A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  Indeed, the treachery of Kurigalzu resulted in trauma, which had not been overcome even one hundred years later. This is revealed in Tukulti‐Ninurta I’s speech in a passage of his famous epic about his victory over the Babylonian king Kaštiliaš (IV) at the end of the 13th century BCE. When describing his adversary as degenerate, wicked, obstinate, and disobedient, Tukulti‐Ninurta points to the traditional image of the depravity of Babylonian rulers that began with Kurigalzu. The “treaty of the fathers” referred to in the epic was concluded – so we may assume – while Aššur‐uballiṭ was still alive. But after his death, Kurigalzu broke the treaty. It is here that the “traditional enmity” between Assyria and Babylonia began, which culminated – according to Assyrian opinion – in the divinely ordained defeat of Kaštiliaš.

  However, it was still a long way there. The successor of Enlil‐nirari, Arik‐den‐ili (1307–1296 BCE), does not mention Babylon at all. Indeed, he seems to have had no major successes against Assyria’s southern neighbor. Among the few inscriptions available, only one contains some hint as to military activities (RIMA 1, A.O.75.8). The topographical names, as far as they are preserved and can be located, point to the region between Nineveh and the Zagros Mountains, situated, therefore, beyond the Babylonian sphere of influence (Figure 6.1).

  Figure 6.1 The political landscape of the Middle Assyrian period.

  Source: Stefan Jakob. Reproduced with permission of Brill.

  The First Half of the 13th Century BCE

  Arik‐den‐ili’s son, Adad‐nirari I (1295–1264 BCE), had far more room for political manoeuvring and was the first Assyrian king to include narratives of his military campaigns in his royal inscriptions. There, he describes his conflict with Šattuara I, king of Ḫanigalbat, whom he accuses of having commited hostilities against him. In his own words: “I seized him and brought him to my city Ashur. I made him take an oath and allowed him to return to his land. Annually, as long as he lived, I regularly received his tribute within my city Ashur” (RIMA 1, A.0.76.3:9–14).

  Afterwards, Wasašatta, the son of Šattuara, decided to cease tribute payment. Adad‐nirari went to battle against him and was victorious again. As part of a punitive action, he annexed several important cities within the Khabur region. In Taidu, one of the major residences of the former Mittani state, he built a royal palace (RIMA 1, A.0.76.22:55–60).

  With regard to his hostility against the Kassites (mentioned alongside the “hordes” of the Qutû, Lullumu, and Šubaru), Adad‐nirari called himself a follower of his grandfather, Enlil‐nirari (RIMA 1, A.O.76.1:3f.; 31f.). The explicit reference to the strategically important Babylonian border towns of Lubdi and Rapiqu as targets of military action is the first evidence of a new strategy pursued by the Assyrian high command: hegemony over Mesopotamia as a whole, with a focus on Babylonia as the main opponent. A genuine success could be achieved solely if Assyria was able to control not only the area south of the Lower Zab as far as the Diyala River, but also the Middle Euphrates River region. Notwithstanding the martial tone of the inscriptions, however, it is understood that Adad‐nirari, in a way that was similar to his policy in the Khabur region (RIMA 1, A.O.76.1:13ff.), confined himself to restricted attacks that primarily served to add to his own prestige. Neither Lubdi nor Rapiqu were kept permanently.

  But the Babylonian king Nazi‐Maruttaš took up the gauntlet and mustered his troops to put Adad‐nirari in his place. According to the “Synchronistic History,” the decisive battle took place near Kar‐Ištar south of the Lower Zab, where Nazi‐Maruttaš was defeated. Another inscription of Adad‐nirari mentions, additionally, the looting of the Babylonian camp (RIMA 1, A.O.76.21). Finally, as the “Synchronistic History” reports, the boundary‐line was probably fixed anew, in favor of the Assyrians, from Pilašqi east of the Tigris River via Arman in Ugar‐Sallu to Lullumu.

  If this is true, the Assyrians would have succeeded in building on the past successes of Enlil‐nirari and would have enlarged the Assyrian realm as far as forty‐six miles south of the Lower Zab. It remains, however, somewhat questionable as to whether the region was integrated permanently. Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 BCE) possibly had to leave the areas south of the Lower Zab, if we may interpret the silence of the sources to that effect, to the Babylonians. Neither the royal inscriptions of that time, nor the aforementioned chronicles, reveal any information about conflicts between Assyria and Babylonia. This view may need to be reconsidered if new sources are discovered. One hint may come from a reference to Shalmaneser in a historical review of Assyro‐Babylonian relations within the Tukulti‐Ninurta Epic (Machinist 1983: 78f.).

