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

by L. W. King

HAMMURABI RECEIVING HIS LAWS FROM THE SUN GOD.
After Délég. en Perse, Mém. IV, pl. 3

That Kish was accorded the position of a vassal state is certain, for, among contract-tablets recovered from the city, several were drawn up in the reign of Mananâ, who was Sumu-abum's vassal. In these documents the oath is taken in Mananâ's name, but they are dated by the formula for Sumu-abum's thirteenth year, commemorating his capture of Kazallu. The importance of the latter event may be held to explain the use of the suzerain's own formula, for other documents in Mananâ's reign are dated by local events, proving that at Kish, as at Sippar, a vassal city of Babylon was allowed the privilege of retaining its own system of time-reckoning. If we are right in regarding Ashduni-erim as Sumu-abum's contemporary, it is clear that he must have been succeeded by Mananâ within three years of his capitulation to Babylon. During the next few years the throne of Kish was occupied by at least three rulers in quick succession, Sumu-ditana, Iawium, and Khalium,[56] for we know that by the thirteenth year of Sumu-la-ilum, who succeeded Sumu-abum on the throne of Babylon, the city of Kish had revolted and had been finally annexed.

The conquest of Kazallu, winch Sumu-abum carried out in the last year but one of his reign, was the most important of Babylon's early victories, for it marked an extension of her influence beyond the limits of Akkad. The city appears to have lain to the east of the Tigris, and the two most powerful empires in the past history of Babylonia had each come into active conflict with it during the early years of their existence. Its conquest by Akkad was regarded in Babylonian tradition as the most notable achievement of Sargon's reign; and at a later period Dungi of Ur, after capturing the Elamite border city of Dêr, had extended his empire to the north or east by including Kazallu within its borders.[57] Sumu-abum's conquest was probably little more than a successful raid, for in the reign of Sumu-la-ilum Kazallu in its turn attacked Babylon, and, by fully occupying her energies, delayed her southward expansion for some years.

In the earlier part of his reign Sumu-la-ilum appears to have devoted himself to consolidating the position his predecessor had secured and to improving the internal resources of his kingdom. The Shamash-khegallum Canal, which he cut immediately on his accession, lay probably in the neighbourhood of Sippar; and later on he further improved the country's system of irrigation by a second canal to which he gave his own name.[58] The policy he thus inaugurated was energetically maintained by his successors, and much of Babylon's wealth and prosperity under her early kings may be traced to the care they lavished on increasing the area of land under cultivation. Sumu-la-ilum also rebuilt the great fortification-wall of his capital, but during his first twelve years he records only one military expedition.[59] It was in his thirteenth year that the revolt and reconquest of Kish put an end to this period of peaceful development.

The importance attached by Babylon to the suppression of this revolt is attested by the fact that for five years it formed an era for the dating of documents, which was only discontinued when the city of Kazallu, under the leadership of Iakhzir-ilum, administered a fresh shock to the growing kingdom by an invasion of Babylonian territory. Iakhzir-ilum appears to have secured the co-operation of Kish by inciting it once more to rebellion, for in the following year Babylon destroyed the wall of Anu in that city; and, after re-establishing her authority there, she devoted her next campaign to carrying the war into the enemy's country. That the subsequent conquest of Kazallu and the defeat of its army failed to afford a fresh subject for a nascent era in the chronology is to be explained by the incompleteness of the victory; for Iakhzir-ilum escaped the fate which overtook his city, and it was only after five years of continued resistance that he was finally defeated and slain.[60]

After disposing of this source of danger from beyond the Tigris, Sumu-la-ilum continued his predecessor's policy of annexation within the limits of Akkad. In his twenty-seventh year he commemorates the destruction and rebuilding of the wall of Cuthah, suggesting that the city had up to that time maintained its independence and now only yielded it to force of arms. It is significant that in the same year he records that he treated the wall of the god Zakar in a similar fashion, for Dûr-Zakar was one of the defences of Nippur,[61] and lay either within the city-area or in its immediate neighbourhood. That year thus appears to mark Babylon's first bid for the rule of Sumer as well as of Akkad, for the possession of the central city was regarded as carrying with it the right of suzerainty over the whole country. It is noteworthy, too, that this success appears to correspond to a period of great unrest at Nîsin in Southern Babylonia.

During the preceding period of forty years the southern cities had continued to rule within their home territory without interference from Babylon. In spite of Sumu-abum's increasing influence in Northern Babylonia, Ur-Ninib of Nîsin had claimed the control of Akkad in virtue of his possession of Nippur, though his authority cannot have been recognized much farther to the north. Like the earlier king of Nîsin, Ishme-Dagan, he styled himself in addition Lord of Erech and patron of Nippur, Ur and Eridu, and so did his son Bûr-Sin II., who succeeded his father after the latter's long reign of twenty-eight years. Of the group of southern cities Larsa alone continued to boast a line of independent rulers, the throne having passed from Gungunum successively to Abi-sarê[62] and Sumu-ilum; and in the latter's reign it would seem that Larsa for a time even ousted Nîsin from the hegemony in Sinner. For we have recovered at Tello the votive figure of a dog, which a certain priest of Lagash named Abba-dugga dedicated to a goddess on his behalf,[63] and in the inscription he refers to Sumu-ilum as King of Ur, proving that the city had passed from the control of Nîsin to that of Larsa. The goddess, to whom the dedication was made, was Nin-Nîsin, "the Lady of Nîsin," a fact suggestive of the further possibility that Nîsin itself may have acknowledged Sumu-ilum for a time. It may be noted that in the list of Nîsin kings one name is missing after those of Itêr-pîsha and Ura-imitti, who followed Bûr-Sin on the throne in quick succession.[64] According to later tradition Ura-imitti had named his gardener, Enlil-bani, to succeed him,[65] and in the list the missing ruler is recorded to have reigned in Nîsin for six months before Enlil-bani's accession. It is perhaps just possible that we should restore his name as that of Sumu-ilum of Larsa,[66] who may have taken advantage of the internal troubles of Nîsin, not only to annex Ur, but to place himself for a few months upon the rival throne, until driven out by Enlil-bani. However that may be, it is certain that Larsa profited by the unrest at Nîsin, and we may perhaps also connect with it Babylon's successful incursion in the south.[67]

There is no doubt that Sumu-la-ilum was the real founder of Babylon's greatness as a military power. We have the testimony of his later descendant Samsu-iluna to the strategic importance of the fortresses he built to protect his country's extended frontier;[68] and, though Dûr-Zakar of Nippur is the only one the position of which can be approximately identified, we may assume that the majority of these lay along the east and the south sides of Akkad, where the greatest danger of invasion was to be anticipated. It does not seem that Nippur itself passed at this time under more than a temporary control by Babylon, and we may assume that, after his successful raid, Sumu-la-ilum was content to remain within the limits of Akkad, which he strengthened with his line of forts. In his later years he occupied the city of Barzi, and conducted some further military operations, details of which we have not recovered; but those were the last efforts on Babylon's part for more than a generation.