Sargon's end was consonant with his whole career. He was murdered by his soldiers in his new city of Dur-Sargon or Khorsabad, on the 12th of Ab or July, b.c. 705, and was succeeded by his son Sennacherib. If we may judge from Sennacherib's name, which means 'the Moon-god has increased the brothers,' he would not have been Sargon's eldest son. In any case he had been brought up in the purple, and displayed none of the rugged virtues of his father. He was weak, boastful, and cruel, and preserved his empire only by the help of the veterans and generals whom Sargon had trained.
Merodach-Baladan had escaped from captivity, and two years after the death of Sargon had once more possessed himself of Babylon. But a battle at Kis drove him from the country nine months subsequently, and Sennacherib was able to turn his attention to affairs in the west. In b.c. 701, he marched into Phœnicia and Palestine, where Hezekiah of Judah and some of the neighbouring kings had refused their tribute. Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, had promised support to the rebellious states, and Padi, the king of Ekron, who remained faithful to the Assyrians, was carried in chains to Jerusalem. The Assyrian army fell first upon Phœnicia. Great and Little Sidon, Sarepta, Acre, and other towns, surrendered, Elulæos, the Sidonian monarch, fled to Cyprus, and the kings of Arvad and Gebal offered homage. Metinti of Ashdod, Pedael of Ammon, Chemosh-nadab of Moab, and Melech-ram of Edom, also submitted. Then, says Sennacherib: 'Zedekiah, king of Ashkelon, who had not submitted to my yoke, himself, the gods of the house of his fathers, his wife, his sons, his daughters, and his brothers, the seed of the house of his fathers, I removed, and I sent him to Syria. I set over the men of Ashkelon Sarludari, the son of Rukipti, their former king, and I imposed upon him the payment of tribute, and the homage due to my majesty, and he became a vassal. In the course of my campaign I approached and captured Beth-Dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak, and Azur, the cities of Zedekiah, which did not submit at once to my yoke, and I carried away their spoil. The priests, the chief men, and the common people of Ekron who had thrown into chains their king Padi because he was faithful to his oaths to Assyria, and had given him up to Hezekiah, the Jew, who imprisoned him like an enemy in a dark dungeon, feared in their hearts. The king of Egypt, the bowmen, the chariots, and the horses of the king of Ethiopia, had gathered together innumerable forces, and gone to their assistance. In sight of the town of Eltekeh was their order of battle drawn up; they called their troops (to the battle). Trusting in Assur, my lord, I fought with them and overthrew them. My hands took the captains of the chariots, and the sons of the king of Egypt, as well as the captains of the chariots of the king of Ethiopia, alive in the midst of the battle. I approached and captured the towns of Eltekeh and Timnath, and I carried away their spoil. I marched against the city of Ekron, and put to death the priests and the chief men who had committed the sin (of rebellion), and I hung up their bodies on stakes all round the city. The citizens who had done wrong and wickedness I counted as a spoil; as for the rest of them who had done no sin or crime, in whom no fault was found, I proclaimed a free pardon. I had Padi, their king, brought out from the midst of Jerusalem, and I seated him on the throne of royalty over them, and I laid upon him the tribute due to my majesty. But as for Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke, forty-six of his strong cities, together with innumerable fortresses and small towns which depended on them, by overthrowing the walls and open attack, by battle engines and battering-rams, I besieged, I captured, I brought out from the midst of them and counted as a spoil 200,150 persons, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen and sheep without number. Hezekiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem, his royal city. I built a line of forts against him, and I kept back his heel from going forth out of the great gate of his city. I cut off his cities that I had spoiled from the midst of his land, and gave them to Metinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and Zil-baal, king of Gaza, and I made his country small. In addition to their former tribute and yearly gifts, I added other tribute, and the homage due to my majesty, and I laid it upon them. The fear of the greatness of my majesty overwhelmed him, even Hezekiah, and he sent after me to Nineveh, my royal city, by way of gift and tribute, the Arabs and his body-guard whom he had brought for the defence of Jerusalem, his royal city, and had furnished with pay, along with thirty talents of gold, 800 talents of pure silver, carbuncles and other precious stones, a couch of ivory, thrones of ivory, an elephant's hide, an elephant's tusk, rare woods of various names, a vast treasure, as well as the eunuchs of his palace, dancing-men and dancing-women; and he sent his ambassador to offer homage.'
In this account of his campaign Sennacherib discreetly says nothing about the disaster which befell his army in front of Jerusalem, and which obliged him to return ignominiously to Assyria without attempting to capture Jerusalem, and to deal with Hezekiah as it was his custom to deal with other rebellious kings. The tribute offered by Hezekiah at Lachish, when he vainly tried to buy off the threatened Assyrian attack, is represented as having been the final result of a successful campaign. There is, however, no exaggeration in the amount of silver Sennacherib claims to have received, since 800 talents of silver are equivalent to the 500 talents stated by the Bible to have been given, when reckoned according to the standard of value in use at the time in Nineveh.
