* The importance of the event and the amount of the spoil
captured are apparent, if we notice that Esarhaddon does not
usually record the booty taken after each campaign; he does
so only when the number of objects and of prisoners taken
from the enemy is extraordinary. The Babylonian Chronicle
of Pinches places the capture of Sidon in the second, and
the death of Abdimilkôt in the fifth year of his reign.
Hence Winckler has concluded that Abdimilkôt held out for
fully two years after the loss of Sidon. The general tenor
of the account, as given by the inscriptions, seems to me to
be that the capture of the king followed closely on the fall
of the town: Abdimilkôt and Sanduarri probably spent the
years between 679 and 676 in prison.
** One of the oracles of Shamash speaks of the captives as
dwelling in a canton of the Mannai.
Esarhaddon, warned of their intrigues by the spies which he sent among them, could not bring himself either to anticipate their attack or to assume the offensive, but anxiously consulted the gods with regard to them: “O Shamash,” he wrote to the Sun-god, “great lord, thou whom I question, answer me in sincerity! From this day forth, the 22nd day of this month of Simanu, until the 21st day of the month of Duzu of this year, during these thirty days and thirty nights, a time has been foreordained favourable to the work of prophecy. In this time thus foreordained, the hordes of the Scythians who inhabit a district of the Mannai, and who have crossed the Mannian frontier,—will they succeed in their undertaking? Will they emerge from the passes of Khubushkia at the towns of Kharrânia and Anîsuskia; will they ravage the borders of Assyria and steal great booty, immense spoil? that doth thy high divinity know. Is it a decree, and in the mouth of thy high divinity, O Shamash, great lord, ordained and promulgated? He who sees, shall he see it; he who hears, shall he hear it?” *
* The town of Anîsuskia is not mentioned elsewhere, but
Kharrânia is met with in the account of the thirty-first
campaign of Shalmaneser III. with Kharrâna as its variant.
The god comforted his faithful servant, but there was a brief delay before his answer threw light on the future, and the king’s questions were constantly renewed as fresh couriers brought in further information. In 678 B.C. the Scythians determined to try their fortune, and their king, Ishpakai,* took the field, followed by the Mannai. He was defeated and driven back to the north of Lake Urumiah, the Mannai were reduced to subjection, and Assyria once more breathed freely. The victory, however, was not a final one, and affairs soon assumed as threatening an aspect as before. The Scythian tribes came on the scene, one after another, and allied themselves to the various peoples subject either directly or indirectly to Nineveh.** On one occasion it was Kashtariti, the regent of Karkashshi,*** who wrote to Mamitiarshu, one of the Median princes, to induce him to make common cause with himself in attacking the fortress of Kishshashshu on the eastern border of the empire. At another time we find the same chief plotting with the Mannai and the Saparda to raid the town of Kilmân, and Esarhaddon implores the god to show him how the place may be saved from their machinations.****
* This king’s name seems to be of Iranian origin. Justi has
connected it with the name Aspakos, which is read in a Greek
inscription of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; both forms have been
connected with the Sanskrit Açvalca.
** This subdivision of the horde into several bodies seems
to be indicated by the number of different royal names among
the Scythians which are mentioned in the Assyrian documents.
*** The site of Karkashshi is unknown, but the list of
Median princes subdued by Sargon shows that it was situated
in Media. Kishshashshu is very probably the same as Kishisim
or Kishisu, the town which Sargon subdued, and which he
called Kar-nergal or Kar-ninib, and which is mentioned in
the neighbourhood of Parsuash, Karalla, Kharkhar, Media, and
Ellipi. I think that it would be in the basin of the Gave—
Rud; Billerbeck places it at the ruins of Siama, in the
upper valley of the Lesser Zab.
**** The people of Saparda, called by the Persians Sparda,
have been with good reason identified with the Sepharad of
the prophet Obadiah (ver. 20): the Assyrian texts show that
this country should be placed in the neighbourhood of the
Mannai of the Medes.
