Assyria

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country of Assur or Ashur
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


Assyr'ia. Assyria was a great and powerful country lying on the Tigris, Gen_2:14, the capital of which was Nineveh. Gen_10:11, etc. It derived its name apparently from Asshur, the son of Shem, Gen_10:22, who in later times was worshipped by the Assyrians as their chief god.
Extent. — The boundaries of Assyria differed greatly at different periods, Probably, in the earliest times, it was confined to a small tract of low country lying chiefly on the left bank of the Tigris. Gradually its limits were extended, until it came to be regarded as comprising the whole region between the Armenian mountains (lat. 37 30') upon the north, and upon the south the country about Baghdad (lat. 33 30'). Eastward its boundary was the high range of Zagros, or mountains of Kurdistan; westward it was, according to the views of some, bounded by the Mesopotamian desert, while according to others it reached the Euphrates.
General character of the country. — On the north and east, the high mountain-chains of Armenia and Kurdistan are succeeded by low ranges of limestone hills of a somewhat arid aspect. To these ridges, there succeeds at first an undulating zone of country, well watered and fairly productive, which extends in length for 250 miles, and is interrupted only by a single limestone range. Above and below this barrier is an immense level tract, now for the most part a wilderness, which bears marks of having been in early times well cultivated and thickly peopled throughout.
Original peopling. — Scripture informs us that Assyria was peopled from Babylon, Gen_10:11, and both classical tradition and the monuments of the country agree in this representation.
Date of the foundation of the kingdom. — As a country, Assyria was evidently known to Moses. Gen_2:14; Gen_25:18; Num_24:22; Num_24:24. The foundation of the Assyrian empire was probably not very greatly anterior to B.C. 1228.
History. — The Mesopotamian researches have rendered it apparent that the original seat of government was not at Nineveh, but at Kileh-Sherghat, on the right bank of the Tigris. The most remarkable monarch of the earlier kings was called Tiglath-pileser. He appears to have been king towards the close of the twelfth century, and thus to have been contemporary with Samuel.
Afterwards, followed Pul, who invaded Israel in the reign of Menahem, 2Ki_15:29, about B.C. 770, and Shalmaneser who besieged Samaria three years, and destroyed the kingdom of Israel B.C. 721, himself or by his successor Sargon, who usurped the throne at that time. Under Sargon, the empire was as great as at any former era, and Nineveh became a most beautiful city. Sargon's son Sennacherib became the most famous of the Assyrian kings. He began to reign 704 B.C. He invaded the kingdom of Judea in the reign of Hezekiah.
He was followed by Esarhaddon, and he by a noted warrior and builder, Sardanapalus. In Scripture, it is remarkable that we hear nothing of Assyria after the reign of Esarhaddon, and profane history is equally silent until the attacks began which brought about her downfall.
The fall of Assyria, long previously prophesied by Isaiah, Isa_10:5-19, was effected by the growing strength and boldness of the Medes, about 625 B.C. The prophecies of Nahum and Zephaniah Zep_2:13-15 against Assyria were probably delivered shortly before the catastrophe.
General character of the empire. — The Assyrian monarchs bore sway over a number of petty kings through the entire extent of their dominions. These native princes were feudatories of the great monarch, of whom they held their crown by the double tenure of homage and tribute. It is not quite certain how far Assyria required a religious conformity from the subject people. Her religion was a gross and complex polytheism, comprising the worship of thirteen principal and numerous minor divinities, at the head of all of whom stood the chief god, Asshur, who seems to be the deified patriarch of the nation. Gen_10:22.
Civilization of the Assyrians. — The civilization of the Assyrians was derived originally from the Babylonians. They were a Shemitic race originally resident in Babylonia (which at that time was Cushite) and thus acquainted with the Babylonian inventions and discoveries, who ascended the valley of the Tigris and established in the tract immediately below the Armenian mountains a separate and distinct nationality. Still, as their civilization developed it became in many respects peculiar. Their art is of home growth. But they were still in the most important points barbarians. Their government was rude and inartificial, their religion coarse and sensual, and their conduct of war cruel.
Modern discoveries in Assyria. — (Much interest has been excited in reference to Assyria by the discoveries lately made there, which confirm and illustrate the Bible. The most important of them is the finding of the stone tablets or books which formed the great library at Nineveh, founded by Shalmaneser B.C. 860, but embodying tablets written 2000 years B.C. This library was more than doubled by Sardanapalus. These tablets were broken into fragments, but many of them have been put together and deciphered by the late Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum. All these discoveries of things hidden for ages, but now come to light, confirm the Bible. — Editor).
