It was soon apparent that Esarhaddon's occupation of that country had been merely nominal, and it thus fell to his son Ashur-bani-pal to continue the Egyptian war, and to complete the work his father had left unfinished. And though he met with far greater success, he too in the end found the task of any permanent conquest beyond his power.[44] For he soon had his hands full with troubles nearer home, in consequence of which his hold on Egypt gradually relaxed. Urtaku of Elam, who invaded Babylonia, does not appear to have followed up his success; and the subsequent invasion of the country by Teumman was only followed by that ruler's defeat and death in battle. But the strength of Elam was not broken by this reverse, and, when Shamash-shum-ukîn revolted, he received active Elamite support.
Not only in Elam, but also throughout the territory controlled by Assyria, Shamash-shum-ukîn found support in his rebellion, a fact significant of the detestation of Assyrian rule in the scattered provinces of the empire, which continued to be held together only by fear. But the force at Ashur-bani-pal's disposal was still powerful enough to stamp out the conflagration and head off disaster for a time. He marched into Babylonia, besieged and captured Babylon, and his brother Shamash-shum-ukîn met his death in the flames of his palace in 648 b.c. The Assyrian king then invaded Elam, and, capturing its cities as he advanced, he laid the country under fire and sword. Susa was protected by its river, then in flood, but the Assyrian army effected a crossing, and the ancient capital lay at the mercy of the invaders. Having taken the city, Ashur-bani-pal determined to break its power for ever, after the manner Sennacherib had dealt with Babylon. He not only stripped the temples and carried off the treasures of the palace, but he even desecrated the royal tombs, and completed his work of destruction by fire. So Susa was plundered and destroyed, and in Babylon itself Ashur-bani-pal continued to be supreme until his death.[45]
ASSUR-BANIPAL AS THE RESTORER OF E-SAGILA, THE TEMPLE OF MARDUK AT BABYLON.
Brit. Mus., No. 90864.
Babylonia had proved herself no match for the legions of Assyria at the height of the hitter's power; but the industrial and commercial life of her cities, based ultimately on the rich return her soil yielded to her agricultural population, enabled her to survive blows which would have permanently disabled a country less favoured by nature. Moreover, she always regarded the Assyrians as an upstart people, who had borrowed her culture, and whose land had been a mere province of her kingdom at a time when her own political influence had extended from Elam to the borders of Syria. Even in her darkest hour she was buoyed up by the hope of recovering her ancient glory, and she let no opportunity slip of striking a blow at the northern kingdom. She was consequently always a drag on Assyria's advance to the Mediterranean, for, when the latter's armies marched westward, they left Babylon and Elam in their rear.
In her later dealings with Babylon Assyria had tried the alternative policies of intimidation and in-dulgence, but with equal want of success; and they reached their climax in the reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. It is quite possible that either of these policies, if consistently pursued, would have been equally futile in its aim of coercing or placating Babylonia. But their alternation was a far worse blunder, as it only succeeded in revealing to the Babylonians their own power, and in confirming them in their obstinate resistance. To this cause we may trace the long revolt under Shamash-shum-ukîn, when Babylon with Elam at her back struck a succession of blows which helped in a material degree to reduce the power of the Assyrian army, already weakened by the Egyptian campaigns. And in 625 b.c., when the Scythians had overrun the Assyrian empire, and her power was on the wane, we find Nabopolassar proclaiming himself king in Babylon and founding a new empire which for nearly seventy years was to survive the city of Nineveh itself.
[1] Cf. "Boundary-Stones in the Brit. Mus.," pp. 29 ff.