Towards the end of his reign he partly subjugated the Mannai, planting colonies throughout their territory to strengthen his hold on the country. By these campaigns he had formed a kingdom, which, stretching from the south side of the Araxes to the upper reaches of the Zab and the Tigris, was quite equal to Assyria in size, and probably surpassed it in density of population, for it contained no barren steppes such as stretched across Mesopotamia, affording support merely to a few wretched Bedâwin. As their dominions increased, the sovereigns of Biainas began to consider themselves on an equality with the kings of Nineveh, and endeavoured still more to imitate them in the luxury and display of their domestic life, as well as in the energy of their actions and the continuity of their victories. They engraved everywhere on the rocks triumphal inscriptions, destined to show to posterity their own exploits and the splendour of their gods. Having made this concession to their vanity, they took effective measures to assure possession of their conquests. They selected in the various provinces sites difficult of access, commanding some defile in the’ mountains, or ford over a river, or at the junction of two roads, or the approach to a plain; on such spots they would build a fortress or a town, or, finding a citadel already existing, they would repair it and remodel its fortifications so as to render it impregnable. At Kalajik, Ashrut-Darga, and the older Mukhrapert may still be seen the ruins of ramparts built by Ishpuims. Menuas finished the buildings his father had begun, erected others in all the districts where he sojourned, in time of peace or war, at Shushanz, Sirka,* Anzaff, Arzwapert, Geuzak, Zolakert, Tashtepê, and in the country of the Mannai, and it is possible that the fortified village of Melasgerd still bears his name.**
* The name of the ancient place corresponding to the modern
village of Sirka was probably Artsunis or Artsuyunis,
according to the Vannic inscriptions.
** A more correct form than Melas-gerd is Manas-gert, the
city of Manas, where Manas would represent Menuas: one of
the inscriptions of Aghtamar speaks of a certain
Menuakhinas, city of Menuas, which may be a primitive
version of the same name.
His wars furnished him with the men and materials necessary for the rapid completion of these works, while the statues, valuable articles of furniture, and costly fabrics, vessels of silver, gold, and copper carried off from Assyrian or Asiatic cities, provided him with surroundings as luxurious as those enjoyed by the kings of Nineveh. His favourite residence was amid the valleys and hills of the south-western shore of Lake Van, the sea of the rising sun. His father, Ishpuinis, had already done much to embellish the site of Dhuspas, or Khaldinas as it was called, from the god Khaldis; he had surrounded it with strong walls, and within them had laid the foundations of a magnificent palace. Menuas carried on the work, brought water to the cisterns by subterranean aqueducts, planted gardens, and turned the whole place into an impregnable fortress, where a small but faithful garrison could defy a large army for several years. Dhuspas, thus completed, formed the capital and defence of the kingdom during the succeeding century.
Menuas was gathered to his fathers shortly before the death of Eammân-nirâri, perhaps in 784 B.C.*
* This date seems to agree with the text of the Annals of
Argistis, as far as we are at present acquainted with them;
Müller has shown, in fact, that they contain the account of
fourteen campaigns, probably the first fourteen of the reign
of Argistis, and he has recognised, in accordance with the
observations of Stanislas Guyard, the formula which
separates the campaigns one from another. There are two
campaigns against the peoples of the Upper Euphrates
mentioned before the campaigns against Assyria, and as these
latter follow continuously after 781, it is probable that
the former must be placed in 783-782, which would give 783
or 784 for the year of his accession.
He was engaged up to the last in a quarrel with the princes who occupied the mountainous country to the north of the Araxes, and his son Argistis spent the first few years of his reign in completing his conquests in this region.* He crushed with ease an attempted revolt in Dayaîni, and then invaded Etius, systematically devastating it, its king, Uduris, being powerless to prevent his ravages. All the principal towns succumbed one after another before the vigour of his assault, and, from the numbers killed and taken prisoners, we may surmise the importance of his victories in these barbarous districts, to which belonged the names of Seriazis, Silius, Zabakhas, Zirimutaras, Babanis, and Urmias,** though we cannot definitely locate the places indicated.
* The Annals of Argistis are inscribed on the face of the
rock which crowns the citadel of Van. The inscription
contains (as stated in note above) the history of the first
fourteen yearly campaigns of Argistis.
** The site of these places is still undetermined. Seriazis
and Silius (or Tarius) lay to the north-east of Dayaîni, and
Urmias, Urmê, recalls the modern name of Lake Urumiah, but
was probably situated on the left bank of the Araxes.
On a single occasion, the assault on Ureyus, for instance, Argistis took prisoners 19,255 children, 10,140 men fit to bear arms, 23,280 women, and the survivors of a garrison which numbered 12,675 soldiers at the opening of the siege, besides 1104 horses, 35,016 cattle, and more than 10,000 sheep. Two expeditions into the heart of the country, conducted between 784 and 782 B.C., had greatly advanced the work of conquest, when the accession of a new sovereign in Assyria made Argistis decide to risk a change of front and to concentrate the main part of his forces on the southern boundary of his empire. Rammân-nirâri, after his last contest in Khubushkia in 784, had fought two consecutive campaigns against the Aramæan tribes of Itua, near the frontiers of Babylon, and he was still in conflict with them when he died in 782 B.C. His son, Shalmaneser IV., may have wished to signalise the commencement of his reign by delivering from the power of Urartu the provinces which the kings of that country had wrested from his ancestors; or, perhaps, Argistis thought that a change of ruler offered him an excellent opportunity for renewing the struggle at the point where Menuas had left it, and for conquering yet more of the territory which still remained to his rival. Whatever the cause, the Assyrian annals show us the two adversaries ranged against each other, in a struggle which lasted from 781 to 778 B.C. Argistis had certainly the upper hand, and though his advance was not rapid, it was never completely checked. The first engagement took place at Nirbu, near the sources of the Supnat and the Tigris: Nirbu capitulated, and the enemy pitilessly ravaged the Hittite states, which were subject to Assyria, penetrating as far as the heart of Melitene (781). The next year the armies encountered each other nearer to Nineveh, in the basin of the Bitlis-tchaî, at Khakhias; and, in 779, Argistis expressly thanks his gods, the Khaldises, for having graciously bestowed upon him as a gift the armies and cities of Assur. The scene of the war had shifted, and the contest was now carried on in the countries bordering on Lake Urumiah, Bustus and Parsua. The natives gained nothing by the change of invader, and were as hardly used by the King of Urartu as they had been by Shalmaneser III. or by Samsirammân: as was invariably the case, their towns were given over to the flames, their fields ravaged, their cattle and their families carried into captivity. Their resistance, however, was so determined that a second campaign was required to complete the conquest: and this time the Assyrians suffered a serious defeat at Surisidas (778), and a year at least was needed for their recovery from the disaster. During this respite, Argistis hastened to complete the pacification of Bustus, Parsua, and the small portion of Man which had not been reduced to subjection by Menuas. When the Assyrians returned to the conflict, he defeated them again (776), and while they withdrew to the Amanus, where a rebellion had broken out (775), he reduced one by one the small states which clustered round the eastern and southern shores of Lake Urumiah. He was conducting a campaign in Namri, when Shalmaneser IV. made a last effort to check his advance; but he was again victorious (774), and from henceforth these troubled regions, in which Nineveh had so persistently endeavoured for more than a century to establish her own supremacy, became part of the empire of Urartu. Argistis’s hold of them proved, however, to be a precarious and uncertain one, and before long the same difficulties assailed him which had restricted the power of his rivals.