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

a kingdom of Asia, of the extent, origin, and duration of which very different accounts have been given by ancient writers. Ctesias and Diodorus Siculus affirm, that the Assyrian monarchy, under Ninus and Semiramis, comprehended the greater part of the known world: but, if this had been the case, it is not likely that Homer and Herodotus would have omitted a fact so remarkable. The sacred records intimate that none of the ancient states or kingdoms were of considerable extent; for neither Chederlaomer, nor any of the neighbouring princes, were tributary or subject to Assyria; and “we find nothing,” says Playfair, “of the greatness or power of this kingdom in the history of the judges and succeeding kings of Israel, though the latter kingdom was oppressed and enslaved by many different powers in that period.” It is therefore highly probable that Assyria was originally of small extent. According to Ptolemy, this country was bounded on the north by part of Armenia and Mount Niphates; on the west by the Tigris; on the south by Susiana; and on the east by part of Media and the mountains Choatra and Zagros. Of the origin, revolutions, and termination of Assyria, properly so called, and distinguished from the grand monarchy which afterward bore this appellation, the following account is given by Mr. Playfair, as the most probable:—”The founder of it was Ashur, the second son of Shem, who departed from Shinar, upon the usurpation of Nimrod, at the head of a large body of adventurers, and laid the foundations of Nineveh, where he resided, and erected a new kingdom, called Assyria, after his name, Gen_10:11. These events happened not long after Nimrod had established the Chaldean monarchy, and fixed his residence at Babylon; but it does not appear that Nimrod reigned in Assyria. The kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon were originally distinct and separate, Mic_5:6; and in this state they remained until Ninus conquered Babylon, and made it tributary to the Assyrian empire. Ninus, the successor of Ashur, Gen_10:11, seized on Chaldea after the death of Nimrod, and united the kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon. This great prince is said to have subdued Asia, Persia, Media, Egypt, &c. If he did so, the effects of his conquests were of no long duration; for, in the days of Abraham, we do not find that any of the neighbouring kingdoms were subject to Assyria.” Ninus was succeeded by Semiramis, a princess bold, enterprising, and fortunate; of whose adventures and exploits many fabulous relations have been recorded. Playfair is of opinion that there were two princesses of this name, who flourished at different periods; one, the consort of Ninus; and another, who lived five generations before Nitocris, queen of Nebuchadnezzar. Of the successors of Ninus and Semiramis nothing certain is recorded. The last of the ancient Assyrian kings was Sardanapalus, who was besieged in his capital by Arbaces, governor of Media, in concurrence with the Babylonians. These united forces defeated the Assyrian army, demolished the capital, and became masters of the empire, B.C. 821.
“After the death of Sardanapalus,” says Mr. Playfair, “the Assyrian empire was divided into three kingdoms; namely, the Median, Assyrian, and Babylonian. Arbaces retained the supreme authority, and nominated governors in Assyria and Babylon, who were honoured with the title of kings, while they remained subject and tributary to the Persian monarchs. Belesis,” he says, “a Chaldean priest, who assisted Arbaces in the conquest of Sardanapalus, received the government of Babylon as the reward of his services; and Phul was intrusted with that of Assyria. The Assyrian governor gradually enlarged the boundaries of his kingdom, and was succeeded by Tiglath-pileser, Salmanasar, and Sennacherib, who asserted and maintained their independence. After the death of Assar-haddon, the brother and successor of Sennacherib. the kingdom of Assyria was split, and annexed to the kingdoms of Media and Babylon. Several tributary princes afterward reigned in Nineveh; but we hear no more of the kings of Assyria, but of those of Babylon. Cyaxares, king of Media, assisted Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in the siege of Nineveh, which they took and destroyed, B.C. 606.”
The history of Assyria, deduced from Scripture, and acknowledged as the only authentic one by Sir Isaac Newton and many others, ascribes the foundation of the monarchy to Pul, or Phul, about the second year of Menahem, king of Israel, twenty-four years before the aera of Nabonassar, 1579 years after the flood, and, according to Blair, 769, or, according to Newton, 790, years before Christ. Menahem, having taken forcible possession of the throne of Israel by the murder of Shallum, 2Ki_15:10, was attacked by Pul, but prevented the hostilities meditated against him by presenting the invader with a thousand talents of silver. Pul, thus gratified, took the kingdom of Israel under his protection, returned to his own country, after having received voluntary homage from several nations in his march, as he had done from Israel, and became the founder of a great empire. As it was in the days of Pul that the Assyrians began to afflict the inhabitants of Palestine, 2Ki_11:9; 1Ch_5:26, this was the time, according to Sir Isaac Newton, when the Assyrian empire arose. Thus he interprets the words, “since the time of the kings of Assyria,”
Neh_9:32; that is, since the time of the kingdom of Assyria, or since the rise of that empire. But though this was the period in which the Assyrians afflicted Israel, it is not so evident that the time of the kings of Assyria must necessarily be understood of the rise of the Assyrian empire. However, Newton thus reasons; and observes, that “Pul and his successors afflicted Israel, and conquered the nations round about them; and upon the ruin of many small and ancient kingdoms erected their empire; conquering the Medes, as well as other nations.” It is farther argued, that God, by the Prophet Amos, in the reign of Jeroboam, about ten or twenty years before the reign of Pul, (see Amo_6:13-14,) threatened to raise up a nation against Israel; and that, as Pul reigned presently after the prophecy of Amos, and was the first upon record who began to fulfil it, he may be justly reckoned the first conqueror and founder of this empire. See 1Ch_5:26. Pul was succeeded on the throne of Assyria by his elder son Tiglath-pileser; and at the same time he left Babylon to his younger son Nabonassar, B.C. 747. Of the conquests of this second king of Assyria against the kings of Israel and Syria, when he took Damascus, and subdued the Syrians, we have an account in 2Ki_15:29; 2Ki_15:37; 2Ki_16:5; 2Ki_16:9; 1Ch_5:26; by which the prophecy of Amos was fulfilled, and from which it appears that the empire of the Assyrians was now become great and powerful. The next king of Assyria was Shalmaneser, or Salmanassar, who succeeded Tiglath-pileser, B.C. 729, and invaded Phoenicia, took the city of Samaria, and, B.C. 721, carried the ten tribes into captivity, placing them in Chalach and Chabor, by the river Gazon, and in the cities of the Medes,
