In the year li C. 711, the same year in which the North Syrian state Gurgnm (capital town Markasi, modern .Mar' ash) became an As.syr. province, t a certain Vamani, who is also called Yatna, } over- threw king Akhitniti of Ashdod. When the As.syrians despatched an expedition against Ash- dod (cf. Is 20), Philistia (Pilistu), Juda (Ja'iidu), Edom (Udumu), and Moab (Ma'ab), instead of .sending their presents to Assur, sent them to king I'ir'u of Musur, who has been already mentioned, because they trusted to him and to Arabia (Cush, Is 20^* and often in the ()T). Ashdod and Gath (Gimtu) were con<iuered and made into an Assyr. province, but Yamani fied to the 'king of Milukh ' (north-we.st of Arabia, cf. Job :!0i' "'vl?',-, parallel to ^Jl':). It is evidently the same Pir'u of Musur who is alluded to in a iiarallel jiassage wliich runs, ' He (Yamani) lied to the territory of .Musur which belongs to the di.strict of Milukh,' the last plira.sc being added to distinguish this Musur from the Musur which is the ei|uivalent of I'^gypt.
Besides these campaigns of Sargon's, which are of great iinjiortance for tlie study of the Bible, we may further mention that in li.c. 700 he received presents from seven Cyprian kings. An image of him, which is now in lieiliii, was dis- covered on the island of Cy])rus (see above, p. 17**").
The new residence which Sargon built for him- self in Klionsabad (see above, p. 178'') was con.se- crated in tlie year li.c. 707. In the year li.c. 705, however, he fell by the hand of an assa.ssin, who w;is probably instigated by his own son Sennacherib. 'I'he latter, strangely enough, nrver mentions his father in his iii.scriptions. As far as the character of Sargon is concerned, it is sullieicntly clear from
• On this nanie, see above. Oth'Ts rend llu-ubl'dl andda-nbi'di (or Ilia-nhi'dil with inueh less |mibal.liHy.
t Already, in n.i-. "IT, a similar fate had befallen the powerful town of Cnrrhemish ((T. Is In"). Kntmnnkh tComnnmeue), loo, came nncler the power of Assyria In li.r. "08.
J Compare the Assyrian name for Cvprns, .tatnann, of which f*ertiai>s Jainan, .luvan (lunln) Is a parallel (dialectical) form.
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ASSYRIA
ASSYRIA
his inscriptions that as ' Father of his country ' he deserves the praise of being called a ' righteous and noble prince ' (cf. especially on this point the very instructive cylinder inscription which has been translated by Lyon).
Sin-akhi-irba ('Sin multiply the brothers'), the biblical Seiinackerib, reigned from B.C. 704-681. He it was who removed the royal residence from Kalakh back again to Nineveh, which, by exten- sive building operations, and at the expense of Babylon, which he destroyed in a very barbarous fashion, lie elevated into the capital of the united empire of Assyria and Babylonia. The great palace, too, in the south-west of Kouyunjik deserves to be specially mentioned — the ' peerless palace,' which in later times the grandson of Sennacherib, Assurbanipal, surrounded with buildings. Nor must we forget the great arsenal (bU kiitalli) at Nebi-yunus, which Esarhaddon extended, and the magnilicent waterworks in the neighbourhood of Nineveh.
The most important political undertakings of Sennacherib were his wars against Elain and Baby- lonia on the one side, and his expeditions to the West on the other. The only other campaign worth mentioning was one against Cilicia (properly KhUakku, the mountain district in the interior* of Cilicia) and Tabal (the biblical Tubal), which probably belongs to the year B.C. 69.5. Probably it is this expedition that is referred to in the re- mark of Berosus, that Sennacherib, ' after a severe struggle -conquered the lonians who dwelt on the Cilician coast, and then [re] founded Tarsus.' The Assyrians had also to deal with this district a second time in the days of Sennacherib, in the year B.C. 681 ; for at the moment when Sennacherib was murdered, the crown prince Esarhaddon was in Khani-rabbat (east of Tabal) with his troops.
In Babylonia, Merodach-baladan the Chaldee, who is so well known from the inscriptions of Sargon, had established himself once more upon the throne, having allied himself for this purpose with Kudur- nankhundi of Elam and the Aramasan nomad tribes. Sennacherib conquered Merodach-baladan and his allies, and placed a certain Bel-ibni on the throne of Babylon. After several vicissitudes, when the Elamites, as allies of Babylonia, always had a hand in the game (Merodach-baladan himself on one occa.sion taking part in the struggle again), in B.C. 6yi the bloody battle of Khallilin, which ended unsuccessfully, or at any rate indecisively, for Sennacherib, was fought against the united armies of the Elamites, Babylonians, Aramaeans, Chal- daans, and certain districts of Media. The Median districts Anzan (also written Anshan), where the dynasty of Cyrus originated, and Illip, were now, as allies of Elam, for the first time called after Parsua, the motherland of the later Persians. At last, in the year B.C. 080, Sennacherib succeeded in taking possession of Babylon, and in wreaking fearful vengeance upon it. It was levelled to the ground, and only rebuilt again in later times under Sennacherib's gentler and nobler-hearted son Esar- haddon.
Sennacherib's great expedition to the West, which was undertaken in the year 701, began with the punishment of king Lull (EluUeus) of Sidon, who fled ' into the sea,' possibly to Cyprus or else to the island of Tyre, which, if we are to trust our Greek sources of information, was besieged by the Assyr. king in vain.