The Assyrians for some time after their change of abode were probably governed by Babylonian rulers, who held their office under the Chaldaean Emperor. Bricks of a Babylonian character have been found at Kileh-Sherghat, the original Assyrian capital, which are thought to be of greater antiquity than any of the purely Assyrian remains, and which may have been stamped by these provincial governors. Ere long, however, the yoke was thrown off, and the Assyrians established a separate monarchy of their own in the upper country, while the Chaldaean Empire was still flourishing under native monarchs of the old ethnic type in the regions nearer to the sea. The special evidence which we possess of the co-existence side by side of these two kingdoms is furnished by a broken tablet of a considerably later date, which seems to have contained, when complete, a brief but continuous sketch of the synchronous history of Babylonia and Assyria, and of the various transactions in which the monarchs of the two countries had been engaged one with another, from the most ancient times. This tablet has preserved to its the names of three very early Assyrian kings—Asshur-bil-nisi-su, Buzur Asshur, and Asshur-upallit, of whom the two former are recorded to have made treaties of peace with the contemporary kings of Babylon; while the last-named intervened in the domestic affair’s of the country, depriving an usurping monarch of the throne, and restoring it to the legitimate claimant, who was his own relation. Intermarriages, it appears, took place at this early date between the royal families of Assyria and Chaldaea; and Asshur-upallit, the third of the three kings, had united one of his daughters to Purna-puriyas, a Chaldaean monarch who has received notice in the preceding volume. On the death of Purna-puriyas, Kara-khar-das, the issue of this marriage, ascended the throne; but he had not reigned long before his subjects rebelled against his authority. A struggle ensued, in which he was slain, whereupon a certain Nazi-bugas, an usurper, became king, the line of Purna-puriyas being set aside. Asshur-upallit, upon this, interposed. Marching an army into Babylonia, he defeated and slew the usurper, after which he placed on the throne another son of Purna-puriyas, the Kurri-galzu already mentioned in the account of the king’s of Chaldaea.
What is most remarkable in the glimpse of history which this tablet opens to us is the power of Assyria, and the apparent terms of equality on which she stands with her neighbor. Not only does she treat as an equal with the great Southern Empire—not only is her royal house deemed worthy of furnishing wives to its princes but when dynastic troubles arise there, she exercises a predominant influence over the fortunes of the contending parties, and secures victory to the side whose cause she espouses. Jealous as all nations are of foreign inter-position in their affairs, we may be sure that Babylonia would not have succumbed on this occasion to Assyria’s influence, had not her weight been such that, added to one side in a civil struggle, it produced a preponderance which defied resistance.
After this one short lift, the curtain again drops over the history of Assyria for a space of about sixty years, during which our records tell us nothing but the mere names of the king’s. It appears from the bricks of Kileh-Sherghat that Asshur-upallit was succeeded upon the throne by his son, Bel-lush, or Behiklhus (Belochush), who was in his turn followed by his son, Pudil, his grandson. Vul-lush, and his great-grandson, Shahmaneser, the first of the name. Of Bel-lush, Pudil, and Vul-lush I., we know only that they raised or repaired important buildings in their city of Asshur (now Kileh-Sherghat), which in their time, and for some centuries later, was the capital of the monarchy.
This place was not very favorably situated, being on the right bank of the Tigris, which is a far less fertile region than the left, and not being naturally a place of any great strength. The Assyrian territory did not at this time, it is probable, extend very far to the north: at any rate, no need was as yet felt for a second city higher up the Tigris valley, much less for a transfer of the seat of government in that direction. Calah was certainly, and Nineveh probably, not yet built; but still the kingdom had obtained a name among the nations; the term Assyria was applied geographically to the whole valley of the middle Tigris; and a prophetic eye could see in the hitherto quiescent power the nation fated to send expeditions into Palestine, and to bear off its inhabitants into captivity.
Shahnaneser I. (ab. B.C. 1320) is chiefly known in Assyrian history as the founder of Calah (Nimrud), the second, apparently, of those great cities which the Assyrian monarchs delighted to build and embellish. This foundation would of itself be sufficient to imply the growth of Assyria in his time towards the north, and would also mark its full establishment as the dominant power on the left as well as the right bank of the Tigris. Calah was very advantageously situated in a region of great fertility and of much natural strength, being protected on one side by the Tigris, and on the other by the Shor-Derreh torrent, while the Greater Zab further defended it at the distance of a few miles on the south and south-east, and the Khazr or Ghazr-Su on the north east. Its settlement must have secured to the Assyrians the undisturbed possession of the fruitful and important district between the Tigris and the mountains, the Aturia or Assyria Proper of later times, which ultimately became the great metropolitan region in which almost all the chief towns were situated.