2Ki_17:6. Shalmaneser was succeeded by Sennacherib, B.C. 719; and in the year B.C. 714, he was put to flight with great slaughter by the Ethiopians and Egyptians. In the year B.C. 711 the Medes revolted from the Assyrians; Sennacherib was slain, and he was succeeded by his son Esar-Haddon, Asser-haddon, Asordan, Assaradin, or Sarchedon, by which names he is called by different writers. He began his reign at Nineveh, in the year of Nabonassar 42; and in the year 68 extended it over Babylon. He then carried the remainder of the Samaritans into captivity, and peopled Samaria with captives brought from several parts of his kingdom; and in the year of Nabonassar 77 or 78 he seems to have put an end to the reign of the Ethiopians over Egypt. “In the reign of Sennacherib and Asser-Hadon,” says Sir I. Newton, “the Assyrian empire seems arrived at its greatness; being united under one monarch, and containing Assyria, Media, Apolloniatis, Susiana, Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Cilicia, Syria, Phoenicia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and part of Arabia; and reaching eastward into Elymais, and Paraetaecene, a province of the Medes, and if Chalach and Chabor be Colchis and Iberia, as some think, and as may seem probable from the circumcision used by those nations till the days of Herodotus, we are also to add these two provinces, with the two Armenias, Pontus, and Cappadocia, as far as to the river Halys: for Herodotus tells us that the people of Cappadocia, as far as to that river, were called Syrians by the Greeks, both before and after the days of Cyrus; and that the Assyrians were also called Syrians by the Greeks.” Asser-Hadon was succeeded in the year B.C. 668 by Saosduchinus. At this time Manasseh was allowed to return home, and fortify Jerusalem; and the Egyptians also, after the Assyrians had harassed Egypt and Ethiopia three years, Isa_20:3-4, were set at liberty. Saosduchinus, after a reign of twenty years, was succeeded at Babylon, and probably at Nineveh also, by Chyniladon, in the year B.C. 647. This Chyniladon is supposed by Newton to be the Nebuchadonosor mentioned in the book of Judith, Jud_1:1-15, who made war upon Arphaxad, king of the Medes; and, though deserted by his auxiliaries of Cilicia, Damascus, Syria, Phoenicia, Moab, Ammon, and Egypt, routed the army of the Medes, and slew Arphaxad. This Arphaxad is supposed to be either Dejoces or his son Phraortes, mentioned by Herodotus. Soon after the death of Phraortes, in the year B.C. 635, the Scythians invaded the Medes and Persians; and in 625, Nabopolassar, the commander of the forces of Chyniladon in Chaldea, revolted from him, and became king of Babylon. Chyniladon was either then or soon after succeeded at Nineveh by the last king of Assyria, called Sarac by Polyhistor. The authors of the Universal History suppose Saosduchinus to have been the Nebuchadonosor of Scripture, and Chyniladon or Chynaladan to have been the Sarac of Polyhistor. At length Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, married Amyit, the daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes, and sister of Cyaxares and by this marriage, the two families having contracted affinity, they conspired against the Assyrians. Nabopolassar being old, and Astyages dead, their sons Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxares led the armies of the two nations against Nineveh, slew Sarac, destroyed the city, and shared the kingdom of the Assyrians. This victory the Jews refer to the Chaldeans; the Greeks, to the Medes; Tobit, Tob_14:15, Polyhistor, and Ctesias, to both. With this victory commenced the great successes of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxares, and it laid the foundation of the two collateral empires of the Babylonians and Medes, which were branches of the Assyrian empire; and hence the time of the fall of the Assyrian empire is determined, the conquerors being then in their youth. In the reign of Josiah, when Zephaniah prophesied, Nineveh and the kingdom of Assyria were standing; and their fall was predicted by that Prophet, Zep_1:3; Zep_2:13. And in the end of his reign, Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, the successor of Psammitichus, went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates, to fight against Carchemish, or Circutium; and in his way thither slew Josiah, 2Ki_23:29; 2Ch_35:20; and therefore the last king of Assyria was not yet slain. But in the third and fourth years of Jehoiakim, the successor of Josiah, the two conquerors having taken Nineveh, and finished their war in Assyria, prosecuted their conquests westward; and, leading their forces against the king of Egypt, as an invader of their right of conquest, they beat him at Carchemish, and took from him whatever he had recently taken from the Assyrians, 2Ki_24:7; Jer_46:2; “and therefore we cannot err,” says Sir Isaac Newton, “above a year or two, if we refer the destruction of Nineveh, and fall of the Assyrian empire, to the third year of Jehoiakim,” or the hundred and fortieth, or according to Blair, the hundred and forty-first year of Nabonassar; that is, the year B.C. 607.
Of the government, laws, religion, learning, customs, &c, of the ancient Assyrians, nothing absolutely certain is recorded. Their kingdom was at first small, and subsisted for several ages under hereditary chiefs; and their government was simple. Afterward, when they rose to the sublimity of empire, their government seems to have been despotic, and the empire hereditary. Their laws were probably few, and depended upon the mere will of the prince. To Ninus we may ascribe the division of the Assyrian empire into provinces and governments; for we find that this institution was fully established in the reigns of Semiramis and her successors. The people were distributed into a certain number of tribes; and their occupations or professions were hereditary. The Assyrians had several distinct councils, and several tribunals for the regulation of public affairs. Of councils there were three, which were created by the body of the people, and who governed the state in conjunction with the sovereign. The first consisted of officers who had retired from military employments; the second, of the nobility; and the third, of the old men. The sovereigns also had three tribunals, whose province it was to watch over the conduct of the people. The Assyrians have been competitors with the Egyptians for the honour of having invented alphabetic writing. It appears, from the few remains now extant of the writing of these ancient nations, that their letters had a great affinity with each other. They much resembled one another in shape; and they ranged them in the same manner, from right to left.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

The land of Assyria was centred on the Tigris River in north-western Mesopotamia. Originally the land was known as Asshur, after the descendants of Asshur (son of Shem, son of Noah), who were among the early settlers in the region. Over many centuries they were joined by migrants from other regions in the neighbourhood, with the result that the race that developed was a mixture. The people were known by the name of the land, Asshur, and this name developed into Assyria. Among Assyria’s chief cities was Nineveh, which later became the capital (Gen_10:11-12; Gen_10:22).
