Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/203

] greater consolidation. The conquered provinces were no longer loosely attached to the central power by the payment of tribute, and ready to refuse it as soon as the Assyrian armies were out of sight ; they were changed into satrapies, each with its fixed taxes and military contingent. Assyrian viceroys were nominated wherever possible, and a turbu lent population was deported to some distant locality. This will explain the condition in which Babylonia found itself, as well as the special attention which was paid to the countries on the Mediterranean coast. The possession of the barbarous and half-deserted districts on the east was of little profit ; the inhabitants were hardy mountaineers, difficult to subdue, and without wealth; and although Tiglath-Pileser penetrated into Sagartia, Ariana, and Aracosia, and even to the confines of India, the expedition was little more than a display of power. The rich and civilised regions of the west, on the contrary, offered attractions which the politicians of Nineveh were keen to discover. Tiglath-Pileser overthrew the ancient kingdoms of Damascus and Hamath, with its nineteen districts, and after receiving tribute from Menahem (which a false read ing in the Old Testament ascribes to a non-existent Pul) in 740, placed his vassal Hoshea on the throne of Samaria in 730 in the room of Pekah. Hamath had been aided by Uzziah of Judah ; and, on the overthrow of the Syrian city, Judah had to become the tributary of Assyria. Tiglath-Pileser seems to have met with a usurper s fate, and to have fallen in a struggle with another claimant of the throne, Shalmaneser. The chief event of Shalmaneser s reign (727-722) was the campaign against Samaria. The capture of that city, however, was reserved for his successor, Sargon, in 720, who succeeded in founding a new dynasty. Sargon s reign of seventeen years forms an era in later Assyrian history. At the very commencement of it he met and defeated the forces of Elam, and so prepared the way for the future conquest of that once predominant monarchy. He came into conflict, also, with the kingdoms of Ararat and Van in the north ; and the policy of the countries beyond the Zagros was henceforth influenced by the wishes of the Assyrian court. But it was in the west that the power of Nineveh was chiefly felt. Syria and Palestine were reduced to a condition of vassalage, Hamath was depopulated, and Egypt, then governed by Ethiopian princes, first came into collision with Assyria. The battle of Raphia in 719, in which the Egyptians and their Philis tine allies were defeated, was an omen of the future ; and from this time onward the destinies of civilised Asia were fought out between the two great powers of the ancient world. As the one rose the other fell ; and just as the climax of Assyrian glory is marked by the complete sub jugation of Egypt, so the revolt of Egypt was the first signal of the decline of Assyria. The struggle between the representative states of the East led, as was natural, to the appearance of the Greek upon the stage of history. Sargon claims the conquest of Cyprus as well as Phoenicia, and his effigy, found at Idalium, remains to this day a witness of the fact. Babylonia, however, was the point of weakness in the empire. It was too like, and yet too unlike, Assyria to be otherwise than a dangerous dependency ; and its inhabitants could never forget that they had once been the dominant nation. New blood had been infused into them by the arrival of the Caldai, whose leader, Merodach- Baladan, the son of Yacin, called Mardokempados in Ptolemy s canon, had taken advantage of the troubles which closed the life of Tiglath-Pileser to possess himself of Babylonia ; and for twelve years he continued master of the country, until in 710 Sargon drove him from the pro vince, and crowned himself king of Babylon. Merodach- Baladan had foreseen the attack, and endeavoured to meet it by forming alliances with Egypt and the principalities 187 of Palestine. The confederacy, however, was broken up in a single campaign by the Assyrian monarch ; Juclea was overrun, and Ashdod razed to the ground. Sargon, who now styled himself king of Assyria and Babylon, of Sumir and Accad, like Tiglath-Pileser before him, spent the latter part of his reign in internal reforms and extensive building. A new town, called after his name, was founded to the north of Nineveh (at the modern Kouyunjik), and a mag nificent palace was erected there. The library of Calah was restored and enlarged, in imitation of his semi-mythical namesake of Agane, whose astrological works were re-edited, while special attention was given to legislation. In the midst of these labours Sargon was murdered, and his son, Sennacherib, ascended the throne on the 12th of Ab 705 B.C. Sennacherib is a typical representative of the great warriors and builders of the second Assyrian empire, and is familiar to the readers of the Old Testament from his invasion of Judah, which the native monuments assign to the year 701. The check he received at Eltakeh, where he was met by the forces of Egypt and Ethiopia, saved the Jewish king, not, however, before his towns had been ravaged, a heavy tribute laid upon the capital, and his allies in Ascalon arid Ekron severely punished. At the commencement of this campaign Sennacherib had reduced Tyre and Sidon, and the overthrow of these centres of commerce caused a transfer of trade to Carchemish. Baby lonia had shaken off the yoke of Assyria at the death of Sargon under Merodach-Baladan, who had escaped from his captivity at Nineveh, but was soon reduced to obedience again, and placed under the government of the Assyrian viceroy Belibua. In 700, however, the year after the Judsean war, Babylon rebelled once more under the in domitable Merodach-Baladan, and Suzub, another Chaldean. Sennacherib was occupied with a naval war the first ever engaged in by the Assyrians against a body of Chaldeans who had taken refuge in Susiana, and the revolt ia his rear was stirred up by the Susianian king. But the insur gents were totally defeated; Assur-nadin-sum, Sennacherib s eldest son, was appointed viceroy of the southern kingdom; and the Assyrian monarch felt himself strong enough to carry the war into the heart of Elam, wasting the country with fire and sword. A last attempt, made by the Susiauians and the Chaldeans of Babylonia, to oppose the power of Assyria was shattered in the hardly-contested battle of Khaluli. The interregnum, however, which marks the last eight years of Sennacherib s rule in Ptolemy s canon, shows that Chaldea still continued to give trouble and resist the Assyrian yoke. Meanwhile Sennacherib had been constructing canals and aqueducts, embanking the Tigris, and building himself a palace at Nineveh on a grander scale than had ever been attempted before. His works were interrupted by his murder, in 681, by his two sons, who, however, soon found themselves confronted by the veteran army of Essar-haddon, their father s younger and favourite son. Essar-haddon had been engaged in Armenia ; but in January 680 he defeated them at Khanirabbat, and was proclaimed king. Soon afterwards he established his court at Babylon, where he governed in person during the whole of his reign. After settling the affairs of Chaldea his first campaign was directed against Syria, where Sidon was destroyed and its inhabitants removed to Assyria, an event which exercised a profound influence upon Asiatic trade. The most re markable expedition of his reign was into the heart of Arabia, to the kingdoms of Huz and Buz, 980 miles dis tant from Nineveh, 280 miles of the march being through arid desert. The Assyrian army accomplished a feat never since exceeded. In the north, also, it penetrated equally far, subjugating the tribes of the Caucasus, receiving the submission of Teispes the Cimmerian, and taking posses- 