It seems that Asshurbanapal could scarcely believe the news which he received. Instead of hurrying to the spot to avert the danger, as had been the custom of his warlike father, he sent a messenger to inquire into the state of affairs and to report to him upon it. The latter returned with the tidings that the Elamites had poured themselves over Accad like a swarm of locusts, and had even set up a fortified camp in sight of the city of Babylon. He now hastily collected an army which drove the invaders from Accad, and even inflicted a defeat on them on the frontier. It is with a certain unction that the Assyrian scribe recounts the melancholy fate which soon after overtook all these enemies of his king. In the year which followed these events they all died: Bel-basha, as it seems, from a poisonous bite; Nabu-shum-eresh in a flood; Urtaki and his generals, in their despair, by their own hands in each other’s presence. Whether the narrator learned this on good authority or had only heard it from rumour, can scarcely be determined; but that in reality they all died soon after is certain; for in the subsequent war with Elam, sons or successors are found in their places.
The crown of Elam fell to Teumman, brother of the two previous kings, who was “like a devil,” says our Assyrian informant. That he was a tyrant who would shrink from no means of preserving his power, was also the conviction of the relatives of Ummanaldash and Urtaki, the last two kings of Elam. The one had left two sons, Kudurru and Paru, the other three, Ummanigash, Ummanappa, and Tammaritu. Well aware that their uncle was determined to remove them from his path, with all that belonged to them, in order to secure the succession to his own son, they abandoned their country with a great following, among which were included sixty members of the royal family and a bodyguard of bowmen, and sought shelter and protection with Asshurbanapal.
Naturally Teumman could not let this pass unnoticed. He therefore hastened to despatch two ambassadors to Nineveh, Umbadara, an Elamite, and a Chaldean, Nabu-dammik, and to demand through them the surrender of the fugitives. But Asshurbanapal, encouraged by favourable omens, dreams of his seers, and oracles of the gods; in other words, incited by his priesthood to whose guidance he always submitted in pious zeal, steadfastly refused to comply with Teumman’s demand and assembled an army. In the month of Ulul it was ready to march. He did not himself take the field, for in fact his army, led by one of his generals, had merely to support the Elamite force of Ummanigash, his brothers and cousins. Ummanigash himself was generalissimo, if only in name. The Assyrian general was empowered to set Ummanigash on the throne of Elam in the name of the Assyrian supreme king, after the conquest of the country.
Teumman was also in the field with an army. But when he learned that the troops of his rival and of the Assyrians had already marched into the towns of Dur-ilu, which lay not far from the frontier of his country, and several times therefore had been the scene of a struggle between the two powers, he turned back, abandoning the western provinces of his kingdom, and entrenched himself in his capital, Shushan [Susa], which lay on the eastern bank of the river Ulai [modern Karun]. Meanwhile the allied Assyrians and Elamites entered the royal city of Mataktu, which lay to the west of that river, and there Ummanigash is crowned king. Teumman, indeed, makes one more effort; owing to the damage which the text had undergone it is not exactly shown of what kind, but from the context it is plain that he sent out an army in vain to hinder the advance of his enemies. The latter, once more encouraged by a dream, cross the river after Teumman’s troops have suffered a defeat at Tul-Liz, and now attack Shushan itself. There the decisive battle takes place. It ends with the complete defeat of the Elamites: a great massacre begins, the river is filled with corpses, and innumerable women wander about the neighbourhood lamenting. Many distinguished and a large number of lesser prisoners fall into the hands of the Assyrians. All seek safety in flight. One of Teumman’s sons, who had advised him against the war and had foretold the issue, rends his clothes in his despair. The eldest son, Tammaritu, follows his father in his flight to the forest, and when the king’s chariot breaks down there, they are overtaken and both slain. The king’s head is sent as a trophy to Assyria, where it was set up on the great gate of Nineveh, an eloquent witness to the nation of the might of Asshur and Ishtar. His son-in-law, Urtaki, himself begged an Assyrian to cut off his head and send it as good tidings to Asshurbanapal. Yet others of the great men of the kingdom come of their own accord and make their submission. The chief magistrates of the province of Khidali behead their own prince, Ishtarnandi, and one of them himself brings his master’s severed head into the Assyrian camp. Tammaritu, the third brother of Ummanigash, entrusts the government of this principality to the Assyrian generals, and Ummanigash himself now makes his entry into Shushan, and is there crowned as a vassal of Assyria. As pledge of his loyalty he delivers a grandson of Marduk-bal-iddin, better known by the Hebrew appellation Merodach-baladan, probably the author of the whole resistance to the Assyrian king, to the latter’s representatives.
