Under this foreign domination, Babylonia lost its empire over western Asia. Syria and Palestine became independent, and the high priests of Asshur made themselves kings of Assyria. The divine attributes with which the Semitic kings of Babylonia had been invested disappeared at the same time; the title of “god” is never given to a Kassite sovereign. Babylon, however, remained the capital of the kingdom and the holy city of western Asia. Like the sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire, it was necessary for the prince, who claimed rule in western Asia, to go to Babylon and there be acknowledged as the adopted son of Bel before his claim to legitimacy could be admitted. Babylon became more and more a priestly city, living on its ancient prestige and merging its ruler into a pontiff. From henceforth, down to the Persian era, it was the religious head of the civilised East.
One of the earlier Kassite kings was Agum-kakrime, who recovered the images of Merodach and his consort, which had been carried away to Khani. At a later date Kadashman-Bel and Burna-buriash I corresponded with the Egyptian Pharaohs, Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV (1400 B.C.). The Assyrian king Asshur-uballit still owned allegiance to his Babylonian suzerain, and intermarriages took place between the royal families of Assyria and Babylonia. Babylonia, moreover, still sought opportunities of recovering its old supremacy in Palestine, which the conquests of the XVIIIth Dynasty had made an Egyptian province, and along with Mitanni or Aram-Naharain and the Hittites intrigued against the Egyptian government with disaffected conspirators in the West. After the death of Burna-buriash, however, civil war in Babylonia led to Assyrian interference in the affairs of the country, and from this time forward even the nominal obedience of Assyria to its old suzerain was at an end.
ASSYRIAN CONQUEST OF BABYLON
Frequent wars broke out between the two nations, and eventually (about 1280 B.C.) Tukulti-Ninib of Assyria, in the fifth year of his reign, captured Babylon and sent the treasures of E-sagila, the temple of Bel-Merodach, to Asshur. For seven years the Assyrian monarch reigned over Babylonia, then a revolt obliged him to retire; Adad-shum-usur of the native dynasty was placed on the Babylonian throne; and Tukulti-Ninib was shortly afterwards murdered by his son, Asshurnazirpal I. Assyria steadily increased in power, while Babylonia fell more and more into decay. Shalmaneser I, the builder of Calah (now Nimrud) in 1300 B.C., carried his victorious arms in all directions, and Tiglathpileser I extended the Assyrian Empire as far as the Mediterranean (1100 B.C.).
[ca. 1230-745 B.C.]
The Kassite Dynasty had fallen about 1230 B.C., in consequence of an attack on the part of the Elamites, and a new dynasty which sprang from Isin took its place, and lasted for 132½ years. Then came a series of short-lived dynasties, ending with that of Nabu-nasir, the Nabonassar of classical writers, who ascended the throne of Babylon in 747 B.C. Assyria was at the time in the throes of a revolution. Civil war and pestilence were devastating the kingdom, and its northern provinces had been wrested from it by Ararat (or Van) [Urartu]. In 746 B.C. Calah rebelled, and on the thirteenth of Airu (April), in the following year, Pulu or Pul, who took the name of Tiglathpileser III, seized the throne, and inaugurated a new and vigorous policy.[c]
At this point it seems well to interrupt the story of Babylonia for a time until we have traced the origins and rise of that Assyrian power in which the fortunes of Babylon were soon involved and subordinated until the destruction of Nineveh, when the New Babylonian Empire emerged into historic prominence.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[19] [Such is the way in which a few Assyriologists read the more commonly accepted “Shirpurla.” Professor Hommel interprets it “Sirgulla,” in favour of which there is something to be said.]