Assyria was one of the great nations of the ancient world, but it did not extend its power into Palestine till after the rise of a new dynasty about 900 BC. Assyria then set out to become the dominant power in the region, and after a series of conquests of other nations it turned its attention to Syria and Israel. On one occasion God sent his prophet Jonah to preach to the Assyrians so that they might repent and be saved from a threatened invasion (Jonah 3). God was preserving Assyria to be his means of punishing Israel (Isa_10:5).

The history of Assyria as it concerns the Bible story may be summarized according to its kings, many of whom are mentioned in the Bible. In the following summary, ‘Israel’ refers to the northern part of the divided Israelite kingdom, ‘Judah’ to the southern part.
Kings of Assyria
Tiglath-pileser III, also known as Pul (who reigned 745-727 BC), was the first Assyrian king to launch a major attack on Israel, but he withdrew after taking a bribe from the Israelite king, Menahem. Menahem’s action was really a form of submission to Assyria, and it placed Israel under Assyrian influence (2Ki_15:17-20). The prophets predicted that Assyria would soon conquer Israel completely (Hos_10:5-8; Amo_7:17). The next king of Israel, Pekah, then combined with the king of Syria, Rezin, to attack Judah. Their aim was to take control of Judah and force it into a three-part alliance that might be able to withstand Assyria. But Judah’s king, Ahaz, appealed to Assyria for help, and Assyria responded by conquering Syria and much of Israel (in 732 BC; 2Ki_15:29; 2Ki_15:37; 2Ki_16:1-9; Isa_7:1-9; Isa_8:4; Isa_17:1-3).
Shalmaneser V (727-722 BC), in response to a rebellion by another Israelite king, Hoshea, overran Israel and attacked the Israelite capital, Samaria. The siege had been in progress three years when Shalmaneser died (2Ki_17:1-5).
Sargon II (722-705 BC), the new king of Assyria, wasted no time in bringing the siege to a triumphant conclusion. He crushed Samaria and took the people into captivity. This marked the end of the northern kingdom, Israel (in 722 BC; 2Ki_17:6). In the meantime the southern kingdom, Judah, because of the disastrous policies of Ahaz, had fallen under the domination of Assyria and was forced to pay it heavy taxes (Isa_7:17; Isa_8:5-8; Isaiah 20).
Sennacherib (705-681 BC) met opposition from Judah when the new Judean king, Hezekiah, refused to pay further taxes (in 701 BC; 2Ki_18:7). When Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, Hezekiah repented of his rebellion and offered to pay whatever the Assyrians demanded. Sennacherib took a large sum of money, but he deceived Hezekiah by refusing to lift the siege. Hezekiah appealed desperately to God for help, and God replied by miraculously destroying a large part of the Assyrian army. Sennacherib escaped home to Nineveh, but some time later he was assassinated (2Ki_18:13-37; 2Ki_19:1-35).
Esarhaddon (681-669 BC), son of Sennacherib, succeeded his father as king (2Ki_19:36-37). He was one the greatest kings to rule over Assyria. Soon after coming to the throne, he asserted his power over the weakened Judah (now ruled by the evil Manasseh) and over the more powerful Babylon (2Ch_33:11).
Ashurbanipal (669-627 BC) continued the work that his father had begun in expanding Assyrian power. Under him the Assyrian Empire spread to an extent it had never known before.
After Ashurbanipal’s death, Assyria’s Empire began to crumble. Babylon was rising to power, and with the establishment of a new Babylonian dynasty in 626 BC, the Assyrians were soon driven out of Babylon. The Babylonians went from conquest to conquest, till in 612 BC they destroyed the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, as foretold by God’s prophets. Nahum, in particular, rejoiced to see a fitting divine judgment fall on such a cruel and ruthless oppressor (Nah_1:1; Nah_3:1-7; cf. Isa_10:12; Zep_2:13; see also NINEVEH). Some in Assyria made an attempt at resistance but it did not last, and within three years Assyria ceased to be a nation.
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

a-sir?i-a:
I. Geography
II. Early History
III. Climate and Productions
IV. Population
V. Trade and Law
VI. Art
VII. Mechanics
VIII. Furniture, Pottery and Embroidery
IX. Language, Literature and Science
X. Government and Army
XI. Religion
XII. Excavations
XIII. Chronology
XIV. History
1. Early Period
2. The Older Empire
3. The Second Empire
4. Last Period and Fall of Empire
Literature
Assyria, a Greek name formed from Asshur (אשׁוּר, 'ashshūr; Ἀσσούρ, Assoúr; Assyrian Assur): The primitive capital of the country.
