A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  A new powerful enemy threatening Shalmaneser’s ambitions had arisen during the ninth century in the form of the kingdom of Urartu, whose center lay in the Lake Van region in Anatolia (Kroll et al. 2012). Urartu’s political system, religion, and culture were all based on Assyrian models. The Urartian kings ruled in the same autocratic manner as their Assyrian colleagues; their principal god, Ḫaldi, closely resembled Assur; and the writing system used in Urartu was imported from Assyria. Later, the Assyrians, in turn, adopted some Urartian customs: the cavalry units introduced under Shalmaneser III were probably inspired by Urartian horseback riders, and it is possible that the encounter with Urartu also had an impact on Assyrian irrigation technology and the increasing wine consumption among members of the Assyrian elite (Radner 2011).

  Even though Assyria and Urartu were separated by the Taurus mountain range and a number of buffer states such as Kumme, Šubria, and Muṣaṣir, their aggressive expansionism led, before long, to an extended period of military clashes between the two states. There had been skirmishes with Urartu already under Aššurnaṣirpal II, but the situation got more serious after Shalmaneser had ascended the throne.

  As early as 859, the king felt the need to destroy an Urartian fortress that threatened the land of Gilzanu, a staunch Assyrian ally in western Iran. Three years later, Shalmaneser attacked Urartu from the west, after a long and laborious march through mountainous territory to the sources of the Euphrates. The unsuspecting Urartian king Arramu was forced to leave his royal city Arzaškun to the marauding Assyrian troops, and Shalmaneser devastated the region between Lake Van and Lake Urmia before moving into western Iran and finally returning home to the city of Arbela, completing one of the most ambitious military campaigns of Assyrian history.

  The campaign did not fail to also leave a deep impression on a number of states in northern Syria. Sam’al, Patina, Bit‐Agusi, Ḫalman (Aleppo), and Carchemish all paid tribute. Nonetheless, Shalmaneser proved unable to take full control of the region west of the Euphrates. In 853, Assyrian troops faced the armies of a massive coalition of western states in the vicinity of the city of Qarqar on the Orontes river. The coalition was led by Hadad‐ezer, king of Damascus, and included, among others, king Irḫuleni of Hamath, king Ahab of Israel, and a certain Gindibu’, a leader of the Arabs who supplied the allied forces with 1000 camels. The references to the latter two in the inscription on Shalmaneser’s “Kurkh monolith” constitute the earliest available attestations of named Israelite and Arab rulers. Even though Shalmaneser claims that the battle of Qarqar ended with a great victory for himself (RIMA 3: 23–4), he probably achieved a stalemate at best. The Assyrians did not make any substantial political or territorial gains.

  In 851 and 850 Shalmaneser turned his attention to the south and helped the Babylonian ruler Marduk‐zakir‐šumi defeat his rebellious brother, Marduk‐bel‐usati. After successfully completing this mission, the Assyrian king visited the great temples of Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha and fought on behalf of his Babylonian ally against Chaldaean strongholds in the Mesopotamian south. Babylon, as pointed out before, was an important fountainhead of Assyrian culture and religion, and Shalmaneser was proud of the good relationship he had with Marduk‐zakir‐šumi. A depiction on the stone base of his throne in his residence in Kalḫu shows the king shaking hands with his Babylonian colleague (Miglus 2000a).

  During the 840s and 830s, Shalmaneser undertook a number of additional campaigns in Syria, with armies that included, at one point, no fewer than 120,000 soldiers according to royal inscriptions (RIMA 3: 47; see also Figure 8.1). The results of these attacks were initially fairly modest, but, in 841, after the death of Hadad‐ezer of Damascus, several western rulers, among them Irḫuleni of Hamath and Jehu, the new king of Israel, sent tribute to Assyria. Jehu’s submission is depicted on Shalmaneser’s “Black Obelisk,” which also reveals that an unnamed king of Egypt brought the Assyrian king presents, among them camels, elephants, and monkeys (RIMA 3: 150). On three occasions between 841 and 837, Assyrian troops laid siege on Damascus, now ruled by a new king, Hazael, but did not manage to conquer the city.

  Figure 8.1 Metal brazier with turrets and wheels. The king, while keeping warm, would gaze at what looked like a conquered city on fire. Kalḫu, Fort Shalmaneser, Neo‐Assyrian period.

