* This was the history of the only one of those colonies
whose fate is known to us—that founded at Samaria by Sargon
and his successors.
** The texts contain a certain number of names of offices,
the precise nature of which it is not easy to ascertain,
e.g. the Khâzanu, the Labuttu, and others. One of them,
apparently, should be read Shuparshak, and identical with
one of the titles mentioned in Ezra (v. 6, vi. 6) as being
in existence during the Persian epoch.
Drawn by Boudier,
from a photograph
by Mansell.
The various functionaries, governors of towns, tax-collectors, heads of stations, and officers whose duty it was to patrol the roads and look after the safety of merchants, were, for the most part, selected from among natives who had thrown in their lot with Assyria, and probably few Assyrians were to be found outside the more turbulent cities and important fortresses. The kings and chiefs whose territory was attached to a given province, either took their instructions direct from Nineveh, or were sometimes placed under the control of a resident, or kipu, with some sort of escort at his back, who kept watch over their movements and reported them to the suzerain, and saw that the tribute was paid regularly, and that the military service provided for in the treaties was duly rendered. Governors and residents alike kept up a constant correspondence with the court, and such of their letters as have chanced to come down to us show what a minute account of even the most trifling occurrences was required of them by the central authorities. They were not only obliged to report any fluctuation in the temper or attitude of their subordinates, or any intrigues that were being entered into across the frontier; they had also to record the transfer of troops, the return of fugitives, the pursuit of deserters, any chance scuffle between soldiers and natives, as well as the punishment inflicted on the rebellious, the appearance of a portent in the heavens, or omens noticed by the augurs. There were plenty of envious or officious tongues among their followers to report to headquarters the slightest failure of duty, and to draw attention to their negligence. Moreover, it seems certain that the object of thus compelling them to refer to the king at every turn, was not merely in order to keep him informed of all that took place in his dependencies, but also to lay bare the daily life of his prefects before his eyes. The latter were entrusted with the command of seasoned troops; they had considerable sums of money passing through their hands, and were often obliged to take prompt decisions and enter into diplomatic or military transactions on their own responsibility; in short, most of them, at any rate, who were stationed at the furthest confines of the empire were really kings in all but title, insignia, and birth. There was always the danger lest some among them should be tempted to reassert, in their own interest, the independence of the countries under their rule, and seek to found a dynasty in their midst. The strict supervision maintained over these governors generally nipped any ambition of this kind in the bud; in some cases, however, it created the very danger it was intended to prevent. If a governor who had been recalled to Nineveh or Calah in order to explain his conduct failed to clear himself completely, he at once fell into disgrace; and disgrace in Assyria, as in other countries of the East, meant, nine times out of ten, confiscation of property, mutilation and lifelong imprisonment, or death in its most hideous form. He would, therefore, think twice before quitting his post, and if he had any reason to suppose himself suspected, or viewed with disfavour in high quarters, he would be in no hurry to obey a summons to the capital. A revolt was almost certain to be crushed without fail, and offered merely a very precarious chance of escape, but the governor was seldom likely to hesitate between almost certain condemnation and the vague possibility of a successful rising; in such a case, therefore, he staked everything on a single throw.
The system was a defective on, in that it exposed to strong temptation the very functionaries whose loyalty was most essential to the proper working of the administration, but its dangers were out weighed by such important advantages that we cannot but regard it as a very real improvement on the haphazard methods of the past. In the first place, it opened up a larger recruiting-ground for the army, and, in a measure, guaranteed it against that premature exhaustion which had already led more than once to an eclipse of the Assyrian power. It may be that the pick of these provincial troops were, preferably, told off for police duties, or for the defence of the districts in which they were levied, and that they seldom left it except to do battle in the adjacent territory;* but, even with these limitations they were none the less of inestimable value, since they relieved the main army of Assyria from garrison duties in a hundred scattered localities, and allowed the king to concentrate it almost in its entirety about his own person, and to direct it en masse upon those points where he wished to strike a decisive blow.
* Thus, in the reign of Assur-bani-pal, we find the militia
of the governor of Uruk marching to battle against the
Gambulu.
On the other hand, the finances of the kingdom were put on a more stable and systematic basis. For nearly the whole of the two previous centuries, during which Assyria had resumed its victorious career, the treasury had been filled to some extent by taxes in kind or in money, and by various dues claimed from the hereditary kingdom and its few immediate dependencies, but mainly by booty and by tribute levied after each campaign from the peoples who had been conquered or had voluntarily submitted to Assyrian rule. The result was a budget which fluctuated greatly, since all forays were not equally lucrative, and the new dependencies proved so refractory at the idea of perpetual tribute, that frequent expeditions were necessary in order to persuade them to pay their dues. We do not know how Tiglath-pileser III. organised the finances of his provinces, but certain facts recorded here and there in the texts show that he must have drawn very considerable amounts from them. We notice that twenty or thirty years after his time, Carchemish was assessed at a hundred talents, Arpad and Kuî at thirty each, Megiddo and Manzuatu at fifteen, though the purposes to which these sums were applied is not specified.
