Asshur-bani-pal is the only one of the Assyrian monarchs to whom we can ascribe a real taste for learning and literature. The other kings were content to leave behind them some records of the events of their reigns, inscribed on cylinders, slabs, bulls, or lions, and a few dedicatory inscriptions, addresses to the gods whom they especially worshipped. Asshur-bani-pal’s literary tastes were far more varied—indeed they were all-embracing. It seems to have been under his direction that the vast collection of clay tablets—a sort of Royal Library—was made at Nineveh, from which the British Museum has derived perhaps the most valuable of its treasures. Comparative vocabularies, lists of deities and their epithets, chronological lists of kings and eponyms, records of astronomical observations, grammars, histories, scientific works of various kinds, seems to have been composed in the reign, and probably at the bidding of this prince, who devoted to their preservation certain chambers in the palace of his grandfather, where they were found by Mr. Layard. The clay tablets on which they were inscribed lay here in such multitudes in some instances entire, but more commonly broken into fragments—that they filled the chambers to the height of a foot or more from the floor. Mr. Layard observes with justice that “the documents thus discovered at Nineveh probably exceed [in amount of writing] all that has yet been afforded by the monuments of Egypt.” They have yielded of late years some most interesting results, and will probably long continue to be a mine of almost inexhaustible wealth to the cuneiform scholar.
As a builder, Asshur-bani-pal aspired to rival, if not even to excel, the greatest of the monarchs who had preceded him. His palace was built on the mound of Koyunjik, within a few hundred yards of the magnificent erection of his grandfather, with which he was evidently not afraid to challenge comparison. It was built on a plan unlike any adopted by former kings. The main building consisted of three arms branching from at common centre, and thus in its general shape resembled a gigantic T. The central point was reached by a long ascending gallery lined with sculptures, which led from a gateway, with rooms attached, at a corner of the great court, first a distance of 190 feet in a direction parallel to the top bar of the T, and then a distance of 80 feet in a direction at right angles to this, which brought it down exactly to the central point whence the arms branched. The entire building was thus a sort of cross, with one long arm projecting from the top towards the left or west. The principal apartments were in the lower limb of the cross. Here was a grand hall, running nearly the whole length of the limb, at least 145 feet long by 28 feet broad, opening towards the east on a great court, paved chiefly with the exquisite patterned slabs of which a specimen has already been given, and communicating towards the west with a number of smaller rooms, and through them with a second court, which looked towards the south-west and the south. The next largest apartment was in the right or eastern arm of the cross. It was a hall 108 feet long by 24 feet wide, divided by a broad doorway in which were two pillar-bases, into a square antechamber of 24 feet each way, and an inner apartment about 80 feet in length. Neither of the two arms of the cross was completely explored; and it is uncertain whether they extended to the extreme edge of the eastern and western courts, thus dividing each of there into two; or whether they only reached into the courts a certain distance. Assuming the latter view as the more probable, the two courts would have measured respectively 310 and 330 feet from the north-west to the south-east, while they must have been from 230 to 250 feet in the opposite direction. From the comparative privacy of the buildings, and from the character of the sculptures, it appears probable that the left or western arm of the cross formed the hareem of the monarch.
The most remarkable feature in the great palace of Asshur-bani-pal was the beauty and elaborate character of the ornamentation. The courts were paved with large slabs elegantly patterned. The doorways had sometimes arched tops beautifully adorned with rosettes, lotuses, etc. The chambers and passages were throughout lined with alabaster slabs, bearing reliefs designed with wonderful spirit, and executed with the most extraordinary minuteness and delicacy. It was here that were found all those exquisite hunting scenes which have furnished its most interesting illustrations to the present history. Here, too, were the representations of the private life of the monarch, of the trees and flowers of the palace garden, of the royal galley with its two banks of oars, of the libation over four dead lions, of the temple with pillars supported on lions, and of various bands of musicians, some of which have been already given. Combined with these peaceful scenes and others of a similar character, as particularly a long train, with game, nets, and dogs, returning from the chase, which formed the adornment of a portion of the ascending passage, were a number of views of sieges and battles, representing the wars of the monarch in Susiana and elsewhere. Reliefs of a character very similar to these last were found by Mr. Layard in certain chambers of the palace of Sennacherib, which had received their ornamentation from Asshur-bani-pal. They were remarkable for the unusual number and small size of the figures, for the variety and spirit of the attitudes, and for the careful finish of all the little details of the scenes represented upon them. Deficient in grouping, and altogether destitute of any artistic unity, they yet give probably the best representation that has come down to us of the confused melee of an Assyrian battle, showing us at one view, as they do, all the various phases of the flight and pursuit, the capture and treatment of the prisoners, the gathering of the spoil, and the cutting off the heads of the slain. These reliefs form now a portion of our National Collection. A good idea may be formed of them from Mr. Layard’s Second Series of Monuments, where they form the subject of five elaborate engravings.
