What were the causes of this depression, from which Babylon suffered at almost regular intervals, as though stricken with some periodic malady? The main reason soon becomes apparent if we consider the nature of the country and the material conditions of its existence. Chaldæa was neither extensive enough nor sufficiently populous to afford a solid basis for the ambition of her princes. Since nearly every man capable of bearing arms was enrolled in the army, the Chaktean kings had no difficulty in raising, at a moment’s notice, a force which could be employed to repel an invasion, or make a sudden attack on some distant territory; it was in schemes which required prolonged and sustained effort that they felt the drawbacks of their position. In that age of hand-to-hand combats, the mortality in battle was very high, forced marches through forests and across mountains entailed a heavy loss of men, and three or four consecutive campaigns against a stubborn foe soon reduced an army to a condition of dangerous weakness. Recruits might be obtained to fill the earlier vacancies in the ranks, but they soon grew fewer and fewer if time was not given for recovery after the opening victories in the struggle, and the supply eventually ceased if operations were carried on beyond a certain period.
The total duration of the dynasty was, according to the Royal Canon, 72 years 6 months. Peiser has shown that this is a mistake, and he proposes to correct it to 132 years 6 months, and this is accepted by most Assyri-ologists.
A reign which began brilliantly often came to an impotent conclusion, owing to the king having failed to economise his reserves; and the generations which followed, compelled to adopt a strictly defensive attitude, vegetated in a sort of anaemic condition, until the birth-rate had brought the proportion of males up to a figure sufficiently high to provide the material for a fresh army. When Nebuchadrezzar made war upon Assurîshishî, he was still weak from the losses he had incurred during the campaign against Elam, and could not conduct his attack with the same vigour as had gained him victory on the banks of the Ulaî; in the first year he only secured a few indecisive advantages, and in the second he succumbed. Merodach-nadin-akhi was suffering from the reverses sustained by his predecessors when Tiglath-pileser provoked him to war, and though he succeeded in giving a good account of an adversary who was himself exhausted by dearly bought successes, he left to his descendants a kingdom which had been drained of its last drop of blood. The same reason which explains the decadence of Babylon shows us the cause of the periodic eclipses undergone by Assyria after each outburst of her warlike spirit. She, too, had to pay the penalty of an ambition which was out of all proportion to her resources. The mighty deeds of Shalmaneser and Tukulti-ninip were, as a natural consequence, followed by a state of complete prostration under Tukultiassurbel and Assurnîrarî: the country was now forced to pay for the glories of Assurîshishî and of Tiglath-pileser by falling into an inglorious state of languor and depression. Its kings, conscious that their rule must be necessarily precarious as long as they did not possess a larger stock of recruits to fall back on, set their wits to work to provide by various methods a more adequate reserve. While on one hand they installed native Assyrians in the more suitable towns of conquered countries, on the other they imported whole hordes of alien prisoners chosen for their strength and courage, and settled them down in districts by the banks of the Tigris and the Zab. We do not know what Eammânirâni and Shalmaneser may have done in this way, but Tiglath-pileser undoubtedly introduced thousands of the Mushku, the Urumseans, the people of Kummukh and Naîri, and his example was followed by all those of his successors whose history has come down to us. One might have expected that such an invasion of foreigners, still smarting under the sense of defeat, might have brought with it an element of discontent or rebellion; far from it, they accepted their exile as a judgment of the gods, which the gods alone had a right to reverse, and did their best to mitigate the hardness of their lot by rendering unhesitating obedience to their masters. Their grandchildren, born in the midst of Assyrians, became Assyrians themselves, and if they did not entirely divest themselves of every trace of their origin, at any rate became so closely identified with the country of their adoption, that it was difficult to distinguish them from the native race. The Assyrians who were sent out to colonise recently acquired provinces were at times exposed to serious risks. Now and then, instead of absorbing the natives among whom they lived, they were absorbed by them, which meant a loss of so much fighting strength to the mother country; even under the most favourable conditions a considerable time must have passed before they could succeed in assimilating to themselves the races amongst whom they lived. At last, however, a day would dawn when the process of incorporation was accomplished, and Assyria, having increased her area and resources twofold, found herself ready to endure to the end the strain of conquest. In the interval, she suffered from a scarcity of fighting men, due to the losses incurred in her victories, and must have congratulated herself that her traditional foe was not in a position to take advantage of this fact.
The first wave of the Assyrian invasion had barely touched Syria; it had swept hurriedly over the regions in the north, and then flowed southwards to return no more, so that the northern races were able to resume the wonted tenor of their lives. For centuries after this their condition underwent no change; there was the same repetition of dissension and intrigue, the same endless succession of alliances and battles without any signal advantage on either side. The Hittites still held Northern Syria: Carchemish was their capital, and more than one town in its vicinity preserved the tradition of their dress, their language, their arts, and their culture in full vigour. The Greek legends tell us vaguely of some sort of Cilician empire which is said to have brought the eastern and central provinces of Asia Minor into subjection about ten centuries before our era.*
* Solinus, relying on the indirect evidence of Hecatseus of
Miletus, tells us that Cilicia extended not only to the
countries afterwards known as Cataonia, Commagene, and
Syria, but also included Lydia, Media, Armenia, Pamphylia,
and Cappadocia; the conquests of the Assyrian kings must
have greatly reduced its area. I am of opinion that the
tradition preserved by Hecatous referred both to the
kingdom of Sapalulu and to that of the monarchs of this
second epoch.
Is there any serious foundation for such a belief, and must we assume that there existed at this time and in this part of the world a kingdom similar to that of Sapalulu? Assyria was recruiting its forces, Chaldæa was kept inactive by its helplessness, Egypt slumbered by the banks of its river, there was no actor of the first rank to fill the stage; now was the opportunity for a second-rate performer to come on the scene and play such a part as his abilities permitted. The Cilician conquest, if this be indeed the date at which it took place, had the boards to itself for a hundred years after the defeat of Assurirba. The time was too short to admit of its striking deep root in the country. Its leaders and men were, moreover, closely related to the Syrian Hittites; the language they spoke was, if not precisely the Hittite, at any rate a dialect of it; their customs were similar, if, perhaps, somewhat less refined, as is often the case with mountain races, when compared with the peoples of the plain. We are tempted to conclude that some of the monuments found south of the Taurus were their handiwork, or, at any rate, date from their time. For instance, the ruined palace at Sinjirli, the lower portions of which are ornamented with pictures similar to those at Pteria, representing processions of animals, some real, others fantastic, men armed with lances or bending the bow, and processions of priests or officials. Then there is the great lion at Marash, which stands erect, with menacing head, its snarling lips exposing the teeth; its body is seamed with the long lines of an inscription in the Asiatic character, in imitation of those with which the bulls in the Assyrian palaces are covered. These Cilicians gave an impulse to the civilization of the Khâti which they sorely needed, for the Semitic races, whom they had kept in subjection for centuries, now pressed them hard on all the territory over which they had formerly reigned, and were striving to drive them back into the hills.
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the cast shown at the
Paris Exhibition of 1889.