates of Nin-
eveh, as a spectacle to the people ; cutting off limbs
and throwing them to dogs, bears, vultures, all
these horrors he represents as acts of pious homage
to the offended deity : " After I had done these
things," he says, " and appeased the hearts of the
gods my lords, the corpses of the people whom the
Pestilence-god had overthrown .... out of the
midst of Babylon, Kutha, Sippar, I brought and
threw into heaps." Then he relates how he further
propitiated the gods, by gifts and religious observ-



THE DECLINE OF ASSHUR. 0Q7

ances and by the singing of psalms.* Then, having
reduced to obedience the tribes of Kaldu, Ara-
means, and the rest of Accad. " by command of
Asshur and Belit and the great gods, my protectors,
on the whole of them I trampled, the yoke of
Asshur which they had thrown off I fixed on them.
Prefects and rulers appointed by my hand I estab-
lished over them."

22. Among the Chaldean princes who had fol-
lowed Shamash-Shumukin's fortunes was NabU-
BELZIKRI, a grandson of Merodach-Baladan,f true
to the traditions of his race. To inflict the great-
est possible injury on the hated foe, he had recourse
to stratagem. He feigned loyalty and applied for
help. The king indignantly records that " sons of
Asshur " were sent to his aid, and " marched with
him, guarding his country like a wall ; " but he cap-
tured them by treachery and shipped them over to
Elam. Indabigash, who then was already king, and
who wished to propitiate the Assyrian, sent them
back to him with an embassy and offers of alliance.
But this attention was far from satisfying the en-
raged monarch, who sent back to him, through his
own envoy, a threatening message demanding the
surrender of Nabubelzikri himself and his compan-
ions : " If these men thou dost not send," spoke the
king, " I will march ; thy cities I will destroy ; the

* For a parallel with the Jewish ideas on similar subjects, see
above, pp. 8-10.

t Most probably the son of *Nahidh-marduk, Merodach-Baladan's
youngest son, whom Esarhaddon appointed to the principality of
Bit-Yakin.



398



THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.



people I will carry off : from thy royal throne I will
hurl thee, and another on thy throne I will seat.
As formerly Teumman I crushed, I will cause to de-
stroy thee. This is to thee." The envoy had no
occasion to repeat the royal message to his mas-
ter. The people of Elam, hearing of Asshurbani-
pal's anger, were greatly frightened and revolted
against Indabigash, whom they put to death, plac-
ing on the throne in his stead the son of another
general, who reigned under the name of Ummanal-

DASH II.

23. This new usurper was not devoid of dignity,
and would not purchase protection by breach of
faith with his guest. From some small and much
injured fragments it would appear that there was
also some correspondence concerning the statue of
the goddess Nana, carried into captivity from Erech
by the first Khudur-nankhundi, and that Umma-
naldash would not return the statue. These two
refusals were more than sufficient pretences for an
invasion. Asshurbanipal descended on Elam and
swept it through in a brief and triumphant cam-
paign, accompanied by the refugee Tammaritu,
whom he replaced on the throne in Shushan. In-
credible as such recklessness may appear, the first
thing Tammaritu did was to turn against his pro-
tector and rebel for the second time. He had been
in too great haste, however, and had not waited for
Asshurbanipal's departure, who at once crushed the
revolt a success of which* he gives the credit to
Asshur and Ishtar, who, he says, " broke Tam-
maritu's hard and perverse heart, took hold of his



THE DECLINE OF ASSHUR. 399

hand, from the throne of his kingdom hurled him
and overwhelmed him." He was not put to death,
but carried back to Nineveh, where a more humiliat-
ing doom awaited him.

24. It took one more laborious campaign to com-
plete the overthrow of Elam, but this time it was
final. City after city, town after town was pulled
down, burned, sacked, warriors were slaughtered,
captives carried away without number. Shushan,
the capital, was reserved for the last. It had never
yet been sacked, and was a right royal prey. As-
shurbanipal gloatingly relates how he opened the
treasure-houses of the kings of Elam, where wealth
had accumulated from the most ancient times,
where " no other enemy before him had ever puv
his hand ; " how he brought forth not only that
wealth, but all that had ever been paid to the kings
of Elam for their aid by former kings of Accad,
and now lately by Shamash-Shumukin. besides all
the furniture of the palace, even to the couch on
which the kings had reclined, the war chariots,
ornamented with bronze and painting, horses and
great mules, with trappings of silver and gold all
of which he carried off to Assyria. But Shushan
was not only the chief " royal " city of Elam, it was
also the country's sacred city, " the seat of their
gods," and was to suffer all the horrors of desecra-
tion as well as plundering. Its great tower (proba-
bly the ziggurat), of which the lower part was cased
in marble, was demolished and broken into from
the roof, " which was covered with shining bronze."
The sacred groves, i'nto the midst of which no for-