I. Geography
The origin of the city (now Kala'at Shergat), which was built on the western bank of the Tigris between the Upper and Lower Zab, went back to pre-Sem times, and the meaning of the name was forgotten (see Gen_2:14, where the Hiddekel or Tigris is said to flow on the eastern side of Asshur). To the North of the junction of the Tigris and Upper Zab, and opposite the modern Mossul, was a shrine of the goddess Ishtar, around which grew up the town of Nina, Ninua or Nineveh (now Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunus). Another early sanctuary of Ishtar was at Urbillu, Arbailu or Arbela, East of the Upper Zab. North of Nineveh was Dur-Sargina (now Khorsabad) where Sargon built his palace (720 bc). All this district was embraced in the kingdom of Assyria which extended from Babylonia northward to the Kurdish mountains and at times included the country westward to the Euphrates and the Khabur.
II. Early History
The whole region was known to the early Babylonians as Subartu. Its possession was disputed between Semitic Amurrû or AMORITES (which see) and a non-Semitic people from the North called Mitannians. The earlier high priests of Assur known to us bear Mitannian names. About 2500 bc the country was occupied by Babylonian Semites, who brought with them the religion, law, customs, script and Semitic language of Babylonia (Gen_10:11, Gen_10:12, where we should read ?He went forth to Asshur?; see Mic_5:6). The foundation of Nineveh, Rehoboth-'Ir (Assyrian Rebı̂t-Ali, ?the suburbs of the city?), Calah and Resen (Assyrian Res-eni, ?head of the spring?) is ascribed to them. The triangle formed by the Tigris and Zab, which enclosed these cities, was in later times included within the fortifications of the ?great city? (Gen_10:12; Jon_3:3). Assyria is always distinguished from Babylonia in the Old Testament, and not confounded with it as by Herodotus and other classical writers.
III. Climate and Productions
Assyria, speaking generally, was a limestone plateau with a temperate climate, cold and wet in winter, but warm during the summer months. On the banks of the rivers there was abundant cultivation, besides pasture-land. The apple of the North grew by the side of the palm-tree of the South. Figs, olives, pomegranates, almonds, mulberries and vines were also cultivated as well as all kinds of grain. Cotton is mentioned by Sennacherib (King, PSBA, December, 1909). The forests were tenanted by lions, and the plains by wild bulls (rimi, Hebrew re'ēmı̄m), wild asses, wild goats and gazelles. Horses were imported from Cappadocia; ducks were kept, and mastiffs were employed in hunting.
IV. Population
The dominant type was Semitic, with full lips, somewhat hooked nose, high forehead, black hair and eyes, fresh complexion and abundance of beard. In character the Assyrians were cruel and ferocious in war, keen traders, stern disciplinarians, and where religion was concerned, intense and intolerant. Like the Ottoman Turks they formed a military state, at the head of which was the king, who was both leader in war and chief priest, and which offered a striking contrast to theocratic state of theBabylonians. It seems probable that every male was liable to conscription, and under the Second Empire, if not earlier, there was a large standing army, part of which consisted of mercenaries and recruits from the subject races. One result of this was the necessity for constant war in order to occupy the soldiery and satisfy their demands with captured booty; and the result, as in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, was military revolution, with the seizure of the throne by the successful general. As might be expected, education was confined to the upper classes, more especially to the priests and scribes.
V. Trade and Law
As far back as the age of Abraham, when Assyria was still a dependency of Babylonia, trade was carried on with Cappadocia and an Assyrian colony of merchants settled at Kara Eyuk near Kaisariyeh. Down the Euphrates came the silver, copper and bronze of Asia Minor, together with horses. Cedar wood was brought from Mount Amanus, and there was already trade, through Syria, with the Mediterranean. Nineveh itself was probably founded in the interests of the trade with the North. In later days commercial reasons had much to do with the efforts of the Assyrian kings to conquer eastern Asia Minor and the Mediterranean coast of Syria and Pal: under the Second Empire no pains were spared to obtain possession of the Phoenician cities and divert their commerce into Assyrian hands. Hence the importance of the capture of the Hittite stronghold, Carchemish, by Sargon in 717 bc, as it commanded the road to Syria and the passage across the Euphrates. Nineveh had at that time already become a great resort of merchants, among whom the Semitic Arameans were the most numerous. Aramaic, accordingly, became the language of trade, and then of diplomacy (compare 2Ki_18:26), and commercial documents written in cuneiform were provided with Aramaic dockets. As in Babylonia, land and houses were leased knd sold, money was lent at interest, and the leading firms employed numerous damgari or commercial agents.
Assyrian law was, in general, derived from Babylonia and much of it was connected with trade. The code of Khammu-rabi (Code of H̬ammurabi) or AMRAPHEL (which see) underlay it, and the same system of judicial procedure, with pleading before judges, the hearing of witnesses, and an appeal to the king, prevailed in both countries.
VI. Art
Unlike Babylonia, Assyria abounded in stone; the brick buildings of Babylonia, accordingly, were replaced by stone, and the painted or tiled walls by sculptured slabs. In the bas-reliefs discovered at Nineveh three periods of artistic progress may be traced. Under Assur-nazir-pal the sculpture is bold and vigorous, but the work is immature and the perspective faulty. From the beginning of the Second Empire to the reign of Esar-haddon the bas-reliefs often remind us of embroidery in stone. Attempts are made to imitate the rich detail and delicate finish of the ivory carvings; the background is filled in with a profusion of subjects, and there is a marked realism in the delineation of them. The third period is that of Assur-bani-pal, when the overcrowding is avoided by once more leaving the background bare, while the animal and vegetable forms are distinguished by a certain softness, if not effeminacy of tone. Sculpture in the round, however, lagged far behind that in relief, and the statuary of Assyria is very inferior to that of Babylonia. It is only the human-headed bulls and winged lions that can be called successful: they were set on either side of a gate to prevent the entrance of evil spirits, and their majestic proportions were calculated to strike the observer with awe (compare the description of the four cherubim in Ezek 1).