  Still, contemporary adminstrative documents indicate that various cities on the eastern bank of Lower Zab belonged to the Assyrian state at that time. It can be proven that Atmanu (modern Tell Ali; cf. Fadhil 1983: 126ff.; 360) was part of an Assyrian “district” (pāḫutu). In the city of (N)arzuḫina (Ismail and Postgate 2008: 151; 162), the residence of a “mayor” (ḫazi’ānu) is traceable, beginning in the era of Shalmaneser I. Regarding the cities of Turšan, Sira, and Tarbašḫe, we have a report about the registration of crop yields from the final phase of the first decade of Shalmaneser’s reign (eponymate of Aššur‐kašid; see Bloch 2008: 146).

  There were also other challenges to meet, including military actions against Uruaṭri and North Syria (RIMA 1, A.O.77.1:22–106). The mention of Aḫlamu nomads as allies of the Hittites and Šattuara II (the king of what had remained of the Mittanian state) shows clearly that, at this time, non‐sedentary groups within the Jazira region were beginning to represent a decisive factor in politics. They were still referred to exclusively as adversaries. It is clear that both sides had not yet recognized the advantages of cooperation in certain areas.

  It is no coincidence, incidentally, that the Hittites appear in the list of Assyria’s enemies. It is well known that, in the time of Adad‐nirari I, the Assyrian envoys were treated poorly at the Hittite royal court, presumably by Urḫi‐Teššub (Klengel 1999: 269), the nephew and predecessor of Ḫattušili III, who was overthrown by the latter around 1266 BCE. If nothing else, the still‐smouldering conflict with Egypt may have forced Ḫattušili to seek a better relationship with Assyria. Unfortunately, Shalmaneser rejected this offer (Hagenbuchner 1989: 242ff.) in an insulting manner, as we learn from a letter by Ramesses II to Ḫattušili (Edel 1994: 25). There, the Assyrian king is quoted as stating: “You (i.e. Ḫattušili) are (merely) a substitute of a great king” (pūḫšu ša šarri rabî atta), alluding to the usurpation of the Hittite throne by the former.

  In the following years, the relations between Ḫatti and Assyria remained strained. In an administrative document from the eponym year of Ekaltayu (most probably 1241 BCE; see Bloch 2008: 147) a campaign to Amurru, a Hittite vassal state, is mentioned (cf. Postgate 1988: 170ff.). After the accession of Tudḫaliya IV, possibly in 1237 BCE (Bryce 1998: 326), the situation continued to escalate. A letter from the Assyrian king to Ibiranu, the ruler of Ugarit, provides us with details about a decisive encounter near the city of Niḫriya (Dietrich 2003; differently Singer 1985). Tudḫaliya accused his adversary of having lured his vassal Eḫli‐šarri, king of Išuwa, away. Threatening him with military retaliation, he began to deploy his troops in Niḫriya. Shalmaneser felt provoked and laid siege to the city, which he calls hostile. After fruitless negotiations, the Assyrian army attacked the Hittite camp, massacring their enemies. This battle was, irrespective of whether the historical details are accurately reported or not, the beginning of the end of Hittite influence in upper Mesopotamia.

  Territorial Expansion and Consolidation: A First Attempt

  After the death of Shalmaneser I, his son Tukulti‐Ninurta I (1233–1197 BCE) ascended the throne. A common feature of ancient Near Eastern rulers is their desire to surpass their predecessors. In Tukulti‐Ninurta’s case this seems extremely pronounced. His reign is characterized by the unconditional will to create something that would last forever. This applies not only to his d
ecision to build a new residence a few miles upstream of Ashur, named after the king himself (Kar‐Tukulti‐Ninurta), but, especially, to military activities meant to extend his realm.

  The Hittite king Tudḫaliya must have been well informed in advance about the character of the future king. Otherwise, in addition to the letter of congratulations on the occasion of Tukulti‐Ninurta’s accession to the throne, Tudḫaliya would certainly not have planned to send another tablet to the vizier Babu‐aḫa‐iddina, marked by a certain effort to, first, improve the relationship between the two kings, as compared to the era of Shalmaneser I, and, secondly, to exercise considerable influence upon the new king so that he would abandon any intention to attack the mountain regions northwest of the Assyrian heartland, which were clearly claimed by Ḫatti (Mora‐Giorgieri 2004: 155ff.). Tukulti‐Ninurta, however, was not impressed by these admonitions, which were only thinly veiled with flatteries (see Bryce 1998: 348f.).