  Source: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

  Shalmaneser’s failure to fully consolidate Assyrian power in the west was in part the result of an expansion that occurred too quickly, and in too large a territory, to yield sustainable results. The king’s military actions ranged from campaigns against Namri in the Kermanshah region in western Iran to assaults on Que in Cilicia. In 836, in the course of a campaign against Tabal in central Anatolia, Shalmaneser advanced as far as Ḫubušna, modern Karahüyük in Cappadocia, one of the most westernmost points ever reached by an Assyrian army. Shalmaneser spread the fear of Assur all over Western Asia, but, since he lacked the means to create stable political structures, his grip on Cilicia, southwestern Syria, and western Iran remained tenuous (Bagg 2011: 194–205).

  Assyria’s standing deteriorated when, towards the end of Shalmaneser’s reign, Urartu made a political comeback. An Assyrian campaign in 830 did not fully quell the renewed threat posed by this enemy. Remarkably, Shalmaneser’s inscriptions point out that the army that fought in 830 was led not by the king himself, but by his long‐serving Chief Marshal, Dayyan‐Aššur, who is credited with heading several campaigns in the following years as well (Siddall 2013: 104–6, see also Frahm 2015a). Since Assyrian royal inscriptions usually do not mention the names of royal officials, the explicit references to Dayyan‐Aššur strongly suggest that the latter had amassed great power – possibly because Shalmaneser was now an old man and no longer fully in charge.

  Shalmaneser’s increasing inability to rule led to an internal crisis that erupted in full in 826, when one of the king’s sons, Aššur‐da”in‐aplu, turned against his father, instigating a civil war. Even though the exact details of the episode remain murky, there is every reason to assume that Aššur‐da”in‐aplu’s defection was motivated by his father’s decision to deprive him of his role as heir apparent and replace him with a younger son, on whom he bestowed the royal name Šamši‐Adad (V). It is possible that Šamši‐Adad, perhaps a minor during the period of unrest, was originally a puppet of the influential Dayyan‐Aššur, who may have wished to move Aššur‐da”in‐aplu out of the way because he feared the latter would strip him of his power once he ascended the throne.

  Even though Aššur‐da”in‐aplu was supported by a sizable number of Assyrian provinces and cities, among them Ashur and Nineveh, and despite the fact that Dayyan‐Aššur died during the early stages of the conflict, Šamši‐Adad eventually prevailed and, in 824, ascended the Assyrian throne. In the four years that followed he managed to defeat all his domestic opponents, not the least, it seems, because he received help from the Babylonian king Marduk‐zakir‐šumi (Fuchs 2008: 64–8). Things, however, were no longer as they had been before. Dayyan‐Aššur’s prominent role in the last years of Shalmaneser’s reign marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Assyria, a chapter in which Assyrian “magnates,” and not the Assyrian kings, were the dominant actors in the political arena.

  Internal Conflicts and Fragmentation of Power: The Age of the “Magnates” (823–745)

  The number of Assyrian royal inscriptions available for the period from 823 to 745 is significantly smaller than the respective corpus from the previous era. This decrease should not be ascribed, primarily, to the chances of discovery (for a different view, see Siddall 2013: 11–59) but rather to the aforementioned changes in the Assyrian power structure, brought about by the rise of the magnates, a small group of Assyrian generals and court officials who became highly influential during this time, at the expense of the authority of the Assyrian kings (Grayson 1993; Mattila 2000).

  The consequences of this power shift remain debated. Some scholars, among th
em F. Blocher (2001), S. Dalley (2000), and, most recently, L. Siddall (2013: 81–132), believe that it did not substantially compromise Assyria’s preeminent political status in Western Asia and may even have strengthened it in some respects. Blocher (2001) claims that the governors of the western provinces produced some positive change during the period in question, for example by developing agricultural land between the Khabur and Euphrates rivers, while Dalley (2000), pointing to the role of the Middle Assyrian “king of Ḫanigalbat,” argues that the increased agency of these governors was nothing entirely new. A different interpretation of the situation is provided by A. Fuchs (2008), who considers the “age of the magnates” as one of decline. Fuchs’s assessment is based in part on comparison with other historical periods, such as late imperial China, that saw the rise of high officials and eunuchs at the expense of central power.