It is quite in accordance with this erection of a sort of second capital, further to the north than the old one, to find, as we do, by the inscriptions of Asshur-izir-pal, that Shalmaneser undertook expeditions against the tribes on the upper Tigris, and even founded cities in those parts, which he colonized with settlers brought from a distance. We do not know what the exact bounds of Assyria towards the north were before his time, but there can be no doubt that he advanced them; and he is thus entitled to the distinction of being the first known Assyrian conqueror.
With Tiglathi-Nin, the son and successor of Shalmaneser I., the spirit of conquest displayed itself in a more signal and striking manner. The probable date of this monarch has already been shown to synchronize closely with the time assigned by Berosus to the connnencement of his sixth Babylonian dynasty, and by Herodotus to the beginning of his Assyrian Empire. Now Tiglathi-Nin appears in the Inscriptions as the prince who first aspired to transfer to Assyria the supremacy hitherto exercised, or at any rate claimed, by Babylon. He made war upon the southern kingdom, and with such success that he felt himself entitled to claim its conquuest, and to inscribe upon his signet-seal the proud title of “Conqueror of Babylonia.” This signet-seal, left by him (as is probable) at Babylon, and recovered about six hundred years later by Sennacherib, shows to us that he reigned for some time in person at the southern capital, where it would seem that he afterwards established an Assyrian dynasty—a branch perhaps of his own family. This is probably the exact event of which Berosus spoke as occurring 526 years before Phul or Pul, and which Herodotus regarded as marking the commencement of the Assyrian “Empire.” We must not, however, suppose that Babylonia was from this time really subject continuously to the Court of Nineveh. The subjection may have been maintained for a little less than a century; but about that time we find evidence that the yoke of Assyria had been shaken off, and that the Babylonian monarchs, who have Semitic names, and are probably Assyrians by descent, had become hostile to the Ninevite kings, and were engaged in frequent wars with them. No real permanent subjection of the Lower country to the Upper was effected till the time of Sargon; and even under the Sargonid dynasty revolts were frequent; nor were the Babylonians reconciled to the Assyrian sway till Esarhaddon united the two Crowns in his own person, and reigned alternately at the two capitals. Still, it is probable that, from the time of Tiglathi-Nin, the Upper country was recognized as the superior of the two: it had shown its might by a conquest and the imposition of a dynasty—proofs of power which were far from counterbalanced by a few retaliatory raids adventured upon under favorable circumstances by the Babylonian princes. Its influence was therefore felt, even while its yoke was refused; and the Semitizing of the Chaldaeans, commenced under Tiglathi-Nin, continued during the whole time of Assyrian preponderance; no effectual Turanian reaction ever set in; the Babylonian rulers, whether submissive to Assyria or engaged in hostilities against her, have equally Semitic names; and it does not appear that any effort was at any time made to recover to the Turanian element of the population its early supremacy.
The line of direct descent, which has been traced in uninterrupted succession through eight monarchs, beginning with Asshur-bel-nisi-su, here terminates; and an interval occurs which can only be roughly estimated as probably not exceeding fifty years. Another consecutive series of eight kings follows, known to us chiefly through the famous Tiglath-Pileser cylinder (which gives the succession of five of them), but completed from the combined evidence of several other documents. These monarchs, it is probable, reigned from about B.C. 1230 to B C. 1070.
Bel-kudur-uzur, the first monarch of this second series, is known to us wholly through his unfortunate war with the contemporary king of Babylon. It seems that the Semitic line of kings, which the Assyrians had established in Babylon, was not content to remain very long in a subject position. In the time of Bel-kudur-uzur, Vul-baladan, the Babylonian vassal monarch, revolted; and a war followed between him and his Assyrian suzerain, which terminated in the defeat and death of the latter, who fell in a great battle, about B.C. 1210.
Nin-pala-zira succeeded. It is uncertain whether he was any relation to his predecessor, but clear that he avenged him. He is called “the king who organized the country of Assyria, and established the troops of Assyria in authority.” It appears that shortly after his accession, Vul-baladan of Babylon, elated by his previous successes, made an expedition against the Assyrian capital, and a battle was fought under the walls of Asshur in which Nin-pala-zira was completely successful. The Babylonians fled, and left Assyria in peace during the remainder of the reign of this monarch.