Besides his own great palace at Koyun-jik, and his additions to the palace of his grandfather at the same place, Asshur-bani-pal certainly constructed some building, or buildings, at Nebbi Yunus, where slabs inscribed with his name and an account of his wars have been found. If we may regard him as the real monarch whom the Greeks generally intended by their Sardanapalus, we may say that, according to some classical authors, he was the builder of the city of Tarsus in Cilicia, and likewise of the neighboring city of Anchialus; though writers of more authority tells us that Tarsus, at any rate, was built by Sennacherib. It seems further to have been very generally believed by the Greeks that the tomb of Sardanapalus was in this neighborhood. They describe it as a monument of some height, crowned by a statue of the monarch, who appeared to be in the act of snapping his fingers. On the stone base was an inscription in Assyrian characters, of which they believed the sense to run as follows:—“Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, built Tarsus and Anchialus in one day. Do thou, O stranger, eat, and drink, and amuse thyself; for all the rest of human life is not worth so much as this”—“this” meaning the sound which the king was supposed to be making with his fingers. It appears probable that there was some figure of this kind, with an Assyrian inscription below it, near Anchialus; but, as we can scarcely suppose that the Greeks could read the cuneiform writing, the presumed translation of the inscription would seem to be valueless. Indeed, the very different versions of the legend which are given by different writers sufficiently indicate that they had no real knowledge of its purport. We may conjecture that the monument was in reality a stele containing the king in an arched frame, with the right hand raised above the left, which is the ordinary attitude, and an inscription below commemorating the occasion of its erection. Whether it was really set up by this king or by one of his predecessors, we cannot say. The Greeks, who seem to have known more of Asshur-bani-pal than of any other Assyrian monarch, in consequence of his war in Asia Minor and his relations with Gyges and Ardys, are not unlikely to have given his name to any Assyrian monument which they found in these parts, whether in the local tradition it was regarded as his work or no.
Such, then, are the traditions of the Greeks with respect to this monarch. The stories told by Ctesias of a king, to whom he gives the same name, and repeated from him by later writers, are probably not intended to have any reference to Asshur-bani-pal, the son of Esar-haddon, but rather refer to his successor, the last king. Even Ctesias could scarcely have ventured to depict to his countrymen the great Asshur-bani-pal, the vanquisher of Tirhakah, the subduer of the tribes beyond the Taurus, the powerful and warlike monarch whose friendship was courted by the rich and prosperous Gyges, king of Lydia, as a mere voluptuary, who never put his foot outside the palace gates, but dwelt in the seraglio, doing woman’s work, and often dressed as a woman. The character of Asshur-bani-pal stands really in the strongest contrast to the description—be it a portrait, or be it a mere sketch from fancy—which Ctesias gives of his Sardanapalus. Asshur-bani-pal, was beyond a doubt one of Assyria’s greatest kings. He subdued Egypt and Susiana; he held quiet possession of the kingdom of Babylon; he carried his arms deep into Armenia; he led his troops across the Taurus, and subdued the barbarous tribes of Asia Minor. When he was not engaged in important wars, he chiefly occupied himself in the chase of the lion, and in the construction and ornamentation of temples and palaces. His glory was well known to the Greeks. He was no doubt one of the “two kings called Sardanapalus,” celebrated by Hellanicus; he must have been “the warlike Sardanapalus” of Cailisthenes; Herodotus spoke of his great wealth; and Aristophanes used his name as a by-word for magnificence. In his reign the Assyrian dominions reached their greatest extent, Assyrian art culminated, and the empire seemed likely to extend itself over the whole of the East. It was then, indeed, that Assyria most completely answered the description of the Prophet—“The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great; the deep set him up on high with her rivers running about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long, because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of the heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him; the fir-trees were not like his boughs; and the chestnut-trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.”
