Assyria: Its Princes, Priests and People / By-Paths of Bible Knowledge VII

by A. H. Sayce

The barbarities which followed the capture of a town would be almost incredible, were they not a subject of boast in the inscriptions which record them. Assur-natsir-pal's cruelties were especially revolting. Pyramids of human heads marked the path of the conqueror; boys and girls were burned alive or reserved for a worse fate; men were impaled, flayed alive, blinded, or deprived of their hands and feet, of their ears and noses, while the women and children were carried into slavery, the captured city plundered and reduced to ashes, and the trees in its neighbourhood cut down. During the second Assyrian Empire warfare was a little more humane, but the most horrible tortures were still exercised upon the vanquished. How deeply-seated was the thirst for blood and vengeance on an enemy is exemplified in a bas-relief which represents Assur-bani-pal and his queen feasting in their garden while the head of the conquered Elamite king hangs from a tree above.

The Assyrians made use of chairs, tables, and couches. A piece of sculpture from Khorsabad introduces us to a scene in which the priests of the king are seated, two on a chair on either side of a four-legged table. Their sandals are removed, as was the custom among the Greeks when eating. In the luxurious days of Assur-bani-pal the couch seems to have partially taken the place of the chair, since in the scene alluded to above the king is depicted reclining, though the queen sits in a chair by his side. The number of different kinds of food mentioned in the inscriptions seems to imply that the Assyrians were fond of good living. The common people, it is true, lived mostly on bread, fruit, and vegetables; but the monuments show us soldiers engaged in slaughtering and cooking oxen and sheep.

Wine was the usual beverage at a banquet, and the Assyrians appear to have resembled the Persians in their indulgence in it. Various sorts of wine are enumerated in the inscriptions, most of which were imported from abroad. Among the most highly prized was the wine of Khilbun or Helbon, which is mentioned in Ezek. xxvii. 18, and was grown near Damascus at a village still called Halbûn. Besides grape-wine, palm-wine, made from dates, was brought from Babylon, and beer, milk, cream, butter or ghee, and oil, were all much used. At a feast the wine was ladled out of a large vase into cups, which were then presented to the guests.

The table was ornamented with flowers, and musicians were hired to amuse the banqueters. No less than seven or eight different musical instruments were known, among them the harp, the lyre, and the tambourine. The lyre seems to have been specially employed at feasts, and the harp for the performance of sacred music. The instrumental music was at times accompanied by the voice, and bands of musicians celebrated the triumphant return of the king from war.

Polygamy was permitted—at all events to the monarch—and the palace was accordingly guarded by a whole army of eunuchs. They were generally in attendance on the sovereign, like the scribes whose offices were continually needed in both peace and war. Another attendant must not be forgotten—the servant who stood behind the king armed with a fly-flap, and was almost a necessity in hot weather. Considering the number of captives carried away every year to Assyria in the successful campaigns of its rulers, slaves must have been very plentiful in Nineveh. Indeed, after the Arabian campaign of Assur-bani-pal we are told that a camel was sold for half a shekel of silver, and that a man was worth a correspondingly small sum.

Next to hunting men the chief employment and delight of an Assyrian king was to hunt wild beasts. Tiglath-Pileser I had hunted elephants in the land of the Hittites, as the Egyptian Pharaohs had done before him; subsequently the extinction of the elephant in Western Asia caused his successors to content themselves with lesser game. The reem or wild bull and the lion became their favourite sport, smaller animals like the gazelle, the hare, and the wild ass being left to their subjects to pursue. It was not until the reign of Assur-bani-pal that the lion-hunt ceased to be a dangerous and exciting pastime. With Esar-haddon, however, the old race of warrior kings had come to an end, and the new king introduced a new style of sport. The lions were now caught and kept in cages, until they were turned out for a royal battue. As they had to be whipped into activity, neither the monarch nor his companions could have run much risk of being harmed.

The Assyrians were not an agricultural people like the Babylonians. Nevertheless, the kings had their paradises or parks, and the wealthier classes their gardens or shrubberies. The garden was planted with trees rather than with flowers or herbs, and afforded a shady retreat during the summer months. Tiglath-Pileser I had even established a sort of botanical garden, in which he tried to acclimatise some of the trees he had met with in his campaigns. He tells us of it: 'As for the cedar, the likkarin tree, and the almug, from the countries I have conquered, these trees, which none of the kings my fathers that were before me had planted, I took, and in the gardens of my land I planted, and by the name of garden I called them; whatsoever in my land there was not I took, and I established the gardens of Assyria.' The gardens were abundantly watered from the river or canal, by the side of which they were usually planted. Summer-houses were built in the midst of them, and as early as the time of Sennacherib we meet with a 'hanging garden,' grown on the roof of a building.

Fishing was carried on with a line merely, and without a rod. The fisherman sat on the bank, or else swam in the water, supporting himself on an inflated skin.