The one important document of the group, then, is the Annals. That, with all its value, it is a very much over estimated document, has already been shown. [Footnote: Olmstead, Sargon, 3 ff.] There are four recensions, some of which differ widely among themselves and from other inscriptions. For example, there are three accounts of the fate of Merodach Baladan. In one, he is captured; [Footnote: Display 133.] in the second he begs for peace; [Footnote: Annals V.] in the third, he runs away and escapes. [Footnote: Annals 349.] Naturally, we are inclined to accept the last, which is actually confirmed by the later course of events.
But it is only when we compare the Annals with earlier documents that we realize how low it ranks, even among official inscriptions. Already we have learned the dubious character of its chronology. The Assyrian Chronicle has "in the land" for 712, that is, there was no campaign in that year. Yet for that very year, the Annals has an expedition against Asia Minor! It is prism B which solves the puzzle. In the earliest years, it seems to have had the same chronology as the Annals. Later, it drops a year behind and, at the point where it ends, it has given the Ashdod expedition as two years earlier than the Annals. [Footnote: Cf. Ohmstead, Sargon, 11.] Even with the old data, it was clear that the Prism was earlier and therefore probably more trustworthy; and it was easy to explain the puzzle by assuming that years "in the land" had been later padded out by the Annals, just as we have seen was done for Dan Ashur under Shalmaneser III. Now the discovery of the tablet of the year 714 has completely vindicated the character of Prism B while it has even more completely condemned the Annals as a particularly untrustworthy example of annalistic writing.
In the first place, it shows us how much we have lost. The tablet has 430 lines, of which a remarkably small portion consists of passages which are mere glorifications or otherwise of no value. Out of this mass of material, the Annals has utilized but 36 lines. That this is a fair sample of what we have lost in other years is hardly too much to suspect. Further, it would seem that the Annals used, not the tablet itself, but, since it has a phrase common to the Annals and the Prism, [Footnote: Ann. 125 f.; Prism B, Thureau-Dangin, op. cit., 76 f.] but not found in the tablet, either the Prism itself or a common ancestor.
The cases where we can prove that the editor of the Annals "improved" his original are few but striking. It is indeed curious that he has in a few cases lowered the numbers of his original, even to the extent of giving three fortified cities and twenty four villages [Footnote: Ann. 105.] where the tablet has twelve fortified cities and eighty four villages. [Footnote: Tabl. 89.] On the other hand, by a trick especially common among the Sargonide scribes, the 1,235 sheep of the tablet [Footnote: Tabl. 349.] has reached the enormous total of 100,225! [Footnote: Ann. 129; of. Thureau-Dangin, op. cit., 68, n. 4 for comparison of numbers. The same phenomenon can be constantly seen in the huge increases of the numbers of the Display inscription as compared with its original, the Annals.] More serious, because less likely to be allowed for, is the statement that Parda was captured [Footnote: Ann. 106.] when the original merely says that it was abandoned by its chief. [Footnote: Tabl. 84.] But the most glaring innovation of the scribe is where, in speaking of the fate of Rusash, the Haldian king, after his defeat, he adds "with his own iron dagger, like a pig, his heart he pierced, and his life he ended." [Footnote: Ann. 139.] This has long been doubted on general principles, [Footnote: Cf. Olmstead, Sargon, 111.] but now we have the proof that it is only history as the scribe would like it to have been written. For the new inscription, while giving the conventional picture of the despair of the defeated king, says not a word of any suicide. [Footnote: Tabl. 411ff.] However, the tablet does elsewhere mention the sickness of Rusash, [Footnote: Ibid. 115.] and it may well be that it is to this sickness that we must attribute his death later. [Footnote: Cf. Thureau-Dangin, op. cit., xix.] The complete misunderstanding of the whole campaign by earlier writers [Footnote: Compare, for example, the brief and inaccurate account in Olmstead, Sargon, 112 ff., with that in thureau-Dangin, op. cit. on the basis of the new tablet] furnishes the clearest indication of the unsatisfactory character of our recital so long as we must rely entirely on the Annals. It is the discovery of conditions like these which forces us to subject our official inscriptions to the most rigid scrutiny before we dare use them in our history. [Footnote: Botta, Monuments de Ninive, pi. 70 ff.; 104 ff.; 158f£.; Winckler, Sargon II. pl. 1 ff. Oppert in Place, Ninive, II. 309 ff.; Les Inscriptions de Dour Sarkayan, 29 ff.; RP: VII. 21 ff.; Menant, 158 ff.; Winckler, De inscriptione quae vocatur Annalium, 1886; Sargon, I. 3 ff.]