  The present writer acknowledges that, during the period in question, Assyria’s territorial expansion did not continue in the same dramatic fashion that had characterized the reign of Shalmaneser III, and that Assyria suffered several years of internal strife in its course; but he also believes that the Assyrian state remained, overall, largely unscathed by these developments – otherwise, Tiglath‐pileser III, who brought the age of the magnates to an end, would not have been able to enlarge the Assyrian territory as rapidly as he did in the eighteen years of his reign. Since none of the magnates ever assumed the title “king,” no major crisis of legitimacy occurred, and the steps the magnates and provincial governors took, using their greater independence, to develop stronger economic and military structures in the territories they controlled ultimately benefitted Tiglath‐pileser’s newly centralized government and its expansive policies. Thus, Fuchs’s claim that Assyria experienced a massive decline during the age of the magnates cannot be accepted – which does not, however, compromise the overall importance of his 2008 account of the political history of this period.

  Under Šamši‐Adad V (823–811),8 some of the magnates began to keep their offices over longer periods of time, in contrast to earlier practices. Two men who may have supported the king during the civil war that preceded his reign became particularly influential: the Field Marshal Yaḫalu and Nergal‐ila’i, a provincial governor who later became Field Marshal as well.

  The earliest military campaigns described in Šamši‐Adad’s inscriptions, which were against western Iran and a number of Urartian fortresses, were apparently rather limited in scope. One of them was led by the king’s Chief Eunuch, a newly created position. Šamši‐Adad’s third campaign against the Zagros region may have ended with an Assyrian defeat at the hands of Bit‐Ḫamban and Namri, and in northern Syria, where the Assyrians had not campaigned since 829, a number of kings began to withhold their tribute, if we are to believe an inscription of Šamši‐Adad’s successor Adad‐nirari III (RIMA 3: 208–9). That things were difficult for the new king is also indicated by the fact that, in 817/816, Šamši‐Adad had to quell a rebellion in Tillê within the Assyrian core area.

  In the last years of his reign, however, from 815 until his death in 811, Šamši‐Adad’s military endeavors became more successful. They were primarily directed against the Babylonian king Marduk‐balassu‐iqbi and his Aramaean, Chaldaean, and Elamite allies, bringing a period of fairly peaceful relations between Assyria and the south to an end. Disregarding the terms of the humiliating treaty he had been forced to conclude with Marduk‐balassu‐iqbi’s predecessor Marduk‐zakir‐šumi during his fight for the crown, Šamši‐Adad ruthlessly assaulted regions northeast of the Tigris that were under Babylonian control. In 813, he defeated Marduk‐balassu‐iqbi and brought him to Nineveh. Likewise carried away to Assyria were a number of divine statues from Der, an act of “godnapping” typical of Assyria’s aggressive foreign policies (Zaia 2015). One year later, Šamši‐Adad prevailed in battle over Marduk‐balassu‐iqbi’s successor Babu‐aḫu‐iddin, moved into central Babylonia, and established new borders with his southern neighbor. Even though the Assyrian king claims that he showed respect for the Babylonian cults and made sacrifices to the gods of Kutha, Babylon, and Borsippa, it seems that he left Babylonia in a state of disarray. The Babylonian throne remained vacant for several years.

  When Šamši‐Adad V died in 811, his son and successor Adad‐nirari III (r. 810–783) was probably still a minor.9 Even though not explicitly stated in the sources, it is likely that the real power lay initially with Adad‐nirari’s Field Marshal Nergal‐ila’i and the king’s mother, Sammu‐ramat (Pettinato 1985; Siddall 2013: 86–100; Frahm 2016). How much authority Sammu‐ramat held is revealed by a stela from the year 805 that mentions both her and Adad‐nirari as guarantors of the border between the Assyrian vassal states of Gurgum and Kummuḫ in southern Anatolia (RIMA 3: 204–5). The queen mother and her royal son are also mentioned together on a pair of statues dedicated to the god Nabû by Bel‐tarṣi‐ilumma, the governor of Kalḫu. Sammu‐ramat is, moreover, the first Assyrian woman commemorated on one of the stelae set up in rows at Ashur to honor the memory of Assyrian eponyms and rulers (RIMA 3, 226–7). That a woman, albeit not de iure, managed to gain so much political influence in Assyria was unprecedented and led to the emergence of numerous legends around her in later years (see below, “The Afterlife and Legacy of the Assyrian Emprie”).

