[696-692 B.C.]
While the Assyrian king was engaged in the seacoast war, Khallus, the king of Elam, instigated by the Babylonians who had left the town in good time with Merodach-baladan and had sought refuge with him, invaded Accad with his army, penetrated as far as Sippar, where he instituted a massacre, and brought Asshur-nadin-shum prisoner to Elam. On the Babylonian throne he set up a Babylonian, Suzub, son of Gakhul. It is a characteristic trait that the Assyrian account is silent as to the unhappy fate which overtook Sennacherib’s oldest son. Suzub, on his accession to the throne, took the name of Negal-ushezib. He is the Regebelos of the Ptolemaic Canon, and must be carefully distinguished from the Chaldean Suzub who did not reign over Babylon till a later date (692) and under another name.
But the new king was lord over only part of the country. The whole South was still in the hands of the Assyrians and had to be conquered by him.
About June, 694 or 693, he succeeded in getting possession of Nippur, but his farther advance was checked by the tidings that the Assyrians had meantime marched as far as Erech. Sennacherib immediately despatched a large force against the king of Elam, whom he rightly regarded as the chief author of all the trouble. Erech fell and was sacked, and, laden with rich booty, including even the chief gods of the sacred city, the Assyrians marched forward. At Nippur, Nergal-ushezib awaited them, and in the battle which followed he remained victor. But his rule was of short duration. As to the end of his reign the Babylonian and Assyrian records are agreed. The former asserts that, after the Assyrians had carried away the gods and inhabitants of Erech, Nergal-ushezib was taken prisoner in the battle at Nippur and conducted to Assyria. According to the second, he was thrown from his horse in the battle, taken prisoner and brought in chains before Sennacherib, who then shut him up in prison at the gate of Nineveh. The two accounts seem to make the story complete.
After the misfortune that had overtaken their king, the Babylonians bestowed the crown on Suzub the Chaldean, who had also fled to Elam. He reigned independently for four years, under the name of Mushezib-Marduk. The Assyrians consequently content themselves with mentioning several advantages won by them over the Elamites, and also relating that they took Suzub prisoner on their march from Erech to Asshur. They themselves practically acknowledged that Babylon did not fall into their hands, when they inform us that, after Suzub’s capture, the Babylonians closed their city gates against the Assyrians and offered an obstinate resistance.
So far as we may judge, the whole of this campaign of Sennacherib’s was a political blunder, which does not speak well for his sagacity. There was in fact nothing to be feared from Merodach-baladan; the real peril, which threatened from Elam, escaped the Assyrian king. The maritime expedition undertaken at so much labour and expense, was more adventurous than glorious, and failed in its main object: the arch enemy, at whom it was aimed, retained his liberty and his kingdom. And meantime Babylon was left without protection, and Sennacherib’s own son was bereft of throne and freedom. He had not even provided himself with sufficient forces to avenge the descent of the Elamites and reconquer the lost territory. The sole fruit of the campaign (exclusive of booty and prisoners) was the carrying away of a Babylonian king, whose place was at once taken by another prince, not less hostile. A poor compensation for the loss of the capital, the whole territory belonging to it and of his own son! Under Sennacherib’s government it was continually apparent that only under compulsion had the Babylonians submitted to the yoke of the Assyrians, and that they preferred to unite with Elam rather than again obey a Sargonid.
[692-689 B.C.]
