“On the 20th day of Tebet, Sin-âḫê-eriba, king of Assyria, his son killed him in a revolt. For (? 25) years Sin-âḫê-eriba had ruled the kingdom of Assyria. From the 20th day of the month Tebet until the 2nd day of the month Adar, the revolt in Assyria continued. Month Adar, day 18th, Aššur-âḫâ-iddina (Esarhaddon), his son, sat upon the throne in Assyria.”
According to Berosus, who agrees with the Biblical account in this, it was two of his sons who killed him, but it may be taken that, though they were both morally responsible, one only actually performed the deed. Shareser is not mentioned, either by Abydenus or Polyhistor, as taking part in the murder; it would seem to be very probable, that Adrammelech was the culprit. From Berosus it is also clear that Esarhaddon had nothing to do with it, and this is to a certain extent confirmed by his inscriptions, which, as will be seen farther on, represent him as warring in Armenia, whither his brothers had fled.
According to the received chronology, the assassination of Sennacherib and the accession of Esarhaddon took place in the year 680 b.c.
Esarhaddon.
It is a matter greatly to be regretted that the royal inscriptions of Esarhaddon have not come down to us in a complete state, and also that we do not possess the later portions of the Assyrian Eponym Canon with historical references, which would enable us to fix the date of the campaigns. Of course, there is every probability that they are mentioned in chronological order, but as their dates are not stated, at least some uncertainty must prevail.
Esarhaddon, King of Assyria. The kneeling figure, which has the negro type of features and wears the uraeus ornament, is apparently Tirhakah, his opponent in Egypt. The prisoners here represented are regarded as being treated as the same king treated Manasseh (2 Chr. xxxiii. 11, R.V. marg.). Found at Zenjirli. From Mittheilungen aus den Orientalischen Sammlungen, Part XI., by permission of the publishing-house of Georg Reimer, Berlin.
It is therefore impossible to say with certainty whether the recital, in forcible though apparently well-chosen language, of what took place in Ḫanigalbat, or Mesopotamia, belongs to the account of the conflict with his brothers (who would have liked to overthrow Esarhaddon that one of them might reign in his stead) or not. The wording, however, makes it very probable that the narrative does refer to them, for he overtook them on the Nineveh road, and the disappearance of their resistance was more than gratifying to the new king—
“The Nineveh-road, with difficulty (but) speedily, I traversed—