IX.

THE SARGONIDES.-SENNACHERIB (SIN-AKI-IRIB).

Sennacherib, 705681 B.C.

1. OF all Assyrian monarchs, Sennacherib is the only one whose name has always been familiar, whose person has always stood out real and lifelike in the midst of all the fantastical fables, miscalled "History of Assyria," which we of an older generation have been taught, like our forefathers and parents before us. For this one glimpse of truth in the midst of so great a mass of errors and lies we are indebted to the Bible, which has preserved for us, in three different books, an account of this king's campaign in Syria, involving the fate of Jerusalem. The later Bible books (Second Kings, Second Chronicles and the Prophets) abound in passages which portray the Assyrians as a nation, with marvellous accuracy and the most picturesque vividness; but this king is the only individual that is brought out so dramatically. And now that the discovery of a great number of cuneiform texts relating to the same period, some of them very long and well preserved,* has put us in possession of so many facts of his reign, with such details, too, as make these texts anything but

* See " Story of Chaldea," ill. No. 51, the so-called "TaylorCylinder."

a dry relation of events, it turns out that the expedition, which has been made as a household story to us by the Bible narrative and Byron's beautiful little poem, is really one of its most prominent episodes; the interest of it, too, is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is the first disastrous campaign that Assyria had to record. For such it may be pronounced, notwithstanding the silence of the royal annals, as we shall presently see.

2. Sennacherib was a son of Sargon. He was not less warlike than his father, yet seems to have spent at home a far larger portion of his reign of twenty-five years. At all events, in the documents unearthed until now, we do not make out more than eight or nine campaigns, and they cover nineteen years of the twenty-five. He had, to occupy him, a task exactly similar to that which Sargon took such delight in: he built palaces, and turned his attention to restoring the long-neglected capital, Nineveh, to more than its ancient splendor, as it was there he permanently resided, and not in Dur-Sharrukin, of which no mention whatever occurs in his reign. Perhaps his father's fate disgusted him with the new residence.

3. The great features of Sennacherib's military career, besides the Syrian expedition, directed more especially against Egypt, are his wars with the united forces of Elam and Babylon. For the sacred city of Marduk was no longer the loyal

"The Destruction of Sennacherib: "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold," etc.

friend and vassal it had been to Sargon, but appears to have been thoroughly won over to the cause of revolt and independence, and in the confusion that followed that king's tragic end, Merodach-Baladan re-appeared on the scene, and, after two years of civil brawls, succeeded in once more proclaiming himself "King of Kar-Dunyash." He built great hopes, as usual, on the support of Elam, but does not seem to have had other allies at the time, except the same Aramæan and Chaldean tribes which, on a former occasion, had proved anything but a tower of strength. (See p. 273.) Yet it is in this time that several historians are inclined to place the "embassy" to Hezekiah of Judah, which others contend to have been sent about ten years before. (See p. 269.) Unless some text turn up to settle the question by positive proof, it must be considered an open one; and we may be well content to leave it so, so long as the fact itself is established beyond a doubt.

4. "In my first campaign," Sennacherib reports, "I inflicted a defeat on Merodach-Baladan, king of Kar-dunyash, and on the army of Elam, his confederate, before the city of Kish. In that battle he abandoned his camp, and fled alone, to save his life. The chariots, horses, luggage vans, asses, which they had forsaken in the confusion of battle, my hands captured. Into his palace at Babylon I entered rejoicing, and opened his treasure-house."

Here follows a list which are added 75 420 smaller towns.

of the booty and captives, to fortified cities of Chaldea and As to the unfortunate "tribes," some submitted, and those who did not were "forthwith subdued." From the enumeration of the

spoils it is clear that they led a pastoral and probably half-nomadic life: "208,000 people, great and small, men and women; 7200 horses and mules; 11,173 asses; 5230 camels; 80,100 oxen; 800,600 sheep-a vast spoil, I carried off to Assyria."

5. Merodach-Baladan had not reigned more than six months; and now he once more sought safety in the only refuge where he could hope to escape Assyrian pursuit-in his own native marshes of Bit-Yakin. Some search was made for him, but it was soon given up, and Sennacherib, whether as a sign of contempt, or in order to fashion an obedient tool to his hand, placed on the throne of Babylon BELIBUS, the son of a learned scribe of that city, a young man, who, he says, "had been brought up in his palace like a little dog" (? miranu).*

It is

rather remarkable that we never hear again of this royal nominee. In the complicated revolutions which soon after ensue he is entirely ignored, and in later inscriptions his appointment is not mentioned. From this silence historians shrewdly conclude that he proved a failure.

This amusing expression is unfortunately still open to some doubt. This is what the eminent American Assyriologist, Dr. D. G. Lyon, says on the subject (in a private letter): "Miranu seems to be some kind of an animal, and the meaning 'little dog' is accepted by several Assyriologists. Still I do not consider it as established that it is the dog." The general meaning of the passage, however, is clear: it somewhat contemptuously intimates that the young Babylonian had been in some way made a pet of, brought up, very likely, among the pages of the royal household. This is about the only instance in Assyrian literature of the quality we call humor-slightly tinged with grimness, indeed; but it were not Assyrian else.