In Elam, meantime, a rising took place against Khallus, possibly because he had been unsuccessful in his war against Assyria. [He was killed in the uprising.] Kudur-nankhundi became king in his stead. Sennacherib thought this a favourable opportunity to attack his old enemies, the Elamites. It was in 692, probably, that he took advantage of Elam’s disordered condition to inflict a heavy punishment on that country. From Rasa to Bit-Burnaki he ravaged and plundered to his heart’s content. He introduced Assyrian garrisons and placed the territory under the care of a governor. Besides this, he took thirty-five fortified towns. Such was the devastation “that the smoke of the flames covered the face of the wide heaven like a heavy storm,” and so great was the terror he spread that Kudur-nankhundi left his residence at Madaktu in all haste, and fled to a town called Khaidala, which lay far up in the mountains. But nature saved him from the hands of the Assyrians. Sennacherib did indeed give orders to march to Madaktu, but he could not carry his intention into effect. It was winter, and in (Tebet) December an earthquake, coupled with storms of rain and snow, compelled him to retreat. The mountain streams were so swollen that no army could now cross them with safety. Only three months afterwards Kudur-nankhundi died “suddenly, before his time,” and his own brother Umman-minanu mounted the throne. Scarcely had Umman-minanu assumed the sceptre of Elam than he allowed himself to be beguiled into an alliance with Babylon against Asshur. At Babylon now reigned Suzub II, the Chaldean, Mushezib-Marduk. After his flight from Sennacherib, in the year 700 or 699, he had returned to Babylon, where, after the misfortunes that overtook his namesake, he was made king, no doubt to the great chagrin of the Assyrians. When he sent gold and silver from the treasury of E-sagila, the great temple of Marduk and Zarpanit, to the Elamite king, he found the latter prepared to collect an army at once and march with it to Babylon for a joint attack upon Asshur. Sennacherib was astounded that the lesson he had imparted to Elam in the previous year had borne no better fruit. But the Chaldeans and Elamites had good ground to hope for success. The Assyrian’s latest victories had not been rich in lasting results. He had not succeeded in conquering Babylon. He had been obliged to retreat hastily from Elam. He had not been able to defend Chaldea. Moreover, the kings of Babylon and Elam could now count on a number of allies. The number of the enemy impressed the Assyrians, who likened them to a swarm of locusts. “Like a violent gale which drives the rain-clouds across the firmament, so rose the cloud of dust at their approach.” But calling on the gods, his heavenly protectors, Sennacherib ventures an attack.
It was a fierce battle; both sides fought with the greatest fury. Sennacherib, himself, was distinguished by his personal courage. With helm and mail, spear and bow, Asshur’s sacred bow, which none but the kings of Assyria carried, he stands in his war chariot like an angry lion, and like a heavy storm from Adad, the god of tempests, he rushes on the enemy, covering the plain with corpses as with grass. His horses wallow in blood; blood and fragments of the slain cleave to the pole of his war chariot. A choice troop of Elamite nobles, equipped with golden daggers and bracelets, are slaughtered like sheep, and the Elamite commander and grand vizier, Khumbanundash, a man of great ability, also falls. Others are taken prisoners. Yet the kings of Elam and Babylon and the Chaldean chiefs got away, according to the Assyrian writer, who delights in depicting their sufferings in a very imaginative fashion, with a loss of tents and baggage and of one hundred and fifty thousand dead left on the battle-field. They were pursued for a distance of some miles, but their capture was not effected. There is something loathsome in the lively colours in which the scene is painted; the pitiless slaughter and horrible mutilation of the slain are described with bloodthirsty complacency. The writer of the Assyrian tablet knew well that his savage, revengeful master based his renown on such inhuman acts. And yet it was no victory for the Assyrians. They may have remained in possession of the field, but the murderous battle was so undecisive that the Elamites and Babylonians could claim the victory as well. The losses on both sides must have been so great that neither of the two parties ventured to continue the war. Both sides assumed the attitude of waiting for a more favourable opportunity. The prevalent idea that after the battle of Khalule Sennacherib immediately conquered Babylon is decidedly false and is contradicted by the true reading of both Assyrian and Babylonian records.
Not till the year 690 or 689 did Sennacherib find a favourable opportunity to risk another attack on Babylon. From Elam there was now nothing more to fear. The power of Umman-minanu was much weakened and he was soon to lose it altogether. The Assyrian king marched on Babylon with the impetuousity which distinguished all his warlike expeditions, and was at times disadvantageous to him; and on this occasion his effort was crowned with the desired success. Now he directed his arms against Mushezib-Marduk’s town, not as his predecessors, including his own father, had done, as a rescuer bringing deliverance from a usurper and therefore striking at the latter and his dependents, and sparing the inhabitants: upon the town which had so long withstood him, so repeatedly and obstinately lifted its head against him, a fearful vengeance was to be taken. It was literally wiped out; nothing was spared; corpses lay piled up in the streets; all its treasures were pillaged and divided amongst the soldiers; the temples were desecrated, and the gods torn from their sanctuaries. Then the whole town was delivered up to the flames; the walls and ramparts, the temples and the ziggurat, (probably the two towers of Babylon and Borsippa), were thrown down and hurled into the Arakhtu or other canals, and the water from the river and the canals was turned on the ruins that they might be flooded. The very place where the sacred town had stood became unrecognisable and was changed into a marsh. Mushezib-Marduk escaped and sought refuge in Elam, but Umman-minanu, fearing Assyrian vengeance, surrendered his ally, and the latter and his family were brought prisoners to Nineveh.