Like his father, Shalmanesar resided at Chalah. On the terrace of this city, to the south-east of the palace of his father, he built a dwelling-place for himself, and in this set up the obelisk, the inscriptions on which give a brief account of each year of his reign. In the ruins of this house two bulls also have been discovered, which are covered with inscriptions, which, together with the inscription of Kurkh on the Tigris, supplement or extend the statements of the obelisk. More considerable remains have come down to us of another building of Shalmanesar. Assurnasirpal had erected at Chalah two temples to the north of his palace. To the larger (western) of these two temples on the north-west corner of the terrace Shalmanesar added a tower, the ruins of which in the form of a pyramidal hill still overtop the uniform heap of the ruined palaces. On the foundation of the natural rock of the bank of the Tigris lies a square substructure (each of the sides measures over 150 feet) of 20 feet in height, built of brick and cased with stone. On this base rises a tower of several diminishing stories. In the first of these stories, immediately upon the platform, is a passage 100 feet long, 12 feet high, and 6 feet in breadth, which divides the storey exactly in the middle from east to west.
Two centuries after the fall of the Assyrian kingdom, Xenophon, marching up the Tigris with the 10,000, reached the ruins of Chalah. After crossing the Zapatus, i. e. the Greater Zab, he came to a large deserted city on the Tigris, the name of which sounded to him like Larissa (Chalah); it was surrounded by a wall about seven and a-half miles long. This wall had a substructure of stone masonry about 20 feet high; on this it rose, 25 feet in thickness, and built of bricks, to the height of 100 feet. Beside the city was a pyramid of stone, a plethron (100 feet) broad and two plethra high; to these many of the neighbouring hamlets fled for refuge.[591] Shalmanesar's tower was broken, and by the fall of the upper parts had become changed into a pyramid. The sides of the tower Xenophon put at almost half their real size; the height of the ruins is still about 140 feet. That Shalmanesar also stayed at Nineveh is proved by the inscriptions; that he possessed a palace in the ancient city of Asshur is proved by the stamp of the tiles at Kileh Shergat.[592]
In a reign of 36 years Shalmanesar II. had gained important successes. In the north he had advanced as far as Lake Van, and the valley of the Araxes, the Tibarenes in the north-west, and the Cilicians in the west had felt the weight of his arms. He had directed his most stubborn efforts against the princes on the crossings over the Euphrates towards Syria, and towards the region of Mount Amanus and Syria itself. Damascus and Hamath were forced to pay tribute after a series of campaigns; Byblus, Sidon, and Tyre repeatedly paid tribute, and Israel after it had received a new master in Jehu. By Shalmanesar's successful interference in the contest for the crown in the civil war in Babylon, the supremacy of Asshur over Babel was at length obtained. The regions of the Zagrus had to pay tribute to Shalmanesar. He first trod the land of Media, and his successes were felt beyond Media as far as the southern shore of the Caspian Sea and East Iran.
In spite of the unwearied activity of Shalmanesar, in spite of his ceaseless campaigns and the important results gained by his weapons, his reign ended amid domestic troubles, caused by a rebellion of the native land. Shalmanesar's son and successor, Samsi-Bin III. (823-810 B.C.), tells us in an inscription found in the remains of his palace, which he built in the south-east corner of the terrace of Chalah, that his brother Assurdaninpal set on foot a conspiracy against his father Shalmanesar, and that the land of Asshur, both the Upper and Lower, joined the rebellion. He enumerates 27 cities, among them Asshur itself, the ancient metropolis, and Arbela, which joined Assurdaninpal; but "with the help of the great gods" Samsi-Bin reduced them again to his power. Then he tells us of his campaigns in the north and east. In his first campaign the whole land of Nairi was subjugated—all the princes, 24 in number, are mentioned; the land of Van also paid tribute. The Assyrian dominion, asserts the king, stretched from the land of Nairi to the city of Kar-Salmanassar, opposite Karchemish (p. 315). Then he fought against the land of Giratbunda (apparently a region on the Caspian Sea, perhaps Gerabawend), took the king prisoner, and set up his own image in Sibar, the capital of Giratbunda,[593] and afterwards directed his arms against the land of Accad (Babylonia). When he had slain 13,000 men and taken 3000 prisoners, king Marduk-Balatirib marched out against him with the warriors of Chaldæa and Elam, of the lands of Namri (p. 320) and Aram. He defeated them near Dur-Kurzu, their capital: 5000 were left on the field, 2000 taken prisoners; 200 chariots of war and ensigns of the king remained in the hands of the Assyrians (819 B.C.). At this point the inscription breaks off; elsewhere we hear nothing of further successes against Babylonia, we only learn that Samsi-Bin in the eleventh and twelfth years of his reign (812 and 811 B.C.) again marched to Chaldæa and Babylon,[594] and we can only conclude from the fact that the king of Babylon received help not only from Namri and Aram, but also from Elam, that the Assyrians under Samsi-Bin continued to advance, and that their power must by this time have appeared alarming to the Elamites also.
