We possess a letter written by Asshur-uballit to Amenhotep IV of Egypt. It gives an account of presents made to the king of Egypt—a war chariot yoked to two white horses, and a seal cylinder—makes excuse for the tardy return of Egyptian ambassadors on the plea that they had been stopped by the (nomadic) Sutu, and contains the usual importunate requests for richer presents in return. In Babylonia, Asshur-uballit succeeded in making a way for Assyrian interference, and thus came a step nearer to the goal all kings of Assyria longed to reach, the suzerainty of Babylon. Apart from the attempt of Asshur-narara and Nabu-daian, which presumably came to nothing, the little kingdom of Assyria had been on friendly terms with Babylonia, and had made alliance which probably contributed more to her own security than that of the other party. Internal troubles were the pretext which first rendered feasible his successful interference in Babylonian affairs.
The assassination of the Babylonian king by the malcontent Kossæans, and the elevation of Nazibugash to the throne, gave Asshur-uballit an admirable pretext for restoring “order” in Babylonia and placing Kurigalzu, his other grandson, on the throne. Adad-nirari mentions another expedition of his against the Shubari. His successor, Bel-nirari I [about 1370 B.C.], boasts in his inscription that he conquered the Kasshu (Kossæans) and enlarged the borders of the land. This probably refers to a distinct campaign against the Kasshu, and not to the war with Kurigalzu II, in which he was likewise victorious. The latter enterprise also resulted in territorial expansion, which does not necessarily seem to have been made permanent.
[ca. 1325-1275 B.C.]
Pudi-ilu (about 1350), the son and successor of Bel-nirari, waged war, we are told by his son, Adad-nirari, against the otherwise unknown Turuki and Nigimkhi, who probably dwelt somewhere in the direction of Armenia, and extended the Assyrian frontier to the north (Gutium). Adad-nirari I (about 1325) has left an inscription which has been discovered at Kalah Shergat (Asshur). According to it, he, like his predecessors, waged most of his wars on the northeastern frontier of his kingdom, and endeavoured, by building cities, to revive the prosperity of the region occupied by the Shubari, Lulumi, Guti, and Kasshu of the northeast, which had been laid waste by previous wars. His inscription relates mainly to the buildings he erected in connection with the temple of Asshur. It is the first from Assyria with a definite date. It was indited in the limmu (i.e. the year of office) of Shulman-kharradu.
His son, Shalmaneser I (about 1300), was one of the mightiest Assyrian kings, and probably the first who raised Asshur to a position equal, if not superior, to that of Babylonia. We do not know much about him from inscriptions left by himself, and are therefore obliged to depend on occasional statements of succeeding kings. He ruled over Mesopotamia westward to the Balikh at least, if not to the Euphrates, and assured to Assyria the possession of the northern tract between the Euphrates and Tigris, which was afterward the provinces of Gumathene and Sophene. He founded colonies there, and planted them with Assyrian settlers to form a bulwark to Mesopotamia against the tribes of the North. Afterwards, when the power of Assyria was impaired, these colonies were in great straits, but they held their own, and were then reinforced by Asshurnazirpal, to whom they served as a welcome basis for the new Assyrian province of Tuskhan which he established there.
With the extension of the kingdom and the inclusion of northern Mesopotamia, the need of another capital than Asshur, which lay too far to the south, made itself felt. The city Shalmaneser chose for this purpose was Calah, which remained the capital down to the time of Sargon, except during the period of decline which followed upon the reign of Tiglathpileser I. His object in this change of residence was clearly to give expression to the altered state of things which had come about in Assyria and Mesopotamia. Assyria was not to be the privileged kingdom, but the two political organisations, Asshur and the Kingdom of the Kishshati, were to be equal members of the new empire, each retaining its own centre in Asshur and Kharran respectively, while the king founded his own capital for himself, to avoid giving the preference to either.
Shalmaneser’s son, Tukulti-Ninib I (about 1275) [but probably somewhat earlier] was no less fortunate in his enterprises than his father. He was the first to achieve the object of every king in Assyria—dominion over Babylon. Adad-nirari III, in his list of his ancestors, styles him “King of Sumer and Accad,” from which we may certainly conclude that he held the same sort of position toward the whole of Babylonia, and the kingdom of Babylon more particularly, as was afterward attained by Shalmaneser II—that is to say, he must have ruled over the several provinces of all Babylonia and exercised a kind of suzerainty over Babylon.
The rapid rise of Assyria seems to have been followed by equally rapid decline. For a hundred years we have hardly any information concerning it, and do not even know the names of the kings who reigned during that period. The lack of inscriptions, or, at any rate, of vaunting records in the reigns of later kings, seems in itself to indicate a time of humiliation, while the conditions which we find prevailing when our sources of information become more copious, show that soon after the reign of Tukulti-Ninib, and therefore probably before the end of the thirteenth century B.C., the power of Assyria must have been seriously curtailed and exposed to grievous shocks. Whence they arose we shall presently see.[b]
There is scarcely a year in which additional information concerning this obscure period does not come to light. A recently deciphered fragment of the Babylonian Chronicle mentions an Assyrian king, Tukulti-Asshur-Bel, contemporaneous with Tukulti-Ninib, but of the relation of the two kings nothing is stated. Professor Winckler in Altorientalische Forschungen, suggests that the former was the latter’s son, and co-regent while he was engaged in ruling and reducing Babylon. Professor Rogers sums up the end of Tukulti-Ninib’s life: “For seven years was this rule over Babylonia maintained. The Babylonians rebelled, drove out the Assyrian conquerors, and set up once more a Babylonian, Adad-shum-usur (about 1268-1239 B.C.), over them. When Tukulti-Ninib returned to Assyria he found even his own people in rebellion under the leadership of his son. In the civil war that followed he lost his life, and the most brilliant reign in Assyrian history up to that time was closed.”
[ca. 1275-1235 B.C.]