Sennacherib never recovered from the blow he had suffered in Judah. He made no more expeditions against Palestine, and during the rest of his reign Judah remained unmolested. Babylonia, moreover, gave him constant trouble. In the year after his campaign in the west (b.c. 700) a Chaldean, named Nergal-yusezib, stirred up a revolt which Sennacherib had some difficulty in suppressing. Two years later he appointed his eldest son, Assur-nadin-sumi, viceroy of Babylon. In b.c. 694, he determined to attack the followers of Merodach-Baladan in their last retreat at the mouth of the Eulæus, where land had been given to them by the Elamite king after their expulsion from Babylonia. Ships were built and manned by Phœnicians in the Persian Gulf, by means of which the settlements of the Chaldean refugees were burnt and destroyed. Meanwhile, however, Babylonia itself was invaded by the Elamites; the Assyrian viceroy was carried into captivity, and Nergal-yusezib placed on the throne of the country. He defeated the Assyrian forces in a battle near Nipur, but died soon afterwards, and was followed by Musezib-Merodach, who like his predecessor is called Suzub in Sennacherib's inscriptions. He defied the Assyrian power for nearly four years. But in b.c. 690 the combined Babylonian and Elamite army was overthrown in the decisive battle of Khalule, and before another year was past Sennacherib had captured Babylon, and given it up to fire and sword. Its inhabitants were sold into slavery, and the waters of the Araxes canal allowed to flow over its ruins. Sennacherib now assumed the title of king of Babylonia, but with the exception of a campaign into the Cilician mountains he seems to have undertaken no more military expeditions. The latter years of his life were passed in constructing canals and aqueducts, in embanking the Tigris, and in rebuilding the palace of Nineveh on a new and sumptuous scale. On the 20th of Tebet, or December, b.c. 681, he was murdered by his two elder sons, Adrammelech and Nergal-sharezer, who were jealous of the favour shown to their younger brother, Esar-haddon.
Esar-haddon was at the time conducting a campaign against Erimenas, king of Armenia, to whom his insurgent brothers naturally fled. Between seven and eight weeks after the murder of the old king, a battle was fought near Malatiyeh, in Kappadokia, between the veterans of Esar-haddon and the forces under his brothers and Erimenas, which ended in the complete defeat of the latter. Esar-haddon was proclaimed king, and the event proved that a wiser choice could not have been made.
His military genius was of the first order, but it was equalled by his political tact. He was the only king of Assyria who endeavoured to conciliate the nations he had conquered. Under him the fabric of the Second Empire was completed by the conquest of Egypt. In the first year of his reign he rebuilt Babylon, giving it back its captured deities, its plunder, and its people. Henceforth Babylon became the second capital of the empire, the court residing alternately there and at Nineveh. It was while Esar-haddon was holding his winter court at Babylon that Manasseh, of Judah, was brought to him as prisoner. [1]
The trade of Phœnicia was diverted into Assyrian hands by the destruction of Sidon. The caravan-road from east to west was at the same time rendered secure by an expedition into the heart of Northern Arabia. Here Esar-haddon penetrated as far as the lands of Huz and Buz, 280 miles of the march being through a waterless desert. The feat has never been excelled, and the terror it inspired among the Bedouin tribes was not forgotten for many years. The northern frontiers of the kingdom were also made safe by the defeat of Teispes, the Kimmerian, who was driven westward with his hordes into Asia Minor. In the east the Assyrian monarch was bold enough to occupy and work the copper-mines on the distant borders of Media, the very name of which had scarcely been heard of before. Westward, the kings of Cyprus paid homage to the great conqueror, and among the princes who sent materials for his palace at Nineveh were Cyprian rulers with Greek names.
But the principal achievement of Esar-haddon's reign was his conquest of the ancient monarchy of Egypt. In b.c. 675 the Assyrian army started for the banks of the Nile. Four years later Memphis was taken on the 22nd of Tammuz, or June, and Tirhakah, the Egyptian king, compelled to fly first to Thebes, and then into Ethiopia. Egypt was divided into twenty satrapies, governed partly by Assyrians, partly by native princes, whose conduct was watched by Assyrian garrisons. On his return to Assyria Esar-haddon associated Assur-bani-pal, the eldest of his four sons, in the government on the 12th of Iyyar, or April, b.c. 669, and died two years afterwards (on the 12th of Marchesvan, or October), when again on his way to Egypt. Assur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalos of the Greeks, succeeded to the empire, his brother, Samas-sum-yukin, being entrusted with the government of Babylonia.
Assur-bani-pal is probably the 'great and noble' Asnapper of Ezra iv. 10. He was luxurious, ambitious, and cruel, but a munificent patron of literature. The libraries of Babylonia were ransacked for ancient texts, and scribes were kept busily employed at Nineveh in inscribing new editions of older works. But unlike his fathers, Assur-bani-pal refused to face the hardships of a campaign. His armies were led by generals, who were required to send despatches from time to time to the king. It was evident that a purely military empire, like that of Assyria, could not last long, when its ruler had himself ceased to take an active part in military affairs. At first the veterans of his father preserved and even extended the empire of Assur-bani-pal; but before his death it was shattered irretrievably. It is characteristic of Assur-bani-pal that his lion-hunts were mere battues, in which tame animals were released from cages and lashed to make them run; in curious contrast to the lion-hunts in the open field in which his warlike predecessors had delighted.