CHAPTER VI
ANNALS AND DISPLAY INSCRIPTIONS
(Sennacherib and Esarhaddon)
Of the sources for the reign of Sennacherib (705-686), [Footnote: The only fairly complete collection of sources for the reign is still Smith-Sayce, History of Sennacherib, 1878, though nearly all the data needed for a study of the Annals are given by Bezold, KB. II. 80 ff. Extracts, Rogers, 340 ff. Cf. also Olmstead, Western Asia in the reign of Sennacherib, Proceedings of Amer. Historical Assn., 1909, 94 ff.] the chief is the Annals, added to at intervals of a few years, and so existing in several editions. As usual, the latest of these, the Taylor inscription, has been accorded the place of honor, so that the earliest edition, the so called Bellino Cylinder, can be called by a well known historian "a sort of duplicate of" the Taylor inscription. [Footnote: Maspero, Histoire, III. 273 n. 1.] As we have seen repeatedly, the exact reverse should be our procedure, though here, as in the case of Ashur nasir apal, the evil results in the writing of history are less serious than in the case of most reigns. This is due to the unusual circumstances that, with comparatively few exceptions, there was little omission or addition of the earlier data. Regularly, the new edition simply added to the old, and, as a result, the form of the mass of clay on which these Annals were written changes with the increased length of the document, the earlier being true cylinders, while the latter are prisms. [Footnote: King, Cuneiform Texts, XXVI. 7 f.] At the same time that the narrative of military events was lengthened, the account of the building operations followed suit. A serious defect is the fact that these documents are dated, not by years, but by campaigns, with the result that there are serious questions in chronology. The increase in the number of our editions, however, has solved many of these, as the date of the campaign can now usually be fixed by observing in which dated document it last occurs.
Of the more than twenty five more or less complete documents, the first is the so called Bellino Cylinder which dates from October, 702. The fact that it has been studied separately has tended to prevent the realization that it is actually only a recension. As a first edition, it is a trifle fuller, but surprisingly little. [Footnote: K. 1680. Grotefend, Abh. Göttingen, Gesell. 1850. L. 63 f. Smith-Sayce, 1 f., 24 ff., cf. 43 ff. Oppert, Exped. I. 297 ff.; Menant, 225 ff.; Talbot, JRAS. XVIII. 76 ff.; Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. VIII, 369 ff.; RP¹, I. 23 ff. It is the Bl. of Bezold.] Next comes Cylinder B, now represented by six complete and seven fragmentary cylinders. It includes campaign three and is dated in May, 700. [Footnote: Smith-Sayce, 30, 70 f., cf. 24, 43, 53; Evetts, ZA. III. 311 ff.; for list of tablets, cf. Bezold, l. c.] Cylinder C dates from 697 and contains the fourth expedition. [Footnote: K. 1674; Smith-Sayce, 14, 76, cf. 30, 43, 53, 73, 78. The A 2 of Bezold.] The mutilated date of Cylinder D may be either 697 or 695, but as it has one campaign more than Cylinder C of 697, we should probably date it to the latter year. [Footnote: BM. 22,508; K. 1675; Smith-Sayce, 24, 30, 43, 53, 73, 79; King, Cuneiform Texts, XXVI. 38, cf. p. 10, n. 2. The A 8 of Bezold.] From this recension seems to have been derived the display inscription recently discovered on Mt. Nipur, which was inscribed at the end of campaign five. [Footnote: Inscription at Hasanah (Hassan Agha?) King, PSBA. XXXV. 66 ff.]
Somewhat different from these is the newest Sennacherib inscription, [Footnote: BM. 103,000; King, Cuneiform Texts, XXVI; cf. Pinches, JRAS. 1910, 387 ff.] which marks the transition from the shorter to the longer cylinders. [Footnote: King, op. cit., 9.] After the narrative of the fifth campaign, two others are given, and dated, not by the number of campaign as in the documents of the regular series, but by the eponyms, so that here we have actual chronology. The two campaigns took place in 698 and 695 respectively, the inscription itself being dated in 694. That they are not dated by the campaigns of the king and that they are not given in the later editions is perhaps due to the fact that the king did not conduct them in person. [Footnote: King, op. cit., p. 10.] The occasion for this new edition is not to be found, however, in these petty frontier wars, but in the completion of the new palace, in the increase in the size of the city of Nineveh, in the building of a park, and in the installation of a water supply, as these take up nearly a half of the inscription. The recovery of this document has also enabled us to place in the same group two other fragments, now recognized as duplicates. [Footnote: BM. 102, 996, King, Cuneiform Texts, XXVI. 38; cf. p. 15, n. 1; K. 4492, ibid. 39, not a reference to Tarbisi, as Meiasner-Rost, Bauinschriften, 94f; as is shown by King, p. 18 n. 1.]