The kings of Assyria at an early period turned their arms to the North. On the Zibene-su, the eastern source of the Western Tigris, the likeness of Tiglath Pilesar I. (1130–1110 B.C.) has been found engraved on the rocks at Karkar. The inscription tells us that he had overcome the land of Nairi, i.e. in all probability the land of the rivers (Euphrates and Tigris), and that he had defeated the Muskai (p. 512), who had not paid their tribute for fifty years, and had invaded Kumukh (Commagene). More than 200 years later, Tiglath Adar II. (889 to 883 B.C.) caused his image to be hewn in the rocks here beside that of the first Tiglath Pilesar. Tiglath Adar's successor, Assurnasirpal (883–859 B.C.), made repeated campaigns against the Nairi, destroyed 250 of their towns, slew many of their princes, and set up his image beside those of Tiglath Adar and Tiglath Pilesar. In his tenth campaign he took Amida (Diabekr) on the Tigris. Below this city, at Kurkh, there is a second image of this king. His successor also, Shalmanesar II. (859–823 B.C.), fought against the Nairi, set up his image at the source of the Tigris, and in the year 843 defeated the king of Urarti. In the year 831 his troops again defeated a king of Urarti, of another name than the first; in the year 828 B.C. they laid waste the land of king Udaki of Van, and in the following campaign fifty places in Urarti were burnt. Bin Nirar III., king of Asshur (810–781 B.C.), marched twice against the district of Lake Van, and seven times against the Nairi; he boasts that he has taken possession of the land of the Nairi throughout its whole extent.[700] Shalmanesar III. (781–771 B.C.) led his army six times against Urarti. Then Tiglath Pilesar II. (745–727 B.C.), in the year 742, defeated king Sarda, or Sarduri, of Urarti, with his confederates; in the year 728 B.C. removed Vassarmi from Tubal, and placed Chulli on the throne in his stead. In the time of Sargon of Assyria (722–705 B.C.), Aza, the prince of the land of Van, who, like his predecessor Iranzu, was a tributary to Assyria, was murdered. His brother Ullusun, whom Sargon put in his place, combined with Urza, prince of Ararat, and the prince of Mount Mildis against Assyria. Sargon was victorious; Ullusun submitted (716 B.C.); but Urza maintained himself in Ararat, and although Sargon boasts to have burnt fifty of his townships, he combined with Urzana of Musasir, i.e. probably of Arsissa on Lake Van, with Mita, prince of the Moschi, with Ambris, prince of Tubal, the son of Chulli, whom Sargon had allowed to succeed his father on the throne of the Tibarenes, and to whom at the same time he had entrusted the sovereignty over Cilicia, and had given his daughter in marriage.[701] The confederates were defeated; Ambris was carried prisoner to Assyria, a part of his nation were transplanted to Assyria, and Assyrians settled at Tubal in his place. Mita submitted. Arsissa was captured; 20,000 prisoners, their treasures, the gods Haldia (?) and Bagamazda (?), with the holy vessels, were carried away. When Urza perceived this, he took away his own life (714 B.C.).[702] In the seventh century Esarhaddon of Assyria had to fight against the Cilicians, the Tibarenes, and the Mannai; the last name seems to denote the Armenian district of Minyas, on the upper course of the Eastern Euphrates, of which the chief city was Manavazakert; Manavaz, the son of Haik, is said to have built this city.[703] Against the Mannai, or the Minni of Ezekiel, Esarhaddon's successor, Assurbanipal (668–626 B.C.), also directed his weapons. In the course of this war Asheri, the prince of the Minni, was slain by his own dependents, and his son Ualli submitted; the previous tribute of the Minni was raised by thirty horses; and Mugalla, king of Tubal, and Sandasarmi of Cilicia voluntarily submitted to Assurbanipal.[704]
The mountains of Armenia, as these narratives prove, were divided into several principalities. The Assyrians first attacked the land to the south of the high mountain-range, i.e., in the first instance the land of Ararat, the most powerful of these Armenian principalities. On either side of the mountain, in the basin of Lake Van, and in the valley of the Araxes, the Armenians made a vigorous resistance, so that the obedience of the Armenian chieftains never seemed to be secured for any length of time. In spite of this resistance, the civilisation of the Assyrians exercised great influence on the Armenians. This is not merely shown in the adoption of the system of cuneiform writing on the part of the Armenians; Sargon caused the capture of Arsissa to be represented in his palace at Khorsabad. If these reliefs are true representations, the style of architecture and the plan of the Armenian temples were not essentially different from the Assyrian. The altars also, the ornaments, and the weapons appear to be similar.[705] On the other hand it would admit of no doubt that the Armenians, in spite of this influence, retained the worship of their Iranian gods without any foreign admixture, if the name of that Armenian deity Bagamazda, i.e. the great god, were read correctly. That deity would at the same time afford a new proof that the deities of Iran were worshipped in Armenia also. Strabo, as already (p. 512) remarked, gives an account of the worship of Anaitis, the water-giving goddess, the Anahita of the Iranians, among the Armenians; and the name of this goddess is found, in the form "Anaid," in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Armenian princes. Unfortunately these inscriptions, which mainly belong to the land of Van, have not as yet been sufficiently deciphered. The names of the kings, from which they come, are read as Bagridur, Isbuinis, Minuas, Argistis II. and Bagridur II.[706] These kings reigned successively; each calls himself the son of his predecessor. An older Argistis of Ararat is mentioned after the time of Urza in an inscription of Sargon, king of Assyria, belonging apparently to the year 708 B.C. The inscriptions of the kings of Armenia from the first to the second Bagridur are filled with the wars which they carried on, the numbers of the slain, of the captives, the cattle in the spoil, the towns and temples destroyed. As Asshur is mentioned in the inscriptions of Argistis II., and in those of his successor Bagridur II. a war against Babylon is narrated,[707] these two kings must have been contemporaries of the last ruler of Assyria, Assuridilili (626–606 B.C.), and Nebuchadnezzar II. of Babylon (604–568 B.C.), and their three predecessors contemporaries of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Assurbanipal.
The central plain of the table-land of Asia Minor, from the valley of the Halys and the great salt lake to the Cadmus and the Mysian Olympus, north-westwards as far as the coasts of the Propontis, was inhabited by the Phrygians. According to Herodotus the Thracians asserted that the Phrygians had once dwelt in their land under the name of Briges. Hence they had passed through Thrace to Asia, though a part, who still preserved the name of Briges, had remained behind in Thrace. Of those who arrived in Asia, some passed still further to the east; and the Armenians were colonists of the Phrygians.[708] In Strabo also the Phrygians are immigrants, and come from Thrace.[709] In any case the Bithynians, who were settled on the lower course of the Sangarius from the mouth of this stream westward as far as the Bosporus, were of Thracian descent; they are said to have emigrated from the Strymon to Asia.[710] On the other hand, the Phrygians themselves maintained that they were not an offshoot from the Thracian Briges, but the Briges in Thracia had emigrated from them.[711] If the affinity of the Armenians, the Phrygians, and Thracians is established, the Phrygians must be considered in the right. These migrations could not have proceeded from the Strymon, they must rather have taken place from the east to the west, from Armenia to Thrace, and the Thracians rather than the Armenians were the last link in this emigration. As the modern science of language finds Indo-Germanic roots in the slight remains of the Phrygian language which have come down to us,[712] we must assume that the progenitors of the Phrygians and Thracians passed from the Armenian mountains in the east towards