Tiglath-Pileser appears, by the Assyrian Canon, to have had a reign of eighteen years. He ascended the throne in B.C. 747, and was succeeded in B.C. 727 by Shalmaneser, the fourth monarch who had borne that appellation.
It is uncertain whether Shalmaneser IV, was related to Tiglath-Pileser or not. As, however, there is no trace of the succession having been irregular or disputed, it is most probable that he was his son. He ascended the throne in B.C. 727, and ceased to reign in B.C. 722, thus holding the royal power for less than six years. It was probably very soon after his accession, that, suspecting the fidelity of Samaria, he “came up” against Hoshea, king of Israel, and, threatening him with condign punishment, so terrified him that he made immediate submission. The arrears of tribute were rendered, and the homage due from a vassal to his lord was paid; and Shalmaneser either returned into his own country or turned his attention to other enterprises. But shortly afterwards he learnt that Hoshea, in spite of his submission and engagements, was again contemplating defection; and, conscious of his own weakness, was endeavoring to obtain a promise of support from an enterprising monarch who ruled in the neighboring country of Egypt. The Assyrian conquests in this quarter had long been tending to bring them into collision with the great power of Eastern Africa, which had once held, and always coveted, the dominion of Syria. Hitherto such relations as they had had with the Egyptians appear to have been friendly. The weak and unwarlike Pharaohs who about this time bore sway in Egypt had sought the favor of the neighboring Asiatic power by demanding Assyrian princesses in marriage and affecting Assyrian names for their offspring. But recently an important change had occurred. A brave Ethiopian prince had descended the valley of the Nile at the head of a swarthy host, had defeated the Egyptian levies, had driven the reigning monarch into the marshes of the Delta, or put him to a cruel death, and had established his own dominion firmly, at any rate over the upper country. Shebek the First bore sway in Memphis in lieu of the blind Bocchoris; and Hoshea, seeing in this bold and enterprising king the natural foe of the Assyrians, and therefore his own natural ally and friend, “sent messengers” with proposals, which appear to have been accepted; for on their return Hoshea revolted openly, withheld his tribute, and declared himself independent. Shalmaneser, upon this, came up against Samaria for the second time, determined now to punish his vassal’s perfidy with due severity. Apparently, he was unresisted; at any rate, Hoshea fell into his power, and was seized, bound, and shut up in prison. A year or two later Shalmaneser made his third and last expedition into Syria. What was the provocation given him, we are not told; but this time, he came up throughout all the land and being met with resistance, he laid formal siege to the capital. The siege commenced in Shahnaneser’s fourth year, B.C. 724, and was protracted to his sixth, either by the efforts of the Egyptians, or by the stubborn resistance of the inhabitants. At last, in B.C. 722, the town surrendered, or was taken by storm; but before this consummation had been reached, Shalmaneser’s reign would seem to have come to an end in consequence of a successful revolution.
While he was conducting these operations against Samaria, either in person or by means of his generals, Shalmaneser appears to have been also engaged in hostilities with the Phoenician towns. Like Samaria, they had revolted at the death of Tiglath-Pileser; and Shalmaneser, consequently, marched into Phoenecia at the beginning of his reign, probably in his first year, overran the entire country, and forced all the cities to resume their position of dependence. The island Tyre, however, shortly afterwards shook off the yoke. Hereupon Shalmaneser “returned” into these parts, and collecting a fleet from Sidon, Paleo-Tyrus, and Akko, the three most important of the Phoenician towns after Tyre, proceeded to the attack of the revolted place. His vessels were sixty in number, and were manned by eight hundred Phoenician rowers, co-operating with probably, a smaller number of unskilled Assyrians. Against this fleet the Tyrians, confiding in their maritime skill, sent out a force of twelve vessels only, which proved, however, quite equal to the occasion; for the assailants were dispersed and driven off, with the loss of 500 prisoners.
Shalmaneser, upon this defeat, retired, and gave up all active operations, contenting himself with leaving a body of troops on the mainland, over against the city, to cut off the Tyrians from the supplies of water which they were in the habit of drawing from the river Litany, and from certain aqueducts which conducted the precious fluid from springs in the mountains. The Tyrians, it is said, held out against this pressure for five years, satisfying their thirst with rain water, which they collected in reservoirs. Whether they then submitted, or whether the attempt to subdue them was given up, is uncertain, since the quotation from Menander, which is our sole authority for this passage of history, here breaks off abruptly.