But the war was not ended with the punishment of Elam. Dunanu, the son of Bel-basha, prince of Gambul, was now to be taught what it was to side with the enemy. The army, on its return from Elam, breaks into his territory, conquers the capital Shapi-Bel, carries away from it all who have not fallen by the sword, lays the whole place waste, and flings the ruins into the waters of the stream which flows around it; whereupon a motley crew of human beings are raked together and brought there to re-people the desolate country.
It was a grim revenge that was taken on all enemies, even when they were already dead, on their corpses. At the triumphal entry of the army into Nineveh, Dunanu was compelled to carry the head of his ally, Teumman, round his neck. When Teumman’s ambassadors, who had remained in Nineveh, saw this, one of them tore out his beard in his despair, and the other plunged a dagger into his own heart. Dunanu was placed on the rack in Arbela and died in tortures. All his brothers, including Samgunu, as well as Merodach-baladan’s grandson and his brothers, were also put to death; the chiefs of the Gambuli were even flayed, after they had had their tongues torn out as blasphemers of the high gods, after which all corpses were cut in pieces, and were then sent all over the empire, in token of the overlordship of Assyria. With a refinement of cruelty Asshurbanapal even caused the corpse of his old opponent, the Tigenna Nabu-shum-eresh, which he had had brought to Assyria from Gambul for the purpose, to be disfigured in the great gate of Nineveh by the latter’s own sons. Even before all this was brought to a conclusion, Sarduris III of Urartu, perhaps because he was already threatened by the Iranian enemies, who were soon to put an end to the Kingdom of Van, and was anxious to obtain the help of his powerful neighbour, despatched an ambassador to the latter. Asshurbanapal did not omit to make use of the occasion to bring Teumman’s ambassadors before the newcomers, in order to inspire the former with a consciousness of his greatness, and to give the latter a warning example in case their sovereign also should prove unfaithful.
Thus the greatest danger that had hitherto threatened the empire seemed permanently averted, and if ever a pitiless revenge was qualified to deprive the conquered nations of the desire to fight for their independence, this must certainly have been the case after such a sanguinary judgment. But it was soon to be manifested that it had availed nothing. Assyria had only succeeded in making herself more detested than before, and had only stirred up princes and peoples alike to resist everything rather than any longer endure the yoke of the hangman of Asia.
THE BROTHERS’ WAR (652-648 B.C.)
About the year 652 a formidable war broke out against Assyria. It had, perhaps, long been secretly preparing before Asshurbanapal had any suspicion of the danger which threatened him. He believed that his conciliatory policy had secured the permanent attachment of the Babylonians. He had invested his brother, Shamash-shum-ukin, with the royal dignity, raised him to be lord of all Sumer and Accad, and had placed an army of foot-soldiers, horses, and chariots at his disposal. Those of the inhabitants of towns, plains, and farms who had left the country during the period of anarchy, or had been carried off, he had permitted to return. As for the Babylonians who had settled in Assyria, he did not merely place them on a level with his own immediate subjects, but treated them with especial distinction, continued the privileges which Esarhaddon had granted them, and raised them to important offices, and they even moved about his royal court unmolested, clad in magnificent garments with golden ornaments. They still continued to protest their submission to the Assyrian domination, yet all the time they were conspiring with Shamash-shum-ukin against the king.
