His death was a signal for a domestic revolution which proved very advantageous to the Assyrians. Urtaki had driven his older brother, Umman-aldas, from the throne, and, passing over the rights of his sons, had assumed the supreme authority. At his death, his younger brother, Temin-Umman, seized the crown, disregarding not only the rights of the sons of Umman-aldas, but likewise those of the sons of Urtaki. As the pretensions of those princes were dangerous, Temin-Umman endeavored to seize their persons with the intention of putting them to death; but they, having timely warning of their danger, fled; and, escaping to Nineveh with their relations and adherents, put themselves under the protection of Asshur-bani-pal. It thus happened that in the expedition which now followed, Asshur-bani-pal had a party which favored him in Elam itself. Temin-Umman, however, aware of this internal weakness, made great efforts to compensate for it by the number of his foreign allies. Two descendants of Merodach-Baladan, who had principalities upon the coast of the Persian Gulf, two mountain chiefs, one of them a blood-connection of the Assyrian crown, two sons of Belu-bagar, sheikh of the Gambulu, and several other inferior chieftains, are mentioned as bringing their troops to his assistance, and fighting in his cause against the Assyrians. All, however, was in vain. Asshur-bani-pal defeated the allies in several engagements, and finally took Temin-Umman prisoner, executed him, and exposed his head over one of the gates of Nineveh. He then divided Elam between two of the sons of Urrtaki, Umman-ibi and Tammarit, establishing the former in Susa, and the latter at a town called Khidal in Eastern Susiana. Great severities were exercised upon the various princes and nobles who had been captured. A son of Temin-Umman was executed with his father. Several grand-sons of Merodach-Baladin suffered mutilation, A Chaldaean prince and one of the chieftains of the Clambulu had their tongues torn out by the roots. Another of the Gambulu chiefs was decapitated. Two of the Temin-Umman’s principal officers were chained and flayed. Palaya, a grandson of Merodach-Baladan, was mutilated. Asshur-bani-pal evidently hoped to strike terror into his enemies by these cruel, and now unusual, punishments, which, being inflicted for the most part upon royal personages, must have made a profound impression on the king-reverencing Asiatics.
The impression made was, however, one of horror rather than of alarm. Scarcely had the Assyrians returned to Nineveh, when fresh troubles broke out. Saul-Mugina, discontented with his position, which was one of complete dependence upon his brother, rebelled, and, declaring himself king of Babylon in his own right, sought and obtained a number of important allies among his neighbors. Umman-ibi, though he had received his crown from Asshur-bani-pal, joined him, seduced by a gift of treasure from the various Babylonian temples. Vaiteha, a powerful Arabian prince, and Nebo-belsumi, a surviving grandson of Merodach-Baladan, came into the confederacy; and Saul-Mugina had fair grounds for expecting that he would be able to maintain his independence. But civil discord—the curse of Elam at this period—once more showed itself, and blighted all these fair prospects. Tammarit, the brother of Ummman-ibi, finding that the latter had sent the flower of his army into Babylonia, marched against him, defeated and slew him, and became king of all Elam. Maintaining, however, the policy of his brother, he entered into alliance with Saul-Mugina, and proceeded to put himself at the head of the Elamitic contingent, which was serving in Babylonia. Here a just Nemesis overtook him. Taking advantage of his absence, a certain Inda-bibi (or Inda-bigas), a mountain-chief from the fastnesses of Luristan, raised a revolt in Elam, and succeeded in seating himself upon the throne. The army in Babylonia declining to maintain the cause of Tammarit, he was forced to fly and conceal himself, while the Elamitic troops returned home. Saul-Mugina then lost the most important of his allies at the moment of his greatest danger for his brother had at length marched against him at the head of an immense army, and was overrunning his northern provinces. Without the Elamites it was impossible for Babylon to contend with Assyria in the Open field.
All that Saul-Mugina could do was to defend his towns, which Asshur-bani-pal besieged and took, one after another. The rebel fell into his brother’s hands, and suffered a punishment more terrible than any that the relentless conqueror had as yet inflicted on his captured enemies. Others had been mutilated, or beheaded; Saul-Mugina was burnt. The tie of blood, which was held to have aggravated the guilt of his rebellion, was not allowed to be pleaded in mitigation of his sentence.
A pause of some years’ duration now occurred. The relations between Assyria and Susiana were unfriendly, but not actually hostile. Inda-bibi had given refuge to Nebo-bel-sumi at the time of Saul Mugina’s discomfiture, and Asshur-bani-pal repeatedly but vainly demanded the surrender of the refugee. He did not, however, attempt to enforce his demand by an appeal to arms; and Inda-bibi might have retained his kingdom in peace, had not domestic troubles arisen to disturb him. He was conspired against by the commander of his archers, a second Umman-aldas, who killed him and occupied his throne. Many pretenders, at the same time, arose in different parts of the country; and Asshur-bani-pal, learning how Elam was distracted, determined on a fresh effort to conquer it. He renewed his demand for the surrender of Nebo-bel-sumi, who would have been given up had he not committed suicide. Not content with this success, he (ab. B.C. 645) invaded Elam, besieged and took Bit-Inibi, which had been strongly fortified, and drove Umunan-aldas out of the plain country into the mountains. Susa and Badaca, together with twenty-four other cities, fell into his power; and Western Elam being thus at his disposal, he placed it under the government of Tammarit, who, after his flight from Babylonia, had become a refugee at the Assyrian court. Umman-aldas retained the sovereignty of Eastern Elam.