The short reign of Shalmaneser IV, was, it is evident, sufficiently occupied by the two enterprises of which accounts have now been given—the complete subjugation of Samaria, and the attempt to reduce the island Tyre. Indeed, it is probable that neither enterprise had been conducted when a dynastic revolution, caused by the ambition of a subject, brought the unhappy monarch’s reign to an untimely end. The conquest of Samaria is claimed by Sargon as an event of his first year; and the resistance of the Tyrians, if it really continued during the full space assigned to it by Menander, must have extended beyond the terns of Shalmaneser’s reign, into the first or second year of his successor. It was probably the prolonged absence of the Assyrian monarch from his capital, caused by the obstinacy of the two cities which he was attacking, that encouraged a rival to come forward and seize the throne; just as in the Persian history we shall find the prolonged absence of Canbyses in Egypt produce a revolution and change of dynasty at Susa. In the East, where the monarch is not merely the chief but the sole power in the state, the moving spring whose action must be continually exerted to prevent the machinery of government from standing still, it is always dangerous for the reigning prince to be long away from his metropolis. The Orientals do not use the language of mere unmeaning compliment when they compare their sovereigns with the sun, and speak of them as imparting light and life to the country and people over which they rule. In the king’s absence all languishes; the course of justice is suspended; public works are stopped; the expenditure of the Court, on which the prosperity of the capital mainly depends, being withdrawn, trade stagnates, the highest branches suffering most; artists are left without employment; work-men are discharged; wages fall; every industry is more or less deranged, and those engaged in it suffer accordingly; nor is there any hope of a return of prosperity until the king comes home. Under these circumstances a general discontent prevails; and the people, anxious for better times, are ready to welcome any pretender who will come forward, and, on any pretext whatever, declare the throne vacant, and claim to be its proper occupant. If Shalmaneser continued to direct in person the siege of Samaria during the three years of its continuance, we cannot be surprised that the patience of the Ninevites was exhausted, and that in the third year they accepted the rule of the usurper who boldly proclaimed himself king.
What right the new monarch put forward, what position he had previously held, what special circumstances, beyond the mere absence of the rightful king, facilitated his attempts, are matters on which the monuments throw no light, and on which we must therefore be content to be ignorant. All that we can see is, that either personal merit or official rank and position must have enabled him to establish himself; for he certainly did not derive any assistance from his birth, which must have been mediocre, if not actually obscure. It is the custom of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings to glory in their ancestry, and when the father has occupied a decently high position, the son declares his sire’s name and rank at the commencement of each inscription, but Sargon never, in any record, names his father, nor makes the slightest allusion to his birth and descent, unless it be in vague phrases, wherein he calls the former kings of Assyria, and even those of Babylonia, his ancestors. Such expressions seem to be mere words of course, having no historical value: and it would be a mistake even to conclude from them that the new king intended seriously to claim the connection of kindred with the monarchs of former times.
It has been thought indeed, that Sargon, instead of cloaking his usurpation under some decent plea of right, took a pride in boldly avowing it. The name Sargon has been supposed to be one which he adopted as his royal title at the time of his establishment upon the throne, intending by the adoption to make it generally known that he had acquired the crown, not by birth or just claim, but by his own will and the consent of the people. Sargon, or Sar-gina, as the native name is read, means “the firm” or “well-established king,” and (it has been argued) “shows the usurper.” The name is certainly unlike the general run of Assyria royal titles; but still, as it is one which is found to have been previously borne by at least one private person in Assyria, it is perhaps best to suppose that it was the monarch’s real original appellation, and not assumed when he came to the throne; in which case no argument can be founded upon it.