In bronze work the Assyrians excelled, much of the work being cast. But in general it was hammered, and the scenes hammered in relief on the bronze gates discovered by Mr. Rassam at Balaw?t near Nineveh are among the best examples of ancient oriental metallurgy at present known. Gold and silver were also worked into artistic forms; iron was reserved for more utilitarian purposes. The beautiful ivory carvings found at Nineveh were probably the work of foreign artificers, but gems and seal cylinders were engraved by native artists in imitation of those of Babylonia, and the Babylonian art of painting and glazing tiles was also practiced. The terra-cotta figures which can be assigned to the Assyrian period are poor. Glass was also manufactured.
VII. Mechanics
The Assyrians were skilled in the transport of large blocks of stone, whether sculptured or otherwise. They understood the use of the lever, the pulley and the roller, and they had invented various engines of war for demolishing or undermining the walls of a city or for protecting the assailants. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, has been found at Kouyunjik: it must have been useful to the scribes, the cuneiform characters inscribed on the tablets being frequently very minute. Water was raised from the river by means of a shaduf.
VIII. Furniture, Pottery and Embroidery
The furniture even of the palace was scanty, consisting mainly of couches, chairs, stools, tables, rugs and curtains. The chairs and couches were frequently of an artistic shape, and were provided with feet in the form of the legs of an ox. All kinds of vases, bowls and dishes were made of earthenware, but they were rarely decorated. Clothes, curtains and rugs, on the other hand, were richly dyed and embroidered, and were manufactured from wool and flax, and (in the age of the Second Empire) from cotton. The rug, of which the Persian rug is the modern representative, was a Babylonian invention.
IX. Language, Literature and Science
The Assyrian language was Semitic, and differed only dialectically from Semitic Babylonian. In course of time, however, differences grew up between the spoken language and the language of literature, which had incorporated many Summerian words, and retained grammatical terminations that the vernacular had lost, though these differences were never very great. Assyrian literature, moreover, was mainly derived from Babylonia. Assur-bani-pal employed agents to ransack the libraries of Babylonia and send their contents to Nineveh, where his library was filled with scribes who busied themselves in copying and editing ancient texts. Commentaries were often written upon these, and grammars, vocabularies and interlinear translations were compiled to enable the student to understand the extinct Sumerian, which had long been the Latin of Semitic Babylonia. The writing material was clay, upon which the cuneiform characters were impressed with a stylus while it was still moist: the tablet was afterward baked in the sun or (in Assyria) in a kiln. The contents of the library of Nineveh were very various; religion, mythology, law, history, geography, zoology, philology, mathematics, astronomy, astrology and the pseudo-science of omens were all represented in it, as well as poetry and legendary romance. See NINEVEH, LIBRARY OF.
X. Government and Army
Assyria was a military kingdom which, like the Northern Kingdom of Israel, had established itself by a successful revolt from Babylonia. In contradistinction to Babylonia, which was a theocratic state, the king being subordinate to the priest, the Assyrian king was supreme. Whereas in Babylonia the temple was the chief public building, in Assyria the royal palace dominated everything, the temple being merely a royal chapel attached to the palace. The king, in fact, was the commander of an army, and this army was the Assyrian people. How far the whole male population was liable to conscription is still uncertain; but the fact that the wars of Assur-bani-pal so exhausted the fighting strength of the nation as to render it unable to resist the invaders from the North shows that the majority of the males must have been soldiers. Hence the constant wars partly to occupy the army and prevent revolts, partly for the sake of booty with which to pay it. Hence too, the military revolutions, which, as in the kingdom of Israel, resulted in changes of dynasty and the seizure of the throne by successful generals. The turtannu or commander-in-chief, who took the place of the king when the latter was unable or unwilling to lead his forces, ranked next to the sovereign. From the reign of Tiglath-pileser IV onward, however, the autocracy was tempered by a centralized bureaucracy, and in the provinces a civil governor was appointed by the side of the military commander. Among the high officials at court were the rab-saki or ?vizier,? and the rab-sa-risi or ?controller,? the rabhṣārı̄ṣ (RAB-SARIS (which see)) of the Old Testament.
The army consisted of cavalry, infantry, bowmen and slingers, as well as of a corps of charioteers. After the rise of the Second Empire the cavalry were increased at the expense of the chariotry, and were provided with saddles and boots, while the unarmed groom who had run by the side of the horse became a mounted archer. Sennacherib further clothed the horseman in a coat of mail. The infantry were about ten times as numerous as the calvary, and under Sargon were divided into bowmen and spearmen, the bowmen again being subdivided into heavy-armed and light-armed, the latter being apparently of foreign origin. Sennacherib introduced a corps of slingers, clad in helmet and cuirass, leather drawers and boots. He also deprived the heavy-armed bowmen of the long robes they used to wear, and established a body of pioneers with double-headed axes, helmets and buskins. Shields were also worn by all classes of soldiers, and the army carried with it standards, tents, battering-rams and baggage-carts. The royal sleeping-tent was accompanied by tents for cooking and dining. No pains, in fact, were spared to make the army both in equipment and discipline an irresistible engine of war. The terror it excited in western Asia is therefore easily intelligible (Isa_10:5-14; Nah_2:11-13; Nah_3:1-4).