  According to Tukulti‐Ninurta’s official inscriptions, he conquered the districts in question in a campaign that was one of the most outstanding achievements of his first regnal years. The early successes evidently encouraged Tukulti‐Ninurta to pay special attention to the eastern Tigris River region. The fact was that he intended to extend his power at the expense of his southern neighbor, as explicitly set forth in several early inscriptions (RIMA 1, A.O.78.1:24–37; A.O.78.2:17ff.; A.O.78.8:6’–10’; A.O.78.9:10’–27’; A.O.78.10:24ff.). There are proud reports of his aquisitions south of the Lower Zab, especially in the area between the cities of Šasili and Mašḫaṭ‐šarri. It seems that Tukulti‐Ninurta was raising a claim to districts which were “traditionally Assyrian” in his view, since they were added to his land by treaty in the days of his ancestor Enlil‐nirari (Grayson 1975: 160, 21'). The immediate reaction of the Babylonians remains unknown. But it is hardly to be expected that they would have shared the Assyrian’s interpretation of history. Before long, the conflict escalated. Tukulti‐Ninurta himself reports on the events:

  I approached Kaštiliašu, king of Karduniaš, to do battle. I brought about the defeat of his army (and) felled his warriors. In the midst of that battle I captured Kaštiliašu, king of the Kassites, (and) bound I brought him as a captive into the presence of the god Assur, my lord. (Thus) I became lord of Sumer and Akkad in its entirety.

  (RIMA 1, A.0.78.23:60ff.)

  There is a general assumption that Tukulti‐Ninurta’s invasion of Babylonia was an unprovoked attack (Cancik‐Kirschbaum 2003: 51). Occassionally, it is also considered a preventive war (Mayer 1995: 50; 215, see also Llop 2003a: 205). As Cancik‐Kirschbaum has pointed out, for Assyrian kings, peace with the world outside of Assyria was only possible by treaty or by subordination to Assyrian rule (1997: 75). In the sense of this ideology, treaties with their immediate neighbor, Babylonia, as an opponent of equal standing, were of special importance (cf. Brinkman 1990). The Tukulti‐Ninurta Epic is an extraordinary contemporary source to study in extenso the Assyrian view of the confrontation with Babylonia. Although it can hardly be called a “propaganda poem” (Ebeling 1938: 1ff.) in the true sense of the word (i.e. used to justify the policy of the king before a “public opinion” in Assyria, see Mayer 1995: 50, 215ff.), it seeks to prove primarily that the war against Babylonia was a just one, assisted by the great gods of heaven and earth. The character sketch of Kaštiliaš as a vicious, perfidious, and cowardly person may well have been exaggerated, but according to Assyrian legal opinion he really was a perjurer who was abandoned by the gods and received his well‐deserved fate. The Assyrian king is solely acting according to divine order.

  The offences of Kaštiliaš, including plundering Assyrian territory, deportations, atrocities against civilians, and the violation of sanctuaries (Machinist 1983, 86f., col. iii), were not necessarily fictitious. The Babylonians, no less convinced of their own perspective, continued to claim the area east of the Tigris River, potentially by military means. It should not be excluded that they also tried to repel the Assyrian expansion by attacking the heartland of Assyria from Arrapḫa or Lubdi.

  What might be the true point of contention – in Tukulti‐Ninurta’s view – is revealed in the passage of the epic wherein he enumerates every single transgression of Kaštiliaš before the divine judge Šamaš, raising the tablet of the treaty between the two kings to heaven (Machinist 1983: 88ff.). During a trial, which takes place in the absence of the accused, it becomes obvious that the Babylonian king was seen merely as the last link in a chain, which began with Kurigalzu (II), who once went to war against Enlil‐nirari, neglecting the oath between Assyria and Babylonia by doing so. Likewise, the poet of the epic puts a repentant monologue into the mouth of Kaštiliaš, characterized by contrition and referring to the “unalterable treaty of the fathers” (rikilti abbēya ša lā šumsuki).

  Thus, the quarrel over the eastern Tigris River region could probably represent the real cause of escalation in the course of the confrontation. From the Assyrian point of view, the conditions, which were defined one hundred years ago, should have been regarded as permanent and final. But since Babylonia refused to accept this position, an open conflict between the two powers became inevitable (cf. Cancik‐Kirschbaum 1997, 72).

  To properly assess the numerous individual pieces of information about the Assyro‐Babylonian War from literary tablets and documents, we need an exact chronological framework. In recent years, the situation in this regard has improved greatly: a series of four successive eponym years from Etel‐pî‐Aššur to Aššur‐zera‐iddina has been securely reconstructed (Jakob 2013: 514–22; cf. Bloch 2010). This makes it possible to correlate information from dated royal inscriptions with the evidence from administrative texts and gives us an opportunity to look at the historical events at the end of the 13th century BCE in a new light.