He opens negotiations in order to gain time, but the barbarity of his adversary is such that he fears for his envoy’s safety, and speculates whether he may not have been put to death. The situation would indeed have become critical if Kashtariti had succeeded in bringing against Assyria a combined force of Medes, Scythians, Mannai, and Cimmerians, together with Urartu and its king, Eusas III.; but, fortunately, petty hatreds made the combination of these various elements an impossibility, and they were unable to arrive at even a temporary understanding. The Scythians themselves were not united as to the best course to be pursued, and while some endeavoured to show their hostility by every imaginable outrage and annoyance, others, on the contrary, desired to enter into friendly relations with Assyria. Esarhaddon received on one occasion an embassy from Bartatua,* one of their kings, who humbly begged the hand of a lady of the blood-royal, swearing to make a lasting friendship with him if Esarhaddon would consent to the marriage. It was hard for a child brought up in the harem, amid the luxury and comfort of a civilised court, to be handed over to a semi-barbarous spouse; but state policy even in those days was exacting, and more than one princess of the line of Sargon had thus sacrificed herself by an alliance which was to the interest of her own people.**
* Bartatua is, according to Winckler’s ingenious
observation, the Proto-thyes of Herodotus, the father of
Madyes. [The name should more probably be read Masta-tua—
Ed.]
** Sargon had in like manner given one of his daughters in
marriage to Ambaris, King of Tabal, in order to attach him
to the Assyrian cause, but without permanent success.
What troubled Esarhaddon was not the thought of sacrificing a sister or a daughter, but a misgiving that the sacrifice would not produce the desired result, and in his difficulty he once more had recourse to Shamash. “If Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, grants a daughter of the blood (royal) to Bartatua, the King of the Iskuza, who has sent an embassy to him to ask a wife, will Bartatua, King of the Iskuza, act loyally towards Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he honestly and faithfully enter into friendly engagements with Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he observe the conditions (made by) Esarhaddon, King of Assyria? will he fulfil them punctually? that thy high divinity knoweth. His promises, in a decree and in the mouth of thy high divinity, O Shamash, great lord, are they decreed, promulgated?” It is not recorded what came of these negotiations, nor whether the god granted the hand of the princess to her barbarian suitor. All we know is, that the incursions and intrigues of the Scythians continued to be a perpetual source of trouble to the Medes, and roused them either to rebel against Assyria or to claim the protection of its sovereign. Esarhaddon, in the course of his reign, was more than once compelled to interfere in order to ensure peace and quietness to the provinces on the table-land of Iran, which Sargon had conquered and which Sennacherib had retained.*
* Several recent historians allege that Sennacherib did not
keep the territories that Sargon had conquered, and that the
Assyrian frontier became contracted on that side; whereas
the general testimony of the known texts seems to me to
prove the contrary, namely, that he preserved nearly all the
territory annexed by his father, and that Esarhaddon was far
from diminishing this inheritance. If these two kings
mention only insignificant deeds of arms in the western
region, it is because the population, exhausted by the wars
of the two preceding reigns, easily recognised the Ninevite
supremacy, and paid tribute to the Assyrian governors with
sufficient regularity to prevent any important military
expedition against them.
He had first to carry his arms to the extreme edge of the desert, into the rugged country of Patusharra, lying at the foot of Demavend, rich in lapis-lazuli, and as yet untrodden by any king of Assyria.* Having reached his destination, he captured two petty kings, Eparna and Shîtirparna, and exiled them to Assyria, together with their people, their thoroughbred horses, and their two-humped camels,—in fine, all the possessions of their subjects. Shortly after this, three other Median chiefs, hitherto intractable—Uppis of Par-takka, Zanasana of Partukka,** Ramatea of Urakazabarna—came to Nineveh to present the king with horses and lapis-lazuli, the best of everything they possessed, and piteously entreated him to forgive their misdeeds.