If this expedition was really carried into the quarter here supposed, Esar-haddon performed a feat never paralleled in history, excepting by Augustus and Nushirvan. He led an army across the deserts which everywhere guard Arabia on the land side, and penetrated to the more fertile tracts beyond them, a region of settled inhabitants and of cities. He there took and spoiled several towns; and he returned to his own country without suffering disaster. Considering the physical perils of the desert itself, and the warlike character of its inhabitants, whom no conqueror has ever really subdued, this was a most remarkable success. The dangers of the simoom may have been exaggerated, and the total aridity of the northern region may have been overstated by many writers; but the difficulty of carrying water and provisions for a large army, and the peril of a plunge into the wilderness with a small one, can scarcely be stated in too strong terms, and have proved sufficient to deter most Eastern conquerors from even the thoughts of an Arabian expedition. Alexander would, perhaps, had he lived, have attempted an invasion from the side of the Persian Gulf; and Trajan actually succeeded in bringing under the Roman yoke an outlying portion of the country—the district between Damascus and the Red Sea; but Arabia has been deeply penetrated thrice only in the history of the world; and Esar-haddon is the sole monarch who ever ventured to conduct in person such an attack.

From the arid regions of the great peninsula Esar-haddon proceeded, probably in another year, to the invasion of the marsh-country on the Euphrates, where the Aramaean tribe of the Gambulu had their habitations, dwelling (he tells us) “like fish, in the midst of the waters”—doubtless much after the fashion of the modern Khuzeyl and Affej Arabs, the latter of whom inhabit nearly the same tract. The sheikh of this tribe had revolted; but on the approach of the Assyrians he submitted himself, bringing in person the arrears of his tribute and a present of buffaloes, whereby he sought to propitiate the wrath of his suzerain. Esar-haddon states that he forgave him; that he strengthened his capital with fresh works, placed a garrison in it, and made it a stronghold to protect the territory against the attacks of the Susianians.

The last expedition mentioned on the cylinder, which seems not to have been conducted by the king in person, was against the country of Bikni, or Bikan, one of the more remote regions of Media—perhaps Azerbijan. No Assyrian monarch before Esar-haddon had ever invaded this region. It was under the government of a number of chiefs—the Arian character of whose names is unmistakable—each of whom ruled over his own town and the adjacent district. Esar-haddon seized two of the chiefs and carried them off to Assyria, whereupon several others made their submission, consenting to pay a tribute and to divide their authority with Assyrian officers.

It is probable that these various expeditions occupied Esarhaddon from B.C. 681, the year of his accession, to B.C. 671, when it is likely that they were recorded on the existing cylinder. The expeditions are ten in number, directed against countries remote from one another; and each may well have occupied an entire year. There would thus remain only three more years of the king’s reign, after the termination of the chief native record, during which his history has to be learnt from other sources. Into this space falls, almost certainly, the greatest of Esar-haddon’s exploits the conquest of Egypt; and, probably, one of the most interesting episodes of his reign—the punishment and pardon of Manasseh. With the consideration of these two events the military history of his reign will terminate.

The conquest of Egypt by Esar-haddon, though concealed from Herodotus, and not known even to Diodorus, was no secret to the more learned Greeks, who probably found an account of the expedition in the great work of Berosus. All that we know of its circumstances is derived from an imperfect transcript of the Nahr-el-Kelb tablet, and a short notice in the annals of Esar-haddon’s son and successor, Asshur-bani-pal, who finds it necessary to make an allusion to the former doings of his father in Egypt, in order to render intelligible the state of affairs when he himself invades the country. According to these notices, it would appear that Esar-haddon, having entered Egypt with a large army, probably in B.C. 670, gained a great battle over the forces of Tirhakah in the lower country, and took Memphis, the city where the Ethiopian held his court, after which he proceeded southwards, and conquered the whole of the Nile valley as far as the southern boundary of the Theban district. Thebes itself was taken and Tirhakah retreated into Ethiopia. Esar-haddon thus became master of all Egypt, at least as far as Thebes or Diospolis, the No or No-Amon of scripture. He then broke up the country into twenty governments, appointing in each town a ruler who bore the title of king, but placing all the others to a certain extent under the authority of the prince who reigned at Memphis. This was Neco, the father of Psammetichus (Psamatik I.)—a native Egyptian of whom we have some mention both in Herodotus and in the fragments of Manetho. The remaining rulers were likewise, for the most part, native Egyptians: though in two or three instances the governments appear to have been committed to Assyrian officers. Esar-haddon, having made these arrangements, and having set up his tablet at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb side by side with that of Rameses II., returned to his own country, and proceeded to introduce sphinxes into the ornamentation of his palaces, while, at the same time, he attached to his former titles an additional clause, in which he declared himself to be “king of the kings of Egypt, and conqueror of Ethiopia.”

The revolt of Manasseh king of Judah may have happened shortly before or shortly after the conquest of Egypt. It was not regarded as of sufficient importance to call for the personal intervention of the Assyrian monarch. The “captains of the host of the king of Assyria” were entrusted with the task of Manasseh’s subjection; and, proceeding into Judaea, they “took him, and bound him with chains, and carried him to Babylon,” where Esar-haddon had built himself a palace, and often held his court. The Great king at first treated his prisoner severely; and the “affliction” which he thus suffered is said to have broken his pride and caused him to humble himself before God, and to repent of all the cruelties and idolatries which had brought this judgment upon him. Then God “was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him back again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.” The crime of defection was overlooked by the Assyrian monarch, Manasseh was pardoned, and sent back to Jerusalem: where he was allowed to resume the reins of government, but on the condition, if we may judge by the usual practice of the Assyrians in such cases, of paying an increased tribute.