Military success is the best means of confirming a doubtful title to the leadership of a warlike nation. No sooner, therefore, was Sargon accepted by the Ninevites as king than he commenced a series of expeditions, which at once furnished employment to unquiet spirits, and gave the prestige of military glory to his own name. He warred successively in Susiana, in Syria, on the borders of Egypt, in the tract beyond Amanus, in Melitene and southern Armenia, in Kurdistan, in Media, and in Babylonia. During the first fifteen years of his reign, the space which his annals cover, he kept his subjects employed in a continual series of important expeditions, never giving himself, nor allowing them, a single year of repose. Immediately upon his accession he marched into Susiana, where he defeated Hum-banigas, the Elamitie king, and Merodach-Baladan, the old adversary of Tiglath-Pileser, who had revolted and established himself as king over Babylonia. Neither monarch was, however, reduced to subjection, though an important victory was gained, and many captives taken, who were transported into the country of the Hittites, In the same year, B.C. 722, he received the submission of Samaria, which surrendered, probably, to his generals, after it had been besieged two full years. He punished the city by depriving it of the qualified independence which it had enjoyed hitherto, appointing instead of a native king an Assyrian officer to be its governor, and further carrying off as slaves 27,280 of the inhabitants. On the remainder, however, he contented himself with re-imposing the rate of tribute to which the town had been liable before its revolt.—The next year, B.C. 721, he was forced to march in person into Syria in order to meet and quell a dangerous revolt. Yahu-bid (or Ilu-bid), king of Hamath—a usurper like Sargon himself—had rebelled, and had persuaded the cities of Arpad Zimira, Damascus, and Samaria to cast in their lot with his, and to form a confederacy, by which it was imagined that effectual resistance might be offered to the Assyrian arms. Not content merely to stand on the defensive in their several towns, the allies took to the field; and a battle was fought at Kar-kar or Garrrar (perhaps one of the many Aroers), where the superiority of the Assyrian troops was once more proved, and Sargon gained a complete victory over his enemies. Yahu-bid himself was taken and beheaded; and the chiefs of the revolt in the other towns were also put to death.
Having thus crushed the rebellion and re-established tranquillity throughout Syria, Sargon turned his arms towards the extreme south, and attacked Gaza, which was a dependency of Egypt. The exact condition of Egypt at this time is open to some doubt. According to Manetho’s numbers, the twenty-fifth or Ethiopian dynasty had not yet begun to reign. Bocchoris the Saite occupied the throne, a humane but weak prince, of a contemptible presence, and perhaps afflicted with blindness. No doubt such a prince would tempt the attack of a powerful neighbor; and, so for, probability might seem to be in favor of the Manethonian dates. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that Egypt had lately taken an aggressive attitude, incompatible with a time of weakness: she had intermeddled between the Assyrian crown and its vassals, by entering into a league with Hoshea: and she had extended her dominion over a portion of Philistia, thereby provoking a collision with the Great Power of the East. Again, it is worthy of note that the name of the Pharaoh who had dealings with Hoshea, if it does not seen at first sight very closely to resemble the Egyptian Shebek, is, at any rate, a possible representative of that word, while no etymological skill can force it into agreement with any other name in this portion of the Egyptian lists. Further, it is to be remarked that at this point of the Assyrian annals, a Shebek appears in them, holding a position of great authority in Egypt, though not dignified with the title of king. These facts furnish strong grounds for believing that the Manethonian chronology, which can be proved to be in many points incorrect, has placed the accession of the Ethiopians somewhat too late, and that that event occurred really as early as B.C. 725 or B.C. 730.
At the same time, it must be allowed that all difficulty is not removed by this supposition. The Shebek Sibahe (or Sibaki) of the Assyrian record bears an inferior title, and not that of king. He is also, apparently, contemporary with another authority in Egypt, who is recognized by Sargon as the true “Pharaoh,” or native ruler. Further, it is not till eight or nine years later that any mention is made of Ethiopia as having an authority over Egypt or as in any way brought into contact with Sargon. The proper conclusion from these facts seems to be that the Ethiopians established themselves gradually; that in B.C. 720, Shebek or Sabaco, though master of a portion of Egypt, had not assumed the royal title, which was still borne by a native prince of little power—Bocchoris, or Scthos—who held his court somewhere in the Delta; and that it was not till about the year B.C. 712 that this shadowy kingdom passed away, that the Ethiopian rule was extended over the whole of Egypt, and that Sabaco assumed the full rank of an independent monarch.