400



THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.



eigner had ever penetrated, nor even trod their out-
skirts, were cut down and burned by the Assyrian
soldiery. The statues of the gods and goddesses
(of whom eighteen are given by name, besides
SHUSHINAK, the supreme god, " the god of their
oracle, who dwelt in groves,") were carried off to
Assyria " with their valuables, their goods, their
furniture, their priests and worshippers." The
winged bulls and lions " watching over the tem-
ples " were either broken or removed, the temples
themselves " overturned, until they were not."
On this occasion, too, the statue of Nana was at
length carried out of the place of her long captivity
of over 1600 years to be restored to her own old
sanctuary at Erech.* Lastly, thirty-two statues of
former and later kings, including one of Tammaritu,
all fashioned in gold and silver, bronze and ala-
baster, were carried to Assyria. On some of them
mutilation was inflicted ; this is particularly men-
tioned of one king, a contemporary of Sennach-
erib, against whom he had made war; Asshurba-
nipal boasts that " he tore off his lips which had
spoken defiance, cut off his hands which had
held the bow to fight Assyria." He winds up
the dreadful narrative by this most frightful state-
ment of all :

" The wells of drinking water I dried up ; for a journey of a month
and twenty-five days the districts of Elam I laid waste, destruction,
servitude and drought 1 poured over them .... the passage of men, the
treading of oxen and sheep and the springing up of good trees I burnt

* See " Story of Chaldea," pp. 195, 343, 344.



THE DECLINE OF ASSHUR. 40I

off the fields. Wild asses, serpents, beasts of the field safely I caused to
lay down in them" *

And after enumerating the captives he led away,
from the daughters, wives and families of several
kings, down through the list of governers, citizens,
officers and commanders of various corps, to " the
whole of the army all there was," the people, male
and female, small and great, horses, mules, asses,
oxen and sheep, besides " much spoil, " he sums up
with this grim but expressive piece of exaggeration :
" The dust of Shushan Madaktu, and the rest of
their cities, entirely I brought to Assyria."

25. This was the end of Elam. As a kingdom,
as a nation, it was no more. Its name henceforth
disappears from the ranks of countries. And when
the time, now so near at hand, arrived, of retribu-
tion and vengeance on the destroyer of so many
nations, Elam was not one of the avengers. The
poor remnants of her people were passing under
another rule, still too young to direct events, and
stood aloof, rejoicing, but inactive. Yet Asshur-
banipal, in the last pages of his great cylinder, still

* The Hebrew prophet Zephaniah, who lived about this time, thus
announces the approaching end of Assyria: "And Yahveh will
stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Asshur, and will
make Nineveh a desolation and dry like the wilderness. And herds
shall lie down in the midst of her, all beasts of every kind . . . . desola-
tion shall be in the thresholds, for he hath laid bare the cedar work.
This is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart :
4 1 am and there is none beside me : ' how is she become a desolation,
a place for beasts to lie down in! . . . . " Have we here a revengeful
reminiscence of the words of the Assyrian document, or only a
similarity of thought and expression derived from unity of race ?
26



402



THE STORY OF ASSYRIA.



speaks of Elam, even of " kings of Elam." For
Ummanaldash had once more escaped with life,
by timely flight :* into the mountains." When the
wasters and spoilers had departed, he returned into
his now desert cities, " he entered, and sat in a
place dishonored." But Asshurbanipai had not
done with him even yet. The companion of his




72. ASSHURBANIPAL FEASTING.



flight and disasters was Nabubelzikri, that grand-
son of the old Chaldean king, and as long as he
lived and was free the Assyrian's heart was not
satisfied. So he sent once more to demand his
surrender from the heart - broken whilom king.
Nabubelzikri, the inscription goes on to tell with
that strange pathos which their great simplicity at
times lends to these narratives



THE DECLINE OE ASSHUR.



403



" Nabubelzikri heard of the journey of my envoy who into Elam
had entered, and his heart was afflicted. He inclined to despair;
his life he did not regard and he longed for death. To his own ar-
mor-bearer he said : ' Slay me with the sword.' He and his armor-
bearer with the steel swords of their girdles pierced through each