It was on his return, perhaps, from this campaign that he planted colonies at Pitru on the right, and at Mutkînu on the left bank of the Euphrates, in order to maintain a watch over Carchemish, and the more important fords connecting Mesopotamia with the plains of the Apriê and the Orontes.*
* The existence of these colonies is known only from an
inscription of Shalmaneser II.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from a sketch by
P. Taylor, in
G. Rawlinson.
The news of Tiglath-pileser’s expedition was not long in reaching the Delta, and the Egyptian monarch then reigning at Tanis was thus made acquainted with the fact that there had arisen in Syria a new power before which his own was not unlikely to give way. In former times such news would have led to a war between the two states, but the time had gone by when Egypt was prompt to take up arms at the slightest encroachment on her Asiatic provinces. Her influence at this time was owing merely to her former renown, and her authority beyond the isthmus was purely traditional. The Tanite Pharaoh had come to accept with resignation the change in the fortunes of Egypt, and he therefore contented himself with forwarding to the Assyrian conqueror, by one of the Syrian coasting vessels, a present of some rare wild beasts and a few crocodiles. In olden times Assyria had welcomed the arrival of Thûtmosis III. on the Euphrates by making him presents, which the Theban monarch regarded in the light of tribute: the case was now reversed, the Egyptian Pharaoh taking the position formerly occupied by the Assyrian monarch. Tiglath-pileser graciously accepted this unexpected homage, but the turbulent condition of the northern tribes prevented his improving the occasion by an advance into Phoenicia and the land of Canaan. Naîri occupied his attention on two separate occasions at least; on the second of these he encamped in the neighbourhood of the source of the river Subnat. This stream, had for a long period issued from a deep grotto, where in ancient times a god was supposed to dwell. The conqueror was lavish in religious offerings here, and caused a bas-relief to be engraved on the entrance in remembrance of his victories.
He is here represented as standing upright, the tiara on his brow, and his right arm extended as if in the act of worship, while his left, the elbow brought up to his side, holds a club. The inscription appended to the figure tells, with an eloquence all the more effective from its brevity, how, “with the aid of Assur, Shamash, and Eammân, the great gods, my lords, I, Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, son of Assurîshishî, King of Assyria, son of Mutakkilnusku, King of Assyria, conqueror from the great sea, the Mediterranean, to the great sea of Naîri, I went for the third time to Naîri.”
The gods who had so signally favoured the monarch received the greater part of the spoils which he had secured in his campaigns. The majority of the temples of Assyria, which were founded at a time when its city was nothing more than a provincial capital owing allegiance to Babylon, were either, it would appear, falling to ruins from age, or presented a sorry exterior, utterly out of keeping with the magnitude of its recent wealth. The king set to work to enlarge or restore the temples of Ishtar, Martu, and the ancient Bel;* he then proceeded to rebuild, from the foundations to the summit, that of Anu and Bammân, which the vicegerent Samsirammân, son of Ismidagan, had constructed seven hundred and one years previously. This temple was the principal sanctuary of the city, because it was the residence of the chief of the gods, Assur, under his appellation of Anu.**
* “Bel the ancient,” or possibly “the ancient master,”
appears to have been one of the names of Anu, who is
naturally in this connexion the same as Assur.
** This was the great temple of which the ruins still exist.
The soil was cleared away down to the bed-rock, upon which an enormous substructure, consisting of fifty courses of bricks, was laid, and above this were erected two lofty ziggurâts, whose tile-covered surfaces shone like the rising sun in their brightness; the completion of the whole was commemorated by a magnificent festival. The special chapel of Bammân and his treasury, dating from the time of the same Samsirammân who had raised the temple of Anu, were also rebuilt on a more important scale.*