Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from
one of the bas-reliefs on the
bronze gates of Balawât.
He was, indeed, as much afraid of Urartu as of Damascus, and though he approached quite close to its boundary in his second campaign, he preferred to check his triumphant advance rather than risk attacking it. It appears to have been at that time under the undisputed rule of a certain Sharduris, son of Lutipri, and subsequently, about the middle of Assur-nazir-pal’s reign, to have passed into the hands of Aramê, who styled himself King of Naîri, and whose ambition may have caused those revolts which forced Assur-nazir-pal to take up arms in the eighteenth year of his reign. On this occasion the Assyrians again confined themselves to the chastisement of their own vassals, and checked their advance as soon as they approached Urartu. Their success was but temporary; hardly had they withdrawn from the neighbourhood, when the disturbances were renewed with even greater violence, very probably at the instigation of Aramê. Shalmaneser III. found matters in a very unsatisfactory state both on the west and south of Lake Van: some of the peoples who had been subject to his father—the Khubushkia, the pastoral tribes of the Gordæan mountains, and the Aramæans of the Euphrates—had transferred their allegiance elsewhere. He immediately took measures to recall them to a sense of their duty, and set out from Calah only a few days after succeeding to the crown. He marched at first in an easterly direction, and, crossing the pass of Simisi, burnt the city of Aridi, thus proving that he was fully prepared to treat rebels after the same fashion as his father. The lesson had immediate effect. All the neighbouring tribes, Khargæans, Simisæans, the people of Simira, Sirisha, and Ulmania, hastened to pay him homage even before he had struck his camp near Aridi. Hurrying across country by the shortest route, which entailed the making of roads to enable his chariots and cavalry to follow him, he fell upon Khubushkia, and reduced a hundred towns to ashes, pursuing the king Kakia into the depths of the forest, and forcing him to an unconditional surrender. Ascending thence to Shugunia, a dependency of Aramê’s, he laid the principality waste, in spite of the desperate resistance made on their mountain slopes by the inhabitants; then proceeding to Lake Van, he performed the ceremonial rites incumbent on an Assyrian king whenever he stood for the first time on the shores of a new sea. He washed his weapons in the waters, offered a sacrifice to the gods, casting some portions of the victim into the lake, and before leaving carved his own image on the surface of a commanding rock. On his homeward march he received tribute from Gilzân. This expedition was but the prelude of further successes. After a few weeks’ repose at Nineveh, he again set out to make his authority felt in the western portions of his dominions.
Akhuni, chief of Bît-Adini, whose position was the first to be menaced, had formed a league with the chiefs of all the cities which had formerly bowed before Assur-nazir-pal’s victorious arms, Gurgum, Samalla, Kuî, the Patina, Car-chemish, and the Khâti. Shalmaneser seized Lalati* and Burmarana, two of Akhuni’s towns, drove him across the Euphrates, and following close on his heels, collected as he passed the tribute of Gurgum, and fell upon Samalla.
* Lalati is probably the Lulati of the Egyptians. The modern
site is not known, nor is that of Burmarana.
Under the walls of Lutibu he overthrew the combined forces of Adini, Samalla, and the Patina, and raised a trophy to commemorate his victory at the sources of the Saluara; then turning sharply to the south, he crossed the Orontes in pursuit of Shapalulme, King of the Patina.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
bronze gates of Balawât.