The king himself led the march, and thus showed himself a worthy successor of the undaunted heroes who in earlier centuries had founded the Assyrian power. His chariot had frequently to be carried behind him, and then he mounted on horseback or performed the journey on foot at the head of his troops. Sennacherib succeeded in taking their three strongholds. The smaller places he laid in ashes and the nomads’ tents were burnt. But for greater security he desired to bring the wild tribes under Assyrian rule, and to force them to settle in fixed abodes. He selected Bit-Kilamzakh as a centre, fortified it far more effectually than before, making it a formidable fortress to keep the inhabitants of the country in check, and peopled it with captives whom he had carried off in former warlike expeditions. He caused a tablet inscribed with the history of this campaign to be set up in the capital, in order that the terror of the Assyrian arms might be kept perpetually alive. As soon as he had subdued the Kasshu he marched against Ellipi. Sennacherib fell on the country like a tempest. The two royal seats Marubishti and Accudu, with all the smaller towns, were taken by him and given up to be plundered and burnt, whilst all crops were destroyed and even the cornfields delivered over to the fire. It was with a certain satisfaction that Sennacherib boasted of having transformed Ellipi into a desert, and led away the whole population with its goods and chattels. When these successes became known, a number of Median princes, dwelling at a more remote distance, hastened to offer their submission.
Meantime the king’s attention was directed to events in the west. The elevation of the young and high-spirited Tirhaqa to the throne of Egypt, probably as husband of King Shabak’s widow, and guardian of his son who was a minor, had aroused in some princes of the strips of land along the Mediterranean coast the hope that by an alliance with him they might shake off the Assyrian yoke. To these belonged Elulæus (Luli) king of Tyre and Sidon, Zedekiah, (Zidga) king of Askalon, and above all Hezekiah, the king of Judah. The latter took on himself the leadership, at least in the southwest.
Sennacherib’s third campaign was directed against this coalition, and is probably to be assigned to the year 702 B.C. With its usual promptitude, the Assyrian army marched on Phœnicia, and thus attacked one of the allies before the rest had a chance to unite their forces. Elulæus fled in haste to Cyprus, where Citium still belonged to him; and all his towns on the continent, within a short space of time, fell into the hands of the Assyrian. All the princes of the other petty Phœnician states came that they might offer their submission.
[701 B.C.]
Sennacherib immediately starts along the seacoast for Askalon, southernmost of the revolted states, and soon overpowers it. Zedekiah, the king, suffers the usual fate; with the hereditary gods of his house, his wife, his sons, daughters, brothers, and his whole family he is dragged away to Assyria.
Now that the whole coast-line had submitted, Sennacherib turned to Ekron, which lay farther to the north, but more inland. But in Altaku [Eltekeh], which lay south of Ekron and belonged to it, he encountered some resistance, and was at the same time caught by an Egyptian army, which at last appeared to the rescue of the Philistine towns. According to the Assyrian account it was very numerous and was composed of the troops of the king of Musuri, and of the bowmen, chariots, and horses of the king of Melukhkha. Still, whatever these two names may mean here, it is certain that neither Tirhaqa himself nor any other Egyptian king was leading the army, but that it was merely commanded by Egyptian princes and two generals belonging to the horsemen. These did not show themselves a match for the powerful Assyrian conqueror. In spite of the number of their followers they suffered a total defeat, and it does not say much for their skill and courage that they all, princes and commanders, fell alive into the enemy’s hands. In consequence of this, the relieving army appears to have retraced its march to Egypt, so that nothing now stood in the way of Sennacherib continuing his conquests in Philistia and Canaan. The ruling high priest and the princes who had stirred up the rebellion, he caused to be put to death and their corpses displayed on stakes on the town walls; such of the inhabitants as had made common cause with the rebels were led away captive; the innocent, on the contrary, went free.
Now at last came the turn of Hezekiah. The following is the main outline of what the Assyrians relate concerning the campaign against Judah. When it became apparent that even after the overthrow of his allies, Hezekiah was not inclined to give himself up readily to the mercy of his powerful enemy, the latter marched into his country. Forty strong towns besides the citadels and countless smaller places were beleaguered, taken by storm, razed to the ground or burned, and more than two hundred thousand prisoners, with a great number of horses, asses, and camels were carried away from them. Hezekiah himself, Sennacherib shut up in his capital, Jerusalem (Ursalimmu), like “a bird in its cage.” But the town was in a strong position and provided with a good garrison. Hezekiah had not only assembled his faithful warriors, but had also enlisted a number of Arabian soldiers. When these, however, required pay, and in case of refusal threatened to withdraw, Hezekiah—the Assyrian says from dread of the glory of Asshur—paid the heavy tribute which Sennacherib demanded of him—namely, thirty talents of gold [about £9000 or $45,000] and three hundred talents of silver, besides precious stones, woods, and other articles, and also sent to Nineveh his daughters and the women of the palace, accompanied by male and female slaves together with an envoy, who was at the same time commissioned to proffer his master’s homage.
From this narrative no one who did not know the official style of the Assyrian historical writers would guess that Jerusalem was not taken, and that Sennacherib, with the remainder of his army, was obliged to quit Judah with all possible speed. But it was not their business to report failures of this kind. Doubtless in this account of the course of Sennacherib’s campaign, the main features are correct and also described in the right chronological order. It is certain that, after the overthrow of Phœnicia, the king found it advisable first to reduce the small Philistine states on the seacoast to obedience that he might then attack the Jewish king, who at last, when he had been deprived of everything save his capital, and when his own soldiers were deserting him, saw himself compelled to produce the war-tax demanded. The assertion that he sent it by an envoy to Nineveh cannot possibly be correct, and must have been invented for the purpose of rounding off the narrative without relating the true issue of the affair.
We possess two traditions concerning the close of the war which, though they may differ from one another in other respects, agree in this, that an extraordinary event unexpectedly compelled Sennacherib to return with some precipitation to Assyria. One is the biblical tradition; the other is the account of Herodotus.[b]
The biblical account, as found in 2 Kings, we have already quoted. The account of Herodotus relates to a certain king Sethos, a priest of Vulcan (believed to represent Shabak of the XXVth Dynasty). This king, says Herodotus, treated the military of Egypt with extreme contempt, and as if he had no occasion for their services. Among other indignities he deprived them of their aruræ, or fields of fifty feet square, which, by way of reward, his predecessors had given to each soldier; the result was that, when Sennacherib, king of Arabia and Assyria, attacked Egypt with a mighty army, the warriors whom he had thus treated refused to assist him. In this perplexity the priest retired to the shrine of his god, before which he lamented his danger and misfortunes; here he sunk into a profound sleep, and his deity promised him, in a dream, that if he marched to meet the Assyrians, he should experience no injury, for that he would furnish him with assistance. The vision inspired him with confidence; he put himself at the head of his adherents and marched to Pelusium, the entrance of Egypt: not a soldier accompanied the party, which was entirely composed of tradesmen and artisans. On their arrival at Pelusium, so immense a number of mice infested by night the enemy’s camp that their quivers and bows, together with what secured their shields to their arms, were gnawed in pieces. In the morning the Arabians, finding themselves without arms, fled in confusion, and lost great numbers of their men. There is now to be seen in the temple of Vulcan a marble statue of this king, having a mouse in his hand, and with this inscription, “Whoever thou art, learn, from my fortune, to reverence the gods.”[c]