Bin-nirar III. (810-781 B.C.), the son and successor of Samsi-Bin, raised the Assyrian power still higher. Twice he marched out against the Armenian land on the shore of Lake Van; eight times he made campaigns in the land of the rivers, i. e. Mesopotamia. In the fifth year of his reign he went out against the city of Arpad in Syria; in the eighth against the "sea-coast," i. e. no doubt against the coast of Syria. The beginning of an inscription remains from which we can see the extent of the lands over which he ruled, or which he had compelled to pay tribute. "I took into my possession," so this fragment tells us, "from the land of Siluna, which lies at the rising of the sun, onwards; viz., the land of Kib, of Ellip, Karkas, Arazias, Misu, Madai (Media), Giratbunda throughout its whole extent, Munna, Parsua, Allabria, Abdadana, the land of Nairi throughout its whole extent, the land of Andiu, which is remote, the mountain range of Bilchu throughout its whole extent to the great sea which lies in the east, i. e. as far as the Caspian Sea. I made subject to myself from the Euphrates onwards: the land of Chatti (Aram), the western land (mat acharri) throughout its whole extent, Tyre, Sidon, the land of Omri (Israel) and Edom, the land of Palashtav (Philistæa) as far as the great sea to the setting of the sun. I imposed upon them payment of tribute. I also marched against the land of Imirisu (the kingdom of Damascus), against Mariah, the king of the land of Imirisu. I actually shut him up in Damascus, the city of his kingdom; great terror of Asshur came upon him; he embraced my feet, he became a subject; 2300 talents of silver, 20 talents of gold, 3000 talents of copper, 5000 talents of iron, robes, carven images, his wealth and his treasures without number, I received in his palace at Damascus where he dwelt.[595] I subjugated all the kings of the land of Chaldæa, and laid tribute upon them; I offered sacrifice at Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha, the dwellings of the gods Bel, Nebo, and Nergal."[596]
According to this king Bin-nirar not only maintained the predominance over Babylon which his grandfather had gained, but extended it: his authority reached from Media, perhaps from the shores of the Caspian Sea, to the shore of the Mediterranean as far as Damascus and Israel and Edom, as far as Sidon and Tyre and the cities of the Philistines. The Cilicians and Tibarenes who paid tribute to Shalmanesar are not mentioned by Bin-nirar in his description of his empire. So far as we can see, the centre of the kingdom was meanwhile extended and more firmly organised. Among the magistrates with whose names the Assyrians denote the years, at the time of Shalmanesar and his immediate successors the names of the commander-in-chief and three court officers are regularly followed by the names of the overseers of the districts of Rezeph (Resapha on the Euphrates), of Nisib (Nisibis on the Mygdonius, the eastern affluent of the Chaboras), of Arapha, i. e. the mountain-land of Arrapachitis (Albak); hence we may conclude that these districts were more closely connected or incorporated with the native land, and governed immediately by viceroys of the king. How uncertain the power and supremacy of Assyria was at a greater distance is on the other hand equally clear from the fact that Bin-nirar had to make no fewer than eight campaigns in the land of the streams, i. e. between the Tigris and the Euphrates; that he marched four times against the land of Khubuskia in the neighbourhood of Armenia, and twice against the district of Lake Van, against which his father and grandfather had so often contended.
Bin-nirar III. also built himself a separate palace at Chalah, on the western edge of the terrace of the royal dwellings, to the south of the palace of his great grandfather Assurnasirpal. In the ruins of the temple which he dedicated to Nebo have been found six standing images of this deity, two of which bear upon the pedestal those inscriptions which informed us that the wife of Bin-nirar III. was named Sammuramat (p. 45). On a written tablet dated from the year of Musallim-Adar (i. e. from the year 793 B.C.), the eighteenth year of Bin-nirar, on which is still legible the fragment of a royal decree, we also find the double impress of his seal—a royal figure which holds a lion. A second document from the time of the reign of this prince, from the twenty-sixth year of his reign (782 B.C.), registers the sale of a female slave at the price of ten and a half minæ, and gives the name of the ten witnesses to the transaction.[597] The preservation of this document is the more important inasmuch as a notice in Phenician letters is written beside it. Hence we may conclude that even in the days of Bin-nirar III. the alphabetic writing was known as far as this point in the East, though the cuneiform alphabet was retained beside it, not only at that time, but down to 100 B.C., and indeed, to all appearance, down to the first century of our reckoning.[598]
FOOTNOTES:
[555] Ménant, "Ann." pp. 71, 72, 73.
[556] Ménant, loc. cit. p. 82.