Drawn by Faucher Gudin, from Layard.
The contents of the royal palace led the way; it comprised the silver, gold, and copper of the vanquished prince, his caldrons, dishes and cups of brass, the women of his harem, the maidens of his household, his furniture and stuffs, horses and chariots, together with his men and women servants. The enemy’s gods, like his kings, were despoiled of their possessions, and poor and rich suffered alike. The choicest of their troops were incorporated into the Assyrian regiments, and helped to fill the gaps which war had made in the ranks;* the peasantry and townsfolk were sold as slaves, or were despatched with their families to till the domains of the king in some Assyrian village.* Tiglath-pileser I. in this manner incorporated 120 chariots of the Kashki and the Urumi into the Assyrian chariotry.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of one of the
gates of Balawât.
The monuments often depict the exodus of these unfortunate wretches. They were represented as proceeding on their way in the charge of a few foot-soldiers—each of the men carrying, without any sign of labour, a bag of provisions, while the women bear their young children on their shoulders or in their arms: herds of cows and flocks of goats and sheep follow, chariots drawn by mules bringing up the rear with the baggage. While the crowd of non-combatants were conducted in irregular columns without manacles or chains, the veteran troops and the young men capable of bearing arms were usually bound together, and sometimes were further secured by a wooden collar placed on their necks. Many perished on the way from want or fatigue, but such as were fortunate enough to reach the end of the journey were rewarded with a small portion of land and a dwelling, becoming henceforward identified with the indigenous inhabitants of the country. Assyrians were planted as colonists in the subjugated towns, and served to maintain there the authority of the conqueror. The condition of the latter resembled to a great extent that of the old Egyptian vassals in Phoenicia or Southern Syria. They were allowed to retain their national constitution, rites, and even their sovereigns; when, for instance, after some rebellion, one of these princes had been impaled or decapitated, his successor was always chosen from among the members of his own family, usually one of his sons, who was enthroned almost before his father had ceased to breathe. He was obliged to humiliate his own gods before Assur, to pay a yearly tribute, to render succour in case of necessity to the commanders of neighbouring garrisons, to send his troops when required to swell the royal army, to give his sons or brothers as hostages, and to deliver up his own sisters and daughters, or those of his nobles, for the harem or the domestic service of the conqueror. The unfortunate prince soon resigned himself to this state of servitude; he would collect around him and reorganise his scattered subjects, restore them to their cities, rebuild their walls, replant the wasted orchards, and sow the devastated fields. A few years of relative peace and tranquillity, during which he strove to be forgotten by his conqueror, restored prosperity to his country; the population increased with extraordinary rapidity, and new generations arose who, unconscious of the disasters suffered by their predecessors, had, but one aim, that of recovering their independence. We must, however, beware of thinking that the defeat of these tribes was as crushing or their desolation as terrible as the testimony of the inscriptions would lead us to suppose. The rulers of Nineveh were but too apt to relate that this or that country had been conquered and its people destroyed, when the Assyrian army had remained merely a week or a fortnight within its territory, had burnt some half-dozen fortified towns, and taken two or three thousand prisoners.*
* For example, Tiglath-pileser I. conquers the Kummukli in
the first year of his reign, burning, destroying, and
depopulating the towns, and massacring “the remainder of the
Kummukh” who had taken refuge in the mountains, after which,
in his second campaign, he again pillages, burns, destroys,
and depopulates the towns, and again massacres the remainder
of the inhabitants hiding in the mountains. He makes the
same statements with regard to most of the other countries
and peoples conquered by him, but we find them reappearing
with renewed vigour on the scene, soon after their supposed
destruction.
If we were to accept implicitly all that is recorded of the Assyrian exploits in Naîri or the Taurus, we should be led to believe that for at least half a century the valleys of the Upper Tigris and Middle Euphrates were transformed into a desert; each time, however, that they are subsequently mentioned on the occasion of some fresh expedition, they appear once more covered with thriving cities and a vigorous population, whose generals offer an obstinate resistance to the invaders. We are, therefore, forced to admit that the majority of these expeditions must be regarded as mere raids. The population, disconcerted by a sudden attack, would take refuge in the woods or on the mountains, carrying with them their gods, whom they thus preserved from captivity, together with a portion of their treasures and cattle; but no sooner had the invader retired, than they descended once more into the plain and returned to their usual occupations. The Assyrian victories thus rarely produced the decisive results which are claimed for them; they almost always left the conquered people with sufficient energy and resources to enable them to resume the conflict after a brief interval, and the supremacy which the suzerain claimed as a result of his conquests was of the most ephemeral nature. A revolt would suffice to shake it, while a victory would be almost certain to destroy it, and once more reduce the empire to the limits of Assyria proper.