But it was not long before fresh changes occurred. Tammarit, finding himself little more than puppet-king in the hands of the Assyrians, formed a plot to massacre all the foreign troops left to garrison this country, and so to make himself an independent monarch. His intentions, however, were discovered, and the plot failed. The Assyrians seized him, put him in bonds, and sent him to Nineveh. Western Elam passed under purely military rule, and suffered, it is probable, extreme severities. Under these circumstances, Umman-aldas took heart, and made ready, in the fastnesses to which he had fled, for another and a final effort. Having levied a vast army, he, in the spring of the next year, made himself once more master of Bit-Imbi, and, establishing himself there, prepared to resist the Assyrians. Their forces shortly appeared; and, unable to hold the place against their assaults, Umman-aldas evacuated it with his troops, and fought a retreating fight all the way back to Susa, holding the various strong towns and rivers in succession. Gallant, however, as was his resistance it proved ineffectual. The lines of defence which he chose were forced, one after another; and finally both Susa and Badaca were taken, and the country once more lay at Asshur-bani-pal’s mercy. All the towns made their submission. Asshur-bani-pal, burning with anger at their revolt, plundered the capital of its treasures, and gave the other cities up to be spoiled by his soldiers for the space of a month and twenty-three days. He then formally abolished Susianian independence, and attached the country as a province to the Assyrian empire. Thus ended the Susianian war, after it had lasted, with brief interruptions, for the space of (probably) twelve years.
The full occupation given to the Assyrian arms by this long struggle encouraged revolt in other quarters. It was probably about the time when Asshur-bani-pal was engaged in the thick of the contest with Umman-ibi and Saul-Mugina that Psammetichus declared himself independent in Egypt, and commenced a war against the princes who remained faithful to their Assyrian suzerain. Gyges, too, in the far north-west, took the opportunity to break with the formidable power with which he had recently thought it prudent to curry favor, and sent aid to the Egyptian rebel, which rendered him effective service. Egypt freed herself from the Assyrian yoke, and entered on the prosperous period which is known as that of the twenty-sixth (Saite) dynasty. Gyges was less fortunate. Assailed shortly by a terrible enemy, which swept with resistless force over his whole land, he lost his life in the struggle. Assyria was well and quickly avenged; and Ardys, the new monarch, hastened to resume the deferential attitude toward Asshur-bani-pal which his father had unwisely relinquished.
Asshur-bani-pal’s next important war was against the Arabs. Some of the desert tribes had, as already mentioned, lent assistance to Saul-Mugina during his revolt against his suzerain, and it was to punish this audacity that Asshur-bani-pal undertook his expedition. His principal enemy was a certain Vaiteha, who had for allies Natun, or Nathan, king of the Nabathivans, and Ammu-ladin, king of Kedar. The fighting seems to have extended along the whole country bordering the Euphrates valley from the Persian Gulf to Syria, and thence southwards by Damascus to Petra. Petra itself, Muhab (or Moab), Hudumimtukrab (Edom), Zaharri (perhaps Zoar), and several other cities were taken by the Assyrians. The final battle was fought at a place called Kutkhuruna, in he mountains near Damascus, where the Arabians were defeated with great slaughter, and the two chief, who had led the Arab contingent to the assistance of Saul-Mugina were made prisoners by the Assyrians. Asshur-bani-pal had them conducted to Nineveh, and there publicly executed.
The annals of Asshur-bani-pal here terminate. They exhibit him to us as a warrior more enterprising and more powerful than any of his predecessors, and as one who enlarged in almost every direction the previous limits of the empire. In Egypt he completed the work which his father Esar-haddon had begun, and established the Assyrian dominion for some years, not only at Sais and at Memphis, but at Thebes. In Asia Minor he carried the Assyrian arms far beyond any former king, conquering large tracts which had never before been invaded, and extending the reputation of his greatness to the extreme western limits of the continent. Against his northern neighbors he contended with unusual success, and towards the close of his reign he reckoned, not only the Minni, but the Urarda, or true Armenians, among his tributaries. Towards the south, he added to the empire the great country of Susiana, never subdued until his reign: and on the west, he signally chastised if he did not actually conquer, the Arabs.
To his military ardor Asshur-bani-pal added a passionate addiction to the pleasure of the chase. Lion-hunting was his especial delight. Sometimes along the banks of reedy streams, sometimes borne mid-channel in his pleasure galley, he sought the king of beasts in his native haunts, roused him by means of hounds and beaters from his lair, and despatched him with his unerring arrows. Sometimes he enjoyed the sport in his own park of paradise. Large and fierce beasts, brought from a distance, were placed in traps about the grounds, and on his approach were set free from their confinement, while he drove among them in his chariot, letting fly his shafts at each with a strong and steady hand, which rarely failed to attain the mark it aimed at. Aided only by two or three attendants armed with spears, he would encounter the terrific spring of the bolder beasts, who rushed frantically at the royal marksman and endeavored to tear him from the chariot-board. Sometimes he would even voluntarily quit this vantage-ground, and, engaging with the brutes on the same level, without the protection of armor, in his everyday dress, with a mere fillet upon his head, he would dare a close combat, and smite them with sword or spear through the heart.
When the supply of lions fell short, or when he was satiated with this kind of sport. Asshur-bani-pal would vary his occupation, and content himself with game of an inferior description. Wild bulls were probably no longer found in Assyria or the adjacent countries, so that he was precluded from the sport which, next to the chase of the lion occupied and delighted the earlier monarchs. He could indulge, however, freely in the chase of the wild ass still to this day a habitant of the Mesopotamian region; and he would hunt the stag, the hind, and the ibex or wild goat. In these tamer kinds of sport he seems, however, to have indulged only occasionally—as a light relaxation scarcely worthy of a great king.