A History of Babylon, from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest

by L. W. King

FIG. 64.

BAS-RELIEF OF SHAMASH-RÊSH-USUR, GOVERNOR OF THE LANDS OF SUKHI AND MARI.

The scene represents Shamash-rêsh-usur standing before the god Adad and the goddess Ishtar. The stone was set up in Gabbari-ibni, a city he had founded, and it commemorates his achievements, the one of which he was most proud being the introduction of honey-bees into the land of Sukhi.

(After a photo, by Weissbach.)

On it he records his suppression of a revolt of the Tu'mânu tribe, who threatened his capital Ribanish, while he was holding festival in the neighbouring town of Baka. But he attacked them with the people who were with him, slew three hundred and fifty of them, and the rest submitted. He also records how he dug out the Sukhi Canal, when it had silted up, and how he planted palm-trees in his palace at Ribanish. But his most notable act, according to his own account, was the introduction of bees into Sukhi, which his improved irrigation of the district doubtless rendered possible. "Bees which collect honey," he tells us, "which no man had seen since the time of my fathers and forefathers, nor had brought to the land of Sukhi, I brought down from the mountains of the Khabkha-tribe and I put them in the garden of Gabbari-ibni." The text closes with an interesting little note upon the bees: "They collect honey and wax. The preparing of honey and wax I understand, and the gardeners understand it." And he adds that in days to come a ruler will ask the elders of his land, "Is it true that Shamash-rêsh-usur, governor of Sukhi, brought honey-bees into the land of Sukhi?" The monument may well have been carried to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II., when he incorporated the district within his empire.

The subsequent period shows a gradual tightening of Assyria's grasp upon the southern kingdom, varied by comparatively ineffective struggles and revolts on Babylon's part to avoid her loss of independence. The temporary decline of Assyrian power enabled Babylon for a time to regain something of her former position under Nabû-shum-ishkun II., an early king of the Ninth Dynasty, and his successor Nabonassar. But the military revolt in Assyria, which in 745 b.c. placed Tiglath-pileser IV. upon the throne,[34] put a speedy end to Babylon's hopes of any permanent recovery of power. His accession marks the beginning of the last period of Assyrian expansion, and the administrative policy he inaugurated justifies us in ascribing the term "empire" to the area conquered by him, and his successors, in the last half of the eighth and the first half of the seventh centuries b.c. But it was an empire which carried in itself from the outset the seeds of decay. It was based on a policy of deportation, Assyria's final answer to her pressing problem of how to administer the wide areas she annexed. Former Assyrian kings had carried away the conquered into slavery, but Tiglath-pileser IV. inaugurated a regular transference of nations. The policy certainly effected its immediate object: it kept the subject provinces quiet. But as a permanent method of administration it was bound to be a failure. While destroying patriotism and love of country, it put an end at the same time to all incentives to labour. The subject country's accumulated wealth had already been drained for the benefit of Assyrian coffers; and in the hands of its half-starved colonists it was not likely to prove a permanent source of strength, or of wealth, to its suzerain.

Tiglath-pileser's first object, before launching his armies to the north and west, was to secure his southern frontier, and this he effected by invading Babylonia and forcing from Nabonassar an acknowledgment of Assyrian control. During the campaign he overran the northern districts, and applied his policy of deportation by carrying away many of their inhabitants. The distress in the country, due to the Assyrian inroads, was aggravated by internal dissension. Sippar repudiated Nabonassar's authority, and the revolt was subdued only after a siege of the city.[35] The Ninth Dynasty ended with the country in confusion; for Nabû-nadin-zêr, Nabopolassar's son, after a reign of only two years, was slain in a revolt by Nabû-shum-ukin, the governor of a province.[36] The dynasty soon came to an end after the latter's accession. He had not enjoyed his position for more than a month, when the kingdom again changed hands, and Nabû-mukîn-zêr secured the throne.

From the fall of the Ninth Dynasty, until the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Babylonia was completely overshadowed by the power of Assyria. She became merely a subject province of the empire, and her Tenth Dynasty is mainly composed of Assyrian rulers or their nominees. Nabû-mukîn-zêr had reigned only three years when Tiglath-pileser again invaded Babylonia, took him captive, and ascended the throne of Babylon, where he ruled under his name of Pulu.[37] On his death, which occurred two years later, he was succeeded by Shalmaneser V., who, as suzerain of Babylon, adopted the name of Ululai. But Babylonia soon demonstrated her power of hindering Assyrian plans, for, after the elose of Shalmaneser's reign, when Sargon's army had secured the capture of Samaria, he was obliged to recall his forces from the West by the menace of his southern province. Merodach-baladan, a Chaldean chief of Bît-Iakin[38] at the head of the Persian Gulf, now laid claim to the throne of Babylon. By himself he would not have been formidable to Assyria, but he was backed by an unexpected and dangerous ally. Elam had not meddled in Babylonian affairs for centuries, but she had gradually become alarmed at the growth of Assyrian power. So Khumbanigash, the Elamite king, allying himself with Merodach-baladan, invaded Babylonia, laid siege to the frontier fortress of Dêr or Dûr-ilu on the Lower Tigris, and defeated Sargon and the Assyrian army before its walls. Merodach-baladan was acknowledged by the Babylonians as their king, and he continued to be a thorn in the side of Assyria.