It may have been in connection with this restoration of Manasseh to his throne—an act of doubtful policy from an Assyrian point of view—that Esar-haddon determined on a project by which the hold of Assyria upon Palestine was considerably strengthened. Sargon, as has been already observed when he removed the Israelites from Sumaria, supplied their place by colonists from Babylon, Cutha, Sippara, Ava, Hamath, and Arabia; this planting a foreign garrison in the region which would be likely to preserve its fidelity. Esar-haddon resolved to strengthen this element. He gathered men from Babylon, Orchoe, Susa, Elymais, Persia, and other neighboring regions, and entrusting them to an officer of high rank—“the great and noble Asnapper”—had them conveyed to Palestine and settled over the whole country, which until this time must have been somewhat thinly peopled. The restoration of Manasseh, and the augmentation of this foreign element in Palestine, are thus portions, but counterbalancing portions, of one scheme—a scheme, the sole object of which was the pacification of the empire by whatever means, gentle or severe, seemed best calculated to effect the purpose.

The last years of Esar-haddon were, to some extent, clouded with disaster. He appears to have fallen ill in B.C. 669: and the knowledge of this fact at once produced revolution in Egypt. Tirhakah issued from his Ethiopian fastnesses, descended the valley of the Nile, expelled the kings set up by Esar-haddon, and re-established his authority over the whole country. Esar-haddon, unable to take the field, resolved to resign the cares of the empire to his eldest son, Asshur-bani-pal, and to retire into a secondary position. Relinquishing the crown of Assyria, and retaining that of Babylon only, he had Asshur-bani-pal proclaimed king of Assyria, and retired to the southern capital. There he appears to have died in B.C. 668, or early in B.C. 667, leaving Asshur-bani-pal sole sovereign of the entire empire.

Of the architecture of Esar-haddon, and of the state of the arts generally in his time, it is difficult to speak positively. Though he appears to have been one of the most indefatigable constructors of great works that Assyria produced, having erected during the short period over which his reign extended no fewer than four palaces and above thirty temples, yet it happens unfortunately that we are not as yet in a condition to pronounce a decisive judgment either on the plan of his buildings or on the merits of their ornamentation of his three great palaces, which were situated at Babylon, Calah, and Nineveh, one only—that at Calah or Nimrud has been to any large extent explored. Even in this case the exploration was far from complete, and the ground plan of his palace is still very defective. But this is not the worst. The palace itself had never been finished; its ornamentation had scarcely been begun; and the little of this that was original had been so damaged by a furious conflagration, that it perished almost at the moment of discovery. We are thus reduced to judge of the sculptures of Esar-haddon by the reports of those who saw them ere they fell to pieces, and by one or two drawings, while we have to form our conception of his buildings from a half-explored fragment of a half-finished palace, which was moreover destroyed by fire before completion.

The palace of Esar-haddon at Calah was built at the south-western corner of the Nimrud mound, abutting towards the west on the Tigris, and towards the south on the valley formed by the Shor-Derreh torrent. It faced northwards, and was entered on this side from the open space of the platform, through a portal guarded by two winged bulls of the ordinary character. The visitor on entering found himself in a large court, 280 feet by 100, bounded on the north side by a mere wall, but on the other three sides surrounded by buildings. The main building was opposite to him, and was entered from the court by two portals, one directly facing the great northern gate of the court, and the other a little to the left hand, the former guarded by colossal bulls, the latter merely reveted with slabs. These portals both led into the same room—the room already described in an earlier page of this work—which was designed on the most magnificent scale of all the Assyrian apartments, but was so broken up through the inability of the architect to roof in a wide space without abundant support, that, practically, it formed rather a suite of four moderate-sized chambers than a single grand hall. The plan of this apartment will be seen by referring to [PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.] Viewed as a single apartment, the room was 165 feet in length by 62 feet in width, and thus contained an area of 10,230 square feet, a space nearly half as large again as that covered by the greatest of the halls of Sennacherib, which was 7200 feet. Viewed as a suite of chambers, the rooms may be described as two long and narrow halls running parallel to one another, and communicating by a grand doorway in the middle, with two smaller chambers placed at the two ends, running at right angles to the principal ones. The small chambers were 62 feet long, and respectively 19 feet and 23 feet wide; the larger ones were 110 feet long, with a width respectively of 20 feet and 28 feet. The inner of the two long parallel chambers communicated by a grand doorway, guarded by sphinxes and colossal lions, either with a small court or with a large chamber extending to the southern edge of the mound; and the two end rooms communicated with smaller apartments in the same direction. The buildings to the right and left of the great court seem to have been entirely separate from those at its southern end: to the left they were wholly unexamined; on the right some explorations were conducted which gave the usual result of several long narrow apartments, with perhaps one or two passages. The extent of the palace westward, southward, and eastward is uncertain: eastward it was unexplored; southward and westward the mound had been eaten into by the Tigris and the Shor-Derreh torrent.