The palaces. Assyrian kings.
All this is tradition, but recent discoveries in cuneiform literature shed light upon it. From these, compared with the fragments of Berosus, a priest of Babylon in the third century before Christ, and the scattered notices of Scripture history, we infer that the dynasty which Belus founded reigned more than five hundred years, from 1272 to 747 before Christ. Of these kings, Sardanapalus, the most famous, added Babylonia to the Assyrian empire, and built vast architectural works. He employed three hundred and sixty thousand men in the construction of this palace, some of whom were employed in making brick, and others in [pg 083] cutting timber on Mount Hermon. It covered an area of eight acres. The palaces of Nineveh were of great splendor, and the scenes portrayed on the walls, as discovered by Mr. Layard, lately disinterred from the mounds of earth, represent the king as of colossal stature, fighting battles, and clothed with symbolic attributes. He appears as a great warrior, leading captives, and storming cities, and also in the chase, piercing the lion, and pursuing the wild ass. This monarch should not be confounded with the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, the last of the preceding dynasty. His son, Shalmanezer, was also a great prince, and added to the dominion of the Assyrian empire. Distant nations paid tribute to him, the Phœnicians, the Syrians, the Jews, and the Medians beyond the Tagros mountains. He defeated Benhadad and routed Hazael. His reign ended, it is supposed, B.C. 850. Two other kings succeeded him, who extended their conquests to the west, the last of whom is identified by Smith with Pul, the reigning monarch when Jonah visited Nineveh, B.C. 770.
The next dynasty commences with Tiglath-Pileser II., who carried on wars against Babylon and Syria and Israel. This was in the time of Ahaz, B.C. 729.
Conquests of Shalmanezer.
His son, Shalmanezer, made Hosea, king of Israel, his vassal, and reduced the country of the ten tribes to a province of his empire, and carried the people away into captivity. Hezekiah was also, for a time, his vassal. He was succeeded by Sargon, B.C. 721, according to Smith, but 715 B.C., according to others. He reigned, as Geseneus thinks, but two or three years; but fifteen according to Rawlinson, and built that splendid palace, the ruins of which, at Khorsabad, have supplied the Louvre with its choicest remains of Assyrian antiquity. He was one of the greatest of the Assyrian conquerors. He invaded Babylon and drove away its kings; he defeated the Philistines, took Ashdod and Tyre, received tribute from the Greeks at Cyprus, invaded even Egypt, whose king paid him tribute, and conquered Media.
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Sennacherib. Culmination of the power of Nineveh.
His son, Sennacherib, who came to the throne, B.C. 702, is an interesting historical personage, and under him the Assyrian empire reached its culminating point. He added to the palace of Nineveh, and built one which exceeded all that had existed before him. No monarch surpassed this one in the magnificence of his buildings. He erected no less than thirty temples, shining with silver and gold. One of the halls of his palace was two hundred and twenty feet long, and one hundred and one wide. He made use of Syrian, Greek, and Phœnician artists. It is from the ruins of this palace at Koyunjik that Mr. Layard made those valuable discoveries which have enriched the British Museum. He subdued Babylonia, Upper Mesopotamia, Syria, Phœnicia, Philistia, Idumaen, and a part of Egypt, which, with Media, a part of Armenia, and the old Assyrian territory, formed his vast empire—by far greater than the Egyptian monarchy at any period. He chastised also the Jews for encouraging a revolt among the Philistines, and carried away captive two hundred thousand people, and only abstained from laying siege to Jerusalem by a present from Hezekiah of three hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold. The destruction of his host, as recorded by Scripture, is thought by some to have occurred in a subsequent invasion of Judea, when it was in alliance with Egypt. That “he returned to Nineveh and dwelt there” is asserted by Scripture, but only to be assassinated by his sons, B.C. 680.
His son Esar-Haddon succeeded him, a warlike monarch, who fought the Egyptians, and colonized Samaria with Babylonian settlers. He also built the palace of Nimrod, and cultivated art.
Assyrian civilisation.
The civilization of the Assyrians shows a laborious and patient people. Its chief glory was in architecture. Sculpture was imitated from nature, but had neither the grace nor the ideality of the Greeks. War was the grand business of kings, and hunting their pleasure. The people were ground down by the double tyranny of [pg 085] kings and priests. There is little of interest in the Assyrian annals, and what little we know of their life and manners is chiefly drawn by inductions from the monuments excavated by Botta and Layard. The learned treatise of Rawlinson sheds a light on the annals of the monarchy, which, before the discoveries of Layard, were exceedingly obscure, and this treatise has been most judiciously abridged, by Smith, whom I have followed. It would be interesting to consider the mythology of the Assyrians, but it is too complicated for a work like this.
Decline of the monarchy.
Under his successors, the empire rapidly declined. Though it nominally included the whole of Western Asia, from the Mediterranean to the desert of Iran, and from the Caspian Sea and the mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf, it was wanting in unity. It embraced various kingdoms, and cities, and tribes, which simply paid tribute, limited by the power of the king to enforce it. The Assyrian armies, which committed so great devastations, did not occupy the country they chastised, as the Romans and Greeks did. Their conquests were like those of Tamerlane. As the monarchs became effeminated, new powers sprung up, especially Media, which ultimately completed the ruin of Assyria, under Cyaxares. The last of the monarchs was probably the Sardanapalus of the Greeks.
Destruction of Nineveh. Its remains.
The decline of this great monarchy was so rapid and complete, that even Nineveh, the capital city, was blotted out of existence. No traces of it remained in the time of Herodotus, and it is only from recent excavations that its site is known. Still, it must have been a great city. The eastern wall of it, as it now appears from the excavations, is fifteen thousand nine hundred feet (about three miles); but the city probably included vast suburbs, with fortified towers, so as to have been equal to four hundred and eighty stadias in circumference, or sixty miles—the three days' journey of Jonah. It is supposed, with the suburbs, to have contained five hundred thousand [pg 086] people. The palaces of the great were large and magnificent; but the dwellings of the people were mean, built of brick dried in the sun. The palaces consisted of a large number of chambers around a central hall, open to the sky, since no pillars are found necessary to support a roof. No traces of windows are found in the walls, which were lined with slabs of coarse marble, with cuneiform inscriptions. The façade of the palaces we know little about, except that the entrances to them were lined by groups of colossal bulls. These are sculptured with considerable spirit, but art, in the sense that the Greeks understood it, did not exist. In the ordinary appliances of life the Assyrians were probably on a par with the Egyptians; but they were debased by savage passions and degrading superstitions. They have left nothing for subsequent ages to use. Nothing which has contributed to civilization remains of their existence. They have furnished no models of literature, art, or government.
Growth of Babylon.
While Nineveh was rising to greatness, Babylon was under an eclipse, and thus lasted six hundred and fifty years. It was in the year 1273 that this eclipse began. But a great change took place in the era of Narbonassar, B.C. 747, when Babylon threatened to secure its independence, and which subsequently compelled Esar-Haddon, the Assyrian monarch, to assume, in his own person, the government of Babylon, B.C. 680.
The Chaldean monarchy.
In 625 B.C. the old Chaldeans recovered their political importance, probably by an alliance with the Medes, and Nabopolassar obtained undisputed possession of Babylon, and founded a short but brilliant dynasty. He obtained a share of the captives of Nineveh, and increased the population of his capital. His son, Nebuchadnezzar, was sent as general against the Egyptians, and defeated their king, Neko, reconquered all the lands bordering on Egypt,