•(3.) Early Kings, from the foundation of the King- dom to Pul. — The long list of Assyrian kings which has come down to us in two or three forms, only slightly varied (Clinton, F. II. i, 267), and which is almost certainly derived from Ctesias, must of necessi- ty be discarded, together with his date for the king- dom. It covers a space of above 1200 years, and bears marks besides of audacious fraud, being com- posed of names snatched from all quarters, Arian, Semitic, and Greek — names of gods, names of towns, names of rivers — and in its estimate of time present- ing the impossible average of 34 or 35 years to a reign, and the very improbable phenomenon of reigns in half the instances amounting exactly to a decimal number. Unfortunately, we have no authentic list to substitute for the forger}' of Ctesias. Berosus spoke of 45 kin^s as reigning during his period of 526 years, and mentioned all their names (Euseb. ut sup.) ; but they have unluckily not been preserved to us. The work of Herodotus on Assyrian history (Herod, i, 106 and 184) has likewise entirely perished, and neither Greek nor Oriental sources are available to supply the loss, which has hitherto proved irreparable. Recent- ly the researches in Mesopotamia have done some- thing toward filling up this sad gap in our knowledge ; but the reading of names is still so doubtful that it seems best, in the present condition of cuneiform in- quiry, to treat the early period of Assyrian history in a very general way, only mentioning kings by name when, through the satisfactory identification of a cu- neiform royal designation with some name known to us from sacred or profane sources, firm ground has been reached, and serious error rendered almost impossible.
The Mesopotamia^ researches have rendered it ap- parent that the original seat of government was not at Nineveh. The oldest Assyrian remains have been found at Kaleh-Sherghat, on the right bank of the Tigris, 60 miles south of the later capital ; and this place the monuments show to have been the residence of the earliest kings, as well as of the Babylonian governors who previously exercised authority over the country. The ancient name of the town appears to have been identical with that of the country, viz. Asshur. It was built of brick, and has yielded but a very small number of sculptures. The kings proved to have reigned there are fourteen in number, divisi- ble into three groups; and their reigns are thought to have covered a space of nearly 350 years, from B.C. 1273 to B.C. 930. The most remarkable monarch of the series was called Tiglath-Pileser. He appears to have been king toward the close of the twelfth cen- tury, and thus to have been contemporary with Sam-
son, and an earlier king than the Tiglath-Pileser of Scripture. He overran the whole country between Assyria Proper and the Euphrates ; swept the valley of the Euphrates from south to north, from the borders of Babylon to Mount Taurus ; crossed the Euphrates, and contended in northern Syria with the Ilittites ; invaded Armenia and Cappadocia ; and claims to have subdued forty-two countries " from the channel of the Lower Zab (Zab Asfal) to the Upper Sea of the Set- ting Sun." All this he accomplished in the first five years of his reign. At a later date he appears to have suffered defeat at the hands of the king of Babylon, who had invaded his territory and succeeded in carry- ing off to Babylon various idols from the Assyrian tem- ples (Offerhaus, Be. ant. Assyr. imperio, Linga, 1727).
The other monarchs of the Kaleh-Sherghat series, both before and after Tiglath-Pileser, are compara- tively insignificant. The later kings of the series are only known to us as the ancestors of the two great monarchs Sardanapalus the first and his son, Shal- maneser or Shalmanubar, who were among the most warlike of the Assyrian princes. Sardanapalus the first, who appears to have been the warlike Sarda- napalus of the Greeks (Suidas, s. v. ; comp. Hellan. Frag. p. 158), transferred the seat of government from Kaleh-Sherghat to Kimrud (probably the Scriptural Calah), where he built the first of those magnificent palaces which have recently been exhumed by Eng- lish explorers. A great portion of the Assyrian sculp- tures now in the British Museum are derived from this edifice. A description of the building has been given by Mr. Layard (Nin. and its Remains, vol. ii, ch. 11). By an inscription repeated more than a hundred times upon its sculptures we learn that Sar- danapalus carried his arms far and wide through West- ern Asia, warring on the one hand in Lower Babylonia and Chaldasa, on the other in Syria and upon the coast of the Mediterranean. His son, Shalmaneser or Shal- manubar, the monarch who set up the Black Obelisk, now in the British Museum, to commemorate his vic- tories, was a still greater conqueror. He appears to have overrun Cappadocia, Armenia, Azerbejan, great portions of Media Magna, the Kurdish mountains, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Phoenicia ; every- where making the kings of the countries tributary to him. If we may trust the reading of certain names, on which cuneiform scholars appear to be entirely agreed, he came in contact with various Scriptural j personages, being opposed in his Syrian wars by Ben- hadad and Hazael, kings of Damascus, and taking tribute from Jehu, king of Israel. His son and grand- son followed in his steps, but scarcely equalled his glory. The latter is thought to be identical with the Biblical Pul, Phul, or Phaloch, who is the first of the Assyrian kings of whom we have mention in Scrip- ture. See Pul.