TIGLATH-PILESER
402
TIGLATH-PILESER
invasion cannot at present be fixed ; but it was appar- ently many years afterwards tliat Tiglatli-pileser made 11 second expedition into these parts, wliicli had more important results than his former one. It appears that after the date of his lirst expedition a close league was formed between Kezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, hav- ing for its special object the humiliation of Juda\a, and intended to further generally the interests of the two allies. At first great successes were gained by I'ekah and his confederate (2 Kings xv, o7; 2 Chron. xxviii, 6-X) ; but on tiieir proceeding to attack Jerusalem it- self, and to threaten Aliaz, who was then king, with deposition from his throne, which they were about to give to a pretender, '• the son of Tabeal" (Isa. vii. 6), the Jewish monarch applied to Assyria for assistance, and Tiglath-pileser, consenting to aid him, again appeared at the head of an army in these regions, lie first marched, naturally, against Damascus, which he took (2 Kings xvi, 9), razing it (according to his own state- ment) to the ground, and killing Rezin, the Damascene monarch. After this, probably, he proceeded to chas- tise Pekah, whose country he entered on the north- east, where it bordered upon " Syria of Damascus." Here he overran the whole district to the east of Jor- dan, no longer '-lightly afflicting" Samaria, but injur- ing her far " more f/rierousli/, by the way of the sea, in (Jalilee of the (ientiles" (Isa. ix, 1), carrying into captivity " the Keubenites. the Gadites, and the half tribe of JManasseh" (1 Chron. v, 2fi), who had previously held this country, and placing them in Upper Meso- potamia from Harran to about Nisibis (ibid.). Thus the result of this expedition was the absorption of tlie kingdom of Damascus, and of an important por- tion of Samaria, into the Assyrian emjiire; and it fur- ther brought the kingdom of Judah into the condition of a mere tributary and vassal of the Assyrian mon- arch.
Before returning into his own land, Tiglath-pileser had an interview with Ahaz at Damascus (2 Kings xvi, 10). Here, doubtless, was settled the amount of trib- ute which .ludica was to pay annually; and it may be suspected that here, too, it was explained to Ahaz by his suzerain that a certain deference to the Assyrian gods was due on the part of all tributaries, who were usually required to set up in their capital "the laws of Asshur," or " altars to the great gods." The " altar" whicii Ahaz "saw at Damascus," and of which he sent the pattern to Urijah the priest (ver. 10, 11), has been conjectured to have been such a badge of subjection ; but it seems to have been adopted only out of love for a prevalent fashion.
This is all that Scripture tells ns of Tiglath-pileser. He appears to have succeeded Pul, and to have been succeeded by Shalmaneser; to have been contemporary with He/.iu, Pekah, and Ahaz; and therefore to have rule<l Assyria during the latter half of the 8th century before our wra. See Assviiia.
2. Mimitmenfal Records. — From his own inscriptions we learn that his reign lasted at least seventeen vears; that, besides warring in Syria and Samaria, he attacked Babylonia, Jledia, Armenia, and the independent tribes in the upper regions of Mesopotamia, thus, like the other great Assyrian monarchs, warring along the whole fron- tier of the empire ; and, tinally, tliat he was (probably) not a legitimate prince, but a usurper and the founder of a dynasty. This last fact is gathered from the circum- stance that, whereas the Assyrian kings generally glorv in their ancestry, Tiglath-pileser omits all mention of his, not even recording his father's name upon his mon- uments. It accords remarkabh' with the statements of Berosus (in Kusob. Chron. Can. i, 4) and Herodotus (i, yj), that about tliis time, i. e. in the latter half of the 8th century B.C., there was a cliange of dynasty in As- syria, the old family, which had ruled for 520 (526) years, being superseded by another not long before the accession of Sennacherib. The authority of these two writers, combined with the moiuiraental indications,
justifies us in concluding that the founder of the lower dynasty or empire, the first monarcli of the new king- dom, was the Tiglath-pileser of Scrii)ture, whose date must certainly be about this time, and whose monu- ments show him to have been a self-raised sovereign. The exact date of the change cannot be positively fixed ; but it is prohahU/ marked by the a;ra of Nabo- nassar in Babylon, which synchronizes with B.C. 747. According to this view, Tiglath-pileser reigned certain- ly from B.C. 747 to 730. and jiossibly a few years longer, being succeeded by Shalmaneser at least as early as 725. In the Assyrian Chronoloc/iral Canon, of which there are four copies in the British Museum, all more or less fragmentary, the reign of Tiglath-pileser seems to be reckoned at either sixteen or seventeen years (see A themvum, No. 1812, p. 84). Kawlinson's latest compu- tation places his accession in 744 (iiic/. Aug. 23, 1863).
See SllALMANIiSER.
The circimistances under which Tiglath-pileser ob- tained the crown have not come down to us from any good authority; but there is a tradition on the subject which seems to deserve meiuion. Alexander Polyhis- tor, the friend of Sylla, who had access to the writings of Berosus, related that the first Assyrian dynasty con- tinued from Ninus, its founder, to a certain Beleiis (Pnl), and that he was succeeded by Heletaras, a man of low rank, a mere vine-dresser {(jivrovpyoc), who had the charge of the gardens attached to the royal palace. Beletaras, he said, having acquired the sovereignty in an extraordinary way, fixed it in his own family, in which it continued- to the time of the destruction of Nineveh (fV. Hist. Gr. iii, 210). It can scarcely be doubted that Beletaras here is intended to represent Tiglath-pileser, Beletar being, in fact, another mode of expressing the native Pal-tsira or PaUi-tsir (Oppert), which the Hebrews represented by Pileser. Whether there is any truth in the tradition may, perhaps, be doubted. It bears too near a resemblance to the Ori- ental stories of Cyrus, Gyges, Amasis, and others, to have in itself much claiin to our acceptance. On the other hand, as above mentioned, it harmonizes with the remarkable fact— unparalleled in the rest of the Assyrian records — that Tiglath-pileser is absolutely silent on the subject of his ancestrv, neither mentioning his father's name nor making any allusion whatever to his birth, descent, or parentage.