XI. Religion
The state religion of Assyria was derived from BABYLONIA (which see) and in its main outlines is Babylonian. But it differed from the religion of Babylonia in two important respects: (1) The king, and not the high priest, was supreme, and (2) at the head of it was the national god Asur or Assur, whose high priest and representative was the king. Asur was originally Asir, ?the leader? in war, who is accordingly depicted as a warrior-god armed with a bow and who in the age when solar worship became general in Babylonia was identified with the sun-god. But the similarity of the name caused him to be also identified with the city of Asur, where he was worshipped, at a time when the cities of northern Babylonia came to be deified, probably under Hittite influence. Later still, the scribes explained his name as a corruption of that of the primeval cosmogonic deity An-sar, the upper firmament, which in the neo-Babylonian age was pronounced Assōr. The combination of the attributes of the warrior-god, who was the peculiar god of the commander of the army, with the deified city to which the army belonged, caused Assur to become the national deity of a military nation in a way of which no Babylonian divinity was capable. The army were ?the troops of Assur,? the enemies were ?the enemies of Assur? who required that they should acknowledge his supremacy or be destroyed. Assur was not only supreme over the other gods, he was also, in fact, unlike them, without father or wife. Originally, it is true, his feminine counterpart, Asirtu, the ASHERAH (which see) of the Old Testament, had stood at his side, and later literary pedants endeavored to find a wife for him in Belit, ?the Lady,? or Ishtar, or some other Babylonian goddess, but the attempts remained purely literary. When Nineveh took the place of Assur as the capital of the kingdom, Ishtar, around whose sanctuary Nineveh had grown up, began to share with him some of the honor of worship, though her position continued to be secondary to the end. This was also the case with the war-god Nin-ip, called Mas in Assyria, whose cult was specially patronized by the Assyrian kings. See BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA, RELIGION OF.
XII. Excavations
Rich, who had first visited Mossul in 1811, examined the mounds opposite in 1820 and concluded that they represented the site of Nineveh. The few antiquities he discovered were contained in a single case in the British Museum, but the results of his researches were not published until 1836. In 1843-45 the Frenchman Botta disinterred the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, 15 miles North of Nineveh, while at Nimrud (Calah) and Kouyunjik (Nineveh) Layard (1845-51) brought to light the ruins of the great Assyrian palaces and the library of Assur-bani-pal. His work was continued by Rassam (1851-54). Nothing more was done until 1873-75 when George Smith resumed excavations on the site of Assur-bani-pal's library; this was followed in 1877-79 by the excavations of Rassam, who discovered among other things the bronze gates of Balaw?t. At present a German expedition under Andrae is working at Kala'at Shergat (Assur) where the English excavators had already found the cylinder-inscription of Tiglath-pileser I (see SHERGHAT).
XIII. Chronology
The Assyrians reckoned time by means of limmi, certain officials appointed every New Year's day, after whom their year of office was named. The lists of limmi or ?Eponyms? which have come down to us form the basis of Assyrian chronology. Portions of a ?synchronous? history of Assyria and Babylonia have also been discovered, as well as fragments of two ?Babylonian Chronicles? written from a Babylonian point of view. The ?Eponym? lists carry back an exact dating of time to the beginning of the 10th century bc. Before that period Sennacherib states that Tiglath-pileser I reigned 418 years before himself. Tiglath-pileser, moreover, tells us that Šamaš-Ramman son of Isme-Dagon had built a temple at Assur 641 years earlier, while Shalmaneser I places Šamaš-Ramman 580 years before his own reign and Erisu 159 years before Šamaš-Ramman, though Esar-haddon gives the dates differently. Apart from the native documents, the only trustworthy sources for the chronology (as for the history) of Assyria are the Old Testament records. In return the ?Eponym? lists have enabled us to correct the chronology of the BOOKS OF KINGS (which see).
XIV. History
1. Early Period
Assyrian history begins with the high priests (patesis) of Assur. The earliest known to us are Auspia and Kikia, who bear Mitannian names. The early Semitic rulers, however, were subject to Babylonia, and under KH̬ammurabi (AMRAPHEL) Assyria was still a Babylonian province. According to Esar-haddon the kingdom was founded by Bel-bani son of Adasi, who first made himself independent; Hadad-nirari, however, ascribes its foundation to Zulili. Assyrian merchants and soldiers had already made their way as far as Cappadocia, from whence copper and silver were brought to Assyria, and an Assyrian colony was established at Kara Eyuk near Kaisariyeh, where the Assyrian mode of reckoning time by means of limmi was in use. In the age of Tell el-Amarna Letters (1400 bc) Assur-uballid was king of Assyria. He corresponded with the Egyptian Pharaoh and married his daughter to the Bah king, thereby providing for himself a pretext for interfering in the affairs of Babylonia. The result was that his son-in-law was murdered, and Assur-uballid sent troops to Babylonia who put the murderers to death and placed the grandson of the Assyrian king on the Babylonian throne. Babylonia had fallen into decay and been forced to protect herself from the rising power of Assyria by forming an alliance with Mitanni (Mesopotamia) and Egypt, and subsequently, when Mitanni had been absorbed by the Hittites, by practically becoming dependent on the Hittite king. Shalmaneser I (1300 bc), accordingly, devoted himself to crippling the Hittite power and cutting it off from communication with Babylonia. Campaign after campaign was undertaken against the Syrian and more eastern provinces of the Hittite empire, Malatiyeh was destroyed, and Carehemish threatened. Shalmaneser's son and successor Tukulti-Mas entered into the fruits of his father's labors. The Hittites had been rendered powerless by an invasion of the northern barbarians, and the Assyrian king was thus left free to crush Babylonia. Babylon was taken by storm, and for seven years Tukulti-Mas was master of all the lands watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. The image of Merodach was carried to Assur as a sign that the scepter had passed from Babylon to the parvenu Assyria. A successful revolt, however, finally drove the Assyrian conqueror back to his own country, and when he was murdered soon afterward by his own son, the Babylonians saw in the deed a punishment inflicted by the god of Babylon.