In one respect, however, Assyria, it is to be feared, had made but little advance beyond the spirit of a comparatively barbarous time. The “lion” still “tore in pieces for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin.” Advancing civilization, more abundant literature, improved art, had not softened the tempers of the Assyrians, nor rendered them more tender and compassionate in their treatment of captured enemies. Sennacherib and Esar-haddon show, indeed, in this respect, some superiority to former kings. They frequently spared their prisoners, even when rebels, and seem seldom to have had recourse to extreme punishments. But Asshur-bani-pal reverted to the antique system of executions, mutilations, and tortures. We see on his bas-reliefs the unresisting enemy thrust through with the spear, the tongue torn from the mouth of the captive accused of blasphemy, the rebel king beheaded on the field of battle, and the prisoner brought to execution with the head of a friend or brother hung round his neck. We see the scourgcrs preceding the king as his regular attendants, with their whips passed through their girdles; we behold the operation of flaying performed either upon living or dead men; we observe those who are about to be executed first struck on the face by the executioner’s fist. Altogether we seem to have evidence, not of mere severity, which may sometimes be a necessary or even a merciful policy, but of a barbarous cruelty, such as could not fail to harden and brutalize alike those who witnessed and those who inflicted it. Nineveh, it is plain, still deserved the epithet of “a bloody city,” or “a city of bloods.” Asshur-bani-pal was harsh, vindictive, unsparing, careless of human suffering—nay, glorying in his shame, he not merely practised cruelties, but handed the record of them down to posterity by representing them in all their horrors upon his palace walls.
It has been generally supposed that Asshur-bani-pal died about B.C. 648 or 647, in which case he would have continued to the end of his life a prosperous and mighty king. But recent discoveries render it probable that his reign was extended to a much greater length—that, in fact, he is to be identified with the Cinneladanus of Ptolemy’s Canon, who held the throne of Babylon from B.C. 647 to 626. If this be so, we must place in the later years of the reign of Asshur-bani-pal the commencement of Assyria’s decline—the change whereby she passed from the assailer to the assailed, from the undisputed primacy of Western Asia to a doubtful and precarious position.
This change was owing, in the first instance, to the rise upon her borders of an important military power in the centralized monarchy, established, about B.C. 640, in the neighboring territory of Media.
The Medes had, it is probable, been for some time growing in strength, owing to the recent arrival in their country of fresh immigrants from the far East. Discarding the old system of separate government and village autonomy, they had joined together and placed themselves under a single monarch; and about the year B.C. 634, when Asshur-bani-pal had been king for thirty-four years, they felt themselves sufficiently strong to undertake an expedition against Nineveh. Their first attack, however, failed utterly. Phraortes, or whoever may have been the real leader of the invading army, was completely defeated by the Assyrians; his forces were cut to pieces, and he himself was among the slain. Still, the very fact that the Medes could now take the offensive and attack Assyria was novel and alarming; it showed a new condition of things in these parts, and foreboded no good to the power which was evidently on the decline and in danger of losing its preponderance. An enterprising warrior would doubtless have followed up the defeat of the invader by attacking him in his own country before he could recover from the severe blow dealt him; but the aged Assyrian monarch appears to have been content with repelling his foe, and made no effort to retaliate. Cgaxares, the successor of the slain Median king, effected at his leisure such arrangements as he thought necessary before repeating his predecessor’s attempt. When they were completed—perhaps in B.C. 632—he led his troops into Assyria, defeated the Assyrian forces in the field, and, following up his advantage, appeared before Nineveh and closely invested the town. Nineveh would perhaps have fallen in this year; but suddenly and unexpectedly a strange event recalled the Median monarch to his own country, where a danger threatened him previously unknown in Western Asia.
When at the present day we take a general survey of the world’s past history, we see that, by a species of fatality—by a law, that is, whose workings we cannot trace—there issue from time to time out of the frozen bosons of the North vast hordes of uncouth savages—brave, hungry, countless—who swarm into the fairer southern regions determinedly, irresistibly; like locusts winging their flight into a green land. How such multitudes come to be propagated in countries where life is with difficulty sustained, we do not know; why the impulse suddenly seizes them to quit their old haunts and move steadily in a given direction, we cannot say: but we see that the phenomenon is one of constant recurrence, and we therefore now scarcely regard it as being curious or strange at all. In Asia. Cimmerians, Scythians, Parthians, Mongols, Turks; in Europe, Gauls, Goths, Huns, Avars, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards, Bulgarians, have successively illustrated the law, and made us familiar with its operation. But there was a time in history before the law had come into force; and its very existence must have been then unsuspected. Even since it began to operate, it has so often undergone prolonged suspension, that the wisest may be excused if, under such circumstances, they cease to bear it in mind, and are as much startled when a fresh illustration of it occurs, as if the like had never happened before. Probably there is seldom an occasion of its coming into play which does not take men more or less by surprise, and rivet their attention by its seeming strangeness and real unexpectedness.