  The earliest documents concerning the Babylonian campaign date back to the year of Etel‐pî‐Aššur, when the victorious Assyrian army returned to the royal residence Kar‐Tukulti‐Ninurta. On the 10th day of the month Ša‐kenate (ix), we learn from an administrative text, Babylonian (in Assyrian usage “Kassite”) people were supplied with bread (MARV IV 40). The account was settled using the “seal of Aššur‐iddin, the vizier.” There is no doubt that we later see him as a grand vizier (Jakob 2003: 55ff.). The tablet provides the earliest evidence for the presence of Babylonian prisoners of war in Assyria.

  Another receipt (MARV viii 51) dates to the 29th day of the month Muḫur‐ilane (x) and records the feeding of donkeys over a period of ten days. These are the “donkeys of the road” (emārū ša ḫūle) that carried armor when the army returned from Babylonia (MARV I 1 Rv. iv 40ff.).

  From this tablet we also learn that on the 15th day of Abu‐šarrane (xi), the armed forces were back in the capital. They are referred to as “starving,” which indicates that the return was strenuous rather than glorious, contrary to the relevant chapter within the Tukulti‐Ninurta Epic.

  Soon afterwards, between the 23rd day of Abu‐šarrane and the 12th day of Ḫibur (xii), several people received rations in Kar‐Tukulti‐Ninurta who are identified as coming home from an expedition to Suḫu. They were meanwhile – according to the text – employed at the ziggurat and the palace of the royal residence (Llop 2010: 109ff.). At least thirty‐eight soldiers (ša ḫurāde) who participated in the Suḫu campaign with the king returned to Ashur via Nemad‐Ištar. If the suggested localization of that city near Tell ar‐Rimah is correct (Nashef 1982: 204), this would prove again that the connection between the capital and the districts in the Lower Khabur region was not necessarily maintained by a steppe route (Jakob 2006: 18f.).

  In addition, a group of Assyrians is identified as refugees from Babylonia returning to the royal residence. This reveals significant contradictions between official Assyrian sources and the situation in Babylonia after the withdrawal of the Assyrian army. The royal court in Ashur was more than likely displeased by such news.

  The information from administrative docum
ents of the eponym year Etel‐pî‐Aššur could be interpreted to support the idea that a first military action against Babylonia was, all in all, successfully completed, although the armed forces were pushed to the limit of their capabilities. This is particularly true since apparently only one section of the army left Babylonia and headed northward after the victory over Kaštiliaš. While the main forces, led by the king’s heralds, returned to Kar‐Tukulti‐Ninurta (MARV I 1 IV 27–44), a second branch of the army marched to the Middle Euphrates River region, under the guidance of the king (Llop 2010: 108ff.; cf. Arnaud 2003, 8). It remains unclear to what extent this operation was successful, but there are indications in our sources that Dur‐Adad (elû), a city of strategic importance in the Middle Euphrates River area, then became part of Assyria (Jakob 2013: 511 note 10).

  Remarkably, one century later, a similar strategy led to success during the first Babylonian campaign of Tiglath‐pileser I (1114–1076 BCE), who provided specific details with regards to his route: he went from the eastern bank of the Lower Zab to the surrounding countryside of the city of Arman in Ugar‐Sallu until Lubdi and along the Ḥamrin Mountains up to the crossing of the Radanu river (modern Nahr al‐‘Uzem or Ṭawuq Gay) toward the Diyala River. It was there that the attacks on major centers in North Babylonia began, including Dur‐Kurigalzu and Sippar‐ša‐Šamaš (RIMA 2, A.0.87.4:37–43). Given that Šamši‐Adad V (823–811 BCE) followed essentially the same itinerary during his campaigns against Babylonia (RIMA 3, A.0.103.1: iii 70bff.), one might assume that this path was not chosen by chance, but rather with regard to topographical conditions.

  There is some corresponding information about military actions under Tukulti‐Ninurta I in the eastern Tigris River region. In Tell Imlihiye, about sixteen miles southeast of Zamban, the remainders of an originally more extensive archive of cuneiform tablets, spanning more than thirty years until the sixth regnal year of Kaštiliaš, were discovered in a jar. The excavators argued that the documents were possibly placed in a safe location in the face of the enemy’s approach (Böhmer‐Dämmer 1985: 18–19). If the destruction of level II was actually caused by the Assyrians and rebuilding took place during the reign of Enlil‐nadin‐šumi, the successor of Kaštiliaš, Tell Imlihiye could well have been part of the itinerary of the first expedition. Otherwise, no definitive statements can yet be made about this itinerary. All additional evidence for Assyrian troop movements in settlements between the hinterland of Ashur and the Diyala region dates, as will be described below, from later years, which suggests that Tukulti‐Ninurta, trying to avoid a second front, did not aim to conquer the Babylonian territories in the Eastern Tigris region at this point.