For a time Egypt enjoyed peace under Neku’s sway and Assyria’s lordship. But after the death of Tirhaqa, Tamut-Amen, too, began to think of a reconquest of Egypt. He set out with his army, and like the former Ethiopian king, is hailed with delight in Elephantine and Thebes as a deliverer; then after he has fortified the southern capital, he continues his march to Memphis, where he first encounters resistance. But the rebels, as the king calls them—these were of course the Assyrian garrison with the troops of Neku who ruled over Memphis and Saïs—were so thoroughly beaten in a desperate sally, that they evacuated Memphis and retired to the strongholds of the Delta. Some princes headed by that Pa-Kerer (Pakruru) of Pisept, who had always borne the Assyrian yoke with reluctance, came to offer their submission, which was graciously accepted. This was the last time that an Assyrian army undertook a campaign against Egypt.
While Asshurbanapal had restored his supremacy in Egypt for a certain time, for the present at least, it was unshaken in the northern provinces of the West. The most important event mentioned by the Assyrian record of these days (evidently about 664) is the accession of Lydia. Asshurbanapal relates that the Lydian king, prompted by a dream which revealed to him the magnanimity of Asshur, sent his ambassadors to Nineveh to request the alliance and protection of the great ruler. For the deity had said to him that by the renown of this name he should overcome his enemies. He did in fact succeed in doing so. The Cimmerians were beaten by him. It may be assumed, though it is not stated, that Gyges received other help from the Assyrians besides the recognition as their ally. However that may be, he conquered, and, on the successful termination of the war, sent two Cimmerian rebels with a great present to Nineveh. There they were no little flattered at this homage, but also no little embarrassed to make themselves understood by the newcomers, or to understand them; for even at a court where, as the Assyrian writer says, the languages of East and West were met together, there was no one acquainted with the speech of these barbarians.
Probably for the same reason as Gyges, Mukallu of Tabal, his eastern neighbour, and Yakinlu of Arvad, with perhaps also Sandasharme, of Cilicia, placed themselves under the protecting wing of Assyria. Knowing the tastes of the great ruler of nations, each of them sent him a daughter for his harem, with a rich present, and it appears that this was the custom. Some even, that they might exhibit the more zeal, sent him, besides their own daughters, those of their brothers and other relatives.
In the east, too, Asshurbanapal manifested the still unbroken superiority of his arms. There, shortly after or at the same time as the Egyptian campaigns, he had already chastised a mountain people whose raids had greatly distressed the inhabitants of Yamudbal [E-mutbal], on the borders of Elam, so that the chiefs of the town of Dur-ilu had made complaints concerning them. He had sent a force which subdued the tribe, brought the chieftain Tandai alive to Assyria and carried off a great number of captives. The king had them taken to Egypt and in their place peopled the wasted country with prisoners of war from other regions.
[664 B.C.]
Of far greater importance was the campaign against Man. The cause is not stated, but may well have been that the king of Man, Akhsheri, declared himself independent, or had shown an evident disposition to attack Assyria. If this were so, he had been over-hasty in his proceedings. However little of the warrior there may have been in Asshurbanapal’s nature, the Assyrian army, in the early periods of his reign at least, was yet too fearless and its commanders too valiant for any man to be able to defy the powerful monarchy. Akhsheri attempted a night surprise of the troops sent against him, before they had even crossed his frontiers; but in this he was not successful. The Manneans were defeated in a bloody battle, and for a distance of six leagues round their dead covered the battle-field. Nothing retarded the victorious army from entering Man, where it laid waste eight great towns whose position is unknown to us, as well as a crowd of small places, and so reached the domain of the capital, Izirtu. It was surrounded, together with the towns of Urbija and Armijate, and after the inhabitants, driven to the last extremity, had surrendered, they were led away and their whole territory conquered and laid waste.
But the object was attained. The frightful misery of the war which had visited that unhappy country had embittered the population against the man to whom they ascribed its guilt, namely, their old king, Akhsheri. In any case, he had shown his incapacity to defend his country. With all his brothers and his father and family, he was put to death, and so great was the nation’s fury that they would not even concede him an honourable tomb, but threw the corpse on to the streets of his city. His son Ualli, himself already a middle-aged man, was raised to the throne, and he hastened to acknowledge Assyria’s supreme authority. He sent his young son to Nineveh, to kiss the monarch’s feet, and did not neglect to send his daughter also, to add to Asshurbanapal’s crowd of women. His submission was of course accepted, but his annual tribute was raised by some thirty horses. Other attempts at rebellion in the northeast were soon suppressed.
[ca. 664-648 B.C.]
But whilst these disturbances in the northeast were suppressed without much difficulty, in the southeast signs soon appeared which gave warning of that great storm which in a few years was to be raised there and to threaten the empire with destruction. The throne of Elam was still occupied by Urtaki, who had always preserved a friendship with Esarhaddon, and had received from him repeated tokens of good will. Asshurbanapal had followed up this policy of his father and treated Urtaki as an ally, and when Elam was suffering from a severe famine after a prolonged drought he had not even refrained from extending a helping hand. He sent grain into the afflicted country, and not only permitted those of Urtaki’s subjects who fled to his country to settle there, but also allowed them to return to their native land, unhindered, when the rains had again appeared and a sufficient harvest secured. If in this he was prompted by motives of policy it was at least an intelligent and peaceable one. In a proclamation to the Elamite tribe of the Rash, and the tribes of the Sea Lands, he could appeal with truth to these tokens of neighbourliness. But they did not prevent Urtaki from taking arms against him and invading Babylonia.