  Even after the death of Sammu‐ramat, probably some time around 798, Adad‐nirari’s power remained limited. The new strong man, it seems, was the eunuch Nergal(or: Palil?)‐ereš, who controlled the entire Assyrian territory on the Middle Euphrates and in the Khabur region from ca. 797 to 787 (Radner 2012; Siddall 2013: 106–18).

  Militarily, Assyria achieved some successes during Adad‐nirari’s reign, notably in western Iran, where Assyrian troops undertook no fewer than thirteen campaigns between 809 and 787. Only four campaigns, in contrast, were directed against the west, where Adad‐nirari scored a victory over Aram‐Damascus (Weippert 1992). In the south, the situation remained chaotic, with marauding Aramaic tribes, among them Itu’eans, adding to the insecurity. The year 790 saw the first Assyrian campaign against these new enemies, who wreaked havoc in the Assyro‐Babylonian border regions.

  Around 787, Adad‐nirari nominated a certain Šamši‐ilu, whose family background remains unknown, as Field Marshal (see PNA 3/II, 1226 (R. Mattila); RlA 11, 639–40 (H. D. Baker); Siddall 2013: 118–27). The new appointee held this office for roughly forty years, during which he seems to have become the principal wielder of power in Assyria. Shalmaneser IV, Aššur‐dan III, and Aššur‐nirari V, the three Assyrian kings who successively ascended the Assyrian throne after Adad‐nirari’s death in 783, apparently had little agency, as indicated by the remarkably small corpus of royal inscriptions they left. Šamši‐ilu, in contrast, felt entitled to create his own inscriptions and to present himself more and more openly as the real mover and shaker. In the so‐called Antakya stela from the last years of the reign of Adad‐nirari III, Šamši‐ilu still mentions the king, but in later texts, he claims to have acted completely on his own (Fuchs 2008: 79).

  With the rise of Šamši‐ilu, the focus of Assyrian campaigning shifted from Media and other eastern territories to the border region with Urartu, which Assyrian troops attacked several times between 786 and 784. In 783, 782, and 777, the Assyrian army had to fight Aramaean brigands roaming the Assyro‐Babylonian border region, but the main challenge remained the conflict with Urartu. In 774, Šamši‐ilu led his soldiers in western Iran against the Urartian king Argišti I and won an important victory, which he celebrated, in royal style, in a text inscribed on two colossal stone lions discovered at Til‐Barsip (RIMA 3: 231–3).

  During this time, a new Assyrian monarch, Shalmaneser IV (r. 782–773), was in office,10 but Šamši‐ilu felt no need to give him any credit for the military victories and building activities described in his inscriptions from Til‐Barsip. Instead, he claimed for himself the title “governor of Ḫatti and of Guti(um),” suggesting that his sphere of influence
stretched far and wide both in the east and the west. In actuality, however, he was apparently not yet entirely in charge. Another magnate who assumed traditionally royal prerogatives under Shalmaneser IV was the Palace Herald Bel‐Ḫarran‐belu‐uṣur (Siddall 2013: 127–8). In a stela found at Tell Abta on the Wadi Tharthar, Bel‐Ḫarran‐belu‐uṣur records the foundation of the city of Dur‐Bel‐Ḫarran‐belu‐uṣur, named after himself, and claims that he – and not the king – had established tax exemptions for it (RIMA 3: 241‐42).

  The last significant event of the reign of Shalmaneser IV was Šamši‐ilu’s 773 campaign against Damascus, whose ruler sent Shalmaneser not only rich tribute, but also one of his own daughters as a prospective wife. From the reign of Shalmaneser’s successor Aššur‐dan III (772–755), only a single short royal inscription has survived, describing reconstruction work on the Aššur temple (RIMA 3: 245–46). The Eponym Chronicles mention a campaign against Ḫatarikka in the Levant in 772 and minor military actions against Aramaeans in the south in the following years, none of them, apparently, particularly noteworthy. In all likelihood, Šamši‐ilu became even more powerful during this time. As pointed out by Fuchs (2008, 84–5), the eponyms who served under Aššur‐dan III include Šamši‐ilu, the king, and a number of provincial governors, but no longer the Chief Cupbearer, the Palace Herald, and the masennu‐official, suggesting that Šamši‐ilu had by now sidelined these three particularly powerful magnates.