CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



and Buzzur-Asshur made treaties of peace with 

 Babylonian contemporary monarchs ; and the third, 

 Asshur-vatila, had not only married one of his 

 daughters to the Chaldaean king Purna-puriyas, 

 bat, on the death of that monarch, had even inter- 

 fered with the domestic affairs of the parent 

 country so far as to put down a usurper who tried 

 to seize the throne, and restore to power the right- 

 ful heir. From his time, then, we may safely 

 regard Assyria as an independent and pretty 

 powerful state. Then a long dark break in the 

 historical record occurs, regarding which nothing 

 is known. A genealogical tablet gives us just a 

 glimpse of the name of the next king Bel-sumili- 

 Icapi who reigned about 1450 B.C. and probably 

 was founder of a new dynasty. Contemporary 

 Assyrian record now aids us, and we come to a 

 group of six kings, forming a line of direct descent 

 from father to son between 1350 and 1230 B.C. 

 The first is Bel-lush (1350-1330 B.C.); Pud-il (1330- 

 1310 B.C.), and Iva-lush I. (1310-1290 B.C.), who 

 come next, must have extended the city of Asshur 

 greatly, for quantities of bricks bearing their names 

 .and titles have been recently found. The dates 

 we give, it must be remembered, are only approxi- 

 mately true, and are based on calculations from 

 well-ascertained fixed points ; the average duration 

 of an Assyrian king's reign being taken at twenty 

 years. Iva-lush I. was succeeded by his son, 

 Shalmaneser I. (1290-1270 B.C.). He founded 

 Calah (Nimrud), long capital of the Assyrian 

 empire, and pushed his frontier northwards, so 

 as to secure possession of the region between the 

 Tigris and the mountain's, which afterwards 

 became the metropolitan centre of Assyria. He 

 seems to have been the first of the Assyrian con- 

 quering kings. Tiglathi-nin, his son (1270-1250 

 B.C.), may be reckoned as the first of the mon- 

 archs of what Herodotus understood as the great 

 Assyrian empire. Inheriting the spirit of his 

 father, he inaugurated the aggressively hostile 

 policy towards Babylonia to which all his succes- 

 sors rigidly adhered. An inscription on his signet 

 claims for him the titles of ' King of Assyria, and 

 conqueror of Kar-Dunis,' or Babylonia which 

 may have remained thoroughly subject to Assyria 

 for about a century after he attacked it. He was 

 succeeded by his son, Iva-lush II. (1250-1230 B.C.), 

 who still further extended by conquest his do- 

 minion. 



A break of twenty or thirty years here occurs in 

 the record, and then there appears another dynasty, 

 consisting of six kings in consecutive series from 

 father to son their names being found inscribed 

 on the cylinder of Tilgath-pileser I. (1130-1110 

 B.C.). The_ first of this dynasty was Nin-pala-zira 

 (1210-1190 B.C.). His son, Asshur-dah-il (1190- 

 1 170 B.C.), was the second. He was succeeded by 

 his son, Mutaggil-Nebo (1170-1150 B.C.), who was 

 succeeded by Asshur-ris-ilim (1150-1130 B.c), a 

 warlike and aggressive monarch, who waged war 

 not only with Babylon under the first Nebuchad- 

 nezzar, but is conjectured to have been the king 

 -of Mesopotamia mentioned in Judges iii. 8, by 

 the name of Chusan-ris-athaim, who kept the 

 Israelites in subjection for eight years. His 

 son, Tilgath-pileser I. (1130-1110 B.C.), succeeded 

 trim, and of his reign there is a pretty full 

 .account, chiefly recorded on two duplicate cylin- 

 ders now in the British Museum. He was a rest- 

 less warrior, who subdued nearly all the tribes 

 76 



around him. He was as deeply imbued with a 

 fanatical zeal for spreading the worship of Asshur, 

 as for increasing the territory of Assyria, and his 

 wars were to a great extent missionary wars. He 

 greatly advanced the material prosperity of his 

 people, and enriched Assyria by irrigation works, 

 and by encouraging the importation of foreign 

 products, both vegetable and animal. His son, 

 Asshur-bil-Kala (1110-1090 B.C.), succeeded, and 

 carried on the traditional war with Babylon. In 

 his reign the Jewish monarchy under Saul must 

 have sprung up. 



Another long blank in the record comes, during 

 which time Assyria rather declined in power. A 

 new and more vigorous series of kings appears, 

 beginning with the reign of Asshur-iddin-akhi 

 (950-930 B.C.). He was succeeded by his son, 

 Asshur-danin-il (930-910 B.C.) ; who was also suc- 

 ceeded by his son, Iva-lush III. (910-890 B.C.). 

 His son, Tiglathi-nin II. succeeded, and reigned 

 from 890 to 884 B.C. ; and was followed by his son, 

 Assur-idanni-pal (884-859 B.C.), the first Sardana- 

 palus one of the greatest of the Assyrian mon- 

 archs. Not unjustly, he styles himself ' the con- 

 queror from the upper passage of the Tigris to 

 Lebanon and the great sea, who reduced under 

 his authority all countries from the rising of the 

 sun to the going down of the same.' The glories 

 of Assyria under his reign ; her triumphs in the 

 pursuits of war and peace; her conquests and 

 wealth ; her sumptuous luxury, the splendour of 

 her palaces and temples ; her exquisite skill in 

 the fine arts and in inventions, are even now the 

 cause of mingled admiration and wonder to Euro- 

 pean scholars, who can hardly believe that, nine 

 centuries before the Christian era, a civilisation 

 of such a lofty and dignified type could have so 

 suddenly leaped into existence. The son of this 

 great monarch, Shalmaneser II. (859-824 B.C.), 

 succeeded him. He, too, was a warlike prince, and 

 by his energy and valour, made Assyria the domi- 

 nant power over the vast region extending from 

 the Persian Gulf to Mons Niphates, and between 

 the Zagros range and the Mediterranean. Phoe- 

 nicia, Samaria, Damascus, all paid tribute to him, 

 as did also the king of Israel, Jehu, ' son of Omri/ 

 as the usurping son of Jehosaphat styled himself. 

 In his later years, his eldest son rebelled, but 

 was defeated and put to death ; so his second son, 

 Shamas-iva, succeeded him, and reigned from 

 824-810 B.c. residing, like his father, chiefly at 

 Calah. He prosecuted the usual Assyrian war 

 against Babylonia with such vigour, that in the 

 reign of his son, Iva-lush IV. that state became 

 thoroughly tributary to Assyria. Iva-lush IV. 

 (810-781 B.C.) conquered Damascus, rendered part 

 of Media tributary to him, and pushed the Assyrian 

 frontier even to the very confines of Egypt. His 

 queen was Sammuramit (Semiramis), regarding 

 whom most written history is legendary. She was 

 probably a Babylonian princess in no way very 

 remarkable, whom he married in order to confirm 

 his suzerainty of that country. From the fact 

 that she thus occupied a more independent relation 

 to her consort (holding joint sway over this very 

 important fief) than was usual in eastern nations, 

 and so comes into the historic record (which 

 eastern women rarely do), the mythical and fabu- 

 lous details, which made the figure of Semiramis 

 stand out with such imperial grandeur on the 

 canvas of the chroniclers of classical antiquity, 



