Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
bronze gate at Balawât. The two soldiers who represent the
Assyrian army carry their shields before them; flames appear
above the ramparts, showing that the conquerors have burnt
the town.
The victorious sovereigns appear to have taken a pride in the ingenuity with which they varied these means of torture, and dwell with complacency on the recital of their cruelties. “I constructed a pillar at the gate of the city,” is the boast of one of them; “I then flayed the chief men, and covered the post with their skins; I suspended their dead bodies from this same pillar, I impaled others on the summit of the pillar, and I ranged others on stakes around the pillar.”
Two or three executions of this kind usually sufficed to demoralise the enemy. The remaining inhabitants assembled: terrified by the majesty of Assur, and as it were blinded by the brightness of his countenance, they sunk down at the knees of the victor and embraced his feet.*
* These are the very expressions used in the Assyrian texts:
“The terror of my strength overthrew them, they feared the
combat, and they embraced my feet;” and again: “The
brightness of Assur, my lord, overturned them.” This latter
image is explained by the presence over the king of the
winged figure of Assur directing the battle.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
bronze gates of Balawât; on the right the town is seen in
flames, and on the walls on either side hangs a row of
heads, one above another.
The peace secured at the price of their freedom left them merely with their lives and such of their goods as could not be removed from the soil. The scribes thereupon surrounded the spoil seized by the soldiery and drew up a detailed inventory of the prisoners and their property: everything worth carrying away to Assyria was promptly registered, and despatched to the capital.