2. The Older Empire
A few years later the Assyrian king Bel-kudur-uzur lost his life in battle against the Babylonians, and a new dynasty appears to have mounted the Assyrian throne. About 1120 bc the Assyrian king was Tiglath-pileser I, whose successful wars extended the Assyrian empire as far westward as Cappadocia. In one of his campaigns he made his way to the Mediterranean, and received presents from the king of Egypt, which included a crocodile. At Assur he planted a botanical garden stocked with trees from the conquered provinces. After his death the Assyrian power declined; Pitru (Pethor, Num_22:5) fell into the hands of the Arameans and the road to the Mediterranean was blocked. A revival came under Assur-nazir-pal III (884-860 bc) who rebuilt CALAH (which see) and established the seat of the government at Nineveh, where he erected a palace. Various campaigns were carried on in the direction of Armenia and Comagene, the brutalities executed upon the enemy being described in detail by their conqueror. He then turned westward, and after receiving homage from the Hittite king of Carchemish, laid the Phoenicians under tribute. The road to the West was thus again secured for the merchants of Assyria. Assur-nazir-pal was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser II (859-825 bc), who, instead of contenting himself, like his father, with mere raids for the sake of booty, endeavored to organize and administer the countries which his armies had subdued. The famous bronze gates of Balaw?t were erected by him in commemoration of his victories. In his reign the Israelites and Syrians of Damascus first came into direct relation with the Assyrians. In 854 bc he attacked Hamath and at Qarqar defeated an army which included 1,200 chariots, 1,200 cavalry and 20,000 infantry from Ben-hadad of Damascus, 2,000 chariots, and 10,000 infantry from. ?Ahab of Israel,? besides considerable contingents from Ammon, Arvad, Arabia and elsewhere. In 842 bc Shalmaneser penetrated to Damascus where Hazael, the successor of Ben-hadad, who had already been defeated in the open field, was closely besieged. The surrounding country was ravaged, and ?Jehu son of Omri? hastened to offer tribute to the conqueror. The scene is represented on the Black Obelisk found at Nimrud and now in the British Museum. Shalmaneser's campaigns were not confined to the West. He overran Armenia, where the kingdom of Van had just been established, made his way to Tarsus in Cilicia, took possession of the mines of silver, salt and alabaster in the Taurus mountains among the Tabal or Tubal, and obliged the Babylonian king to acknowledge his supremacy. In his later days, when too old to take the field himself, his armies were led by the turtannu or commander-in-chief, and a rebellion, headed by his son Assur-danin-pal (Sardanapalus) broke out at home, where Nineveh and Assur were jealous of the preference shown for Calah. Nineveh, however, was captured and the revolt suppressed after two years' duration by another son, Šamaš-Ramman IV, who shortly afterward, on his father's death, succeeded to the throne (824-812 bc). His chief campaigns were directed against Media. His son Hadad-nirari III (811-783 bc) was the next king, whose mother was Sammu-ramat (Semiramis). He claims to have reduced to subjection the whole of Syria, including Phoenicia, Edom and Philistia, and to have taken Mari'a, king of Damascus, prisoner in his capital city. After this, however, Assyria once more fell into a state of decay, from which it was delivered by the successful revolt of a military officer Pulu (Pul), who put an end to the old line of kings and took the name of Tiglath-pileser IV (745-727 bc).
3. The Second Empire
Tiglath-pileser founded the second Assyrian empire, and made Assyria the dominant power in western Asia. The army was reorganized and made irresistible, and a new administrative system was introduced, the empire being centralized at Nineveh and governed by a bureaucracy at the head of which was the king. Tiglath-pileser's policy was twofold: to weld western Asia into a single empire, held together by military force and fiscal laws, and to secure the trade of the world for the merchants of Nineveh. These objects were steadily kept in view throughout the reigns of Tiglath-pileser and his successors. For the history of his reign, see TIGLATH-PILESER. In 738 bc Tiglath-pileser put an end to the independent existence of the kingdom of Hamath, Menahem of Samaria becoming his tributary, and in 733 bc he commenced a campaign against Rezin of Damascus which ended in the fall of Damascus, the city being placed under an Assyrian governor. At the same time the land of Naphtali was annexed to Assyria, and Yahu-khazi (Ahaz) of Judah became an Assyrian vassal, while in 731 bc, after the murder of Pekah, Hoshea was appointed king of Israel (compare 2 Ki 15 through 17). In 728 bc Tiglath-pileser was solemnly crowned at Babylon and the following year he died. His successor was another military adventurer, Shalmaneser IV (727-722 bc), whose original name was Ululā. While engaged in the siege of Samaria Shalmaneser died or was murdered, and the throne was seized by another general who took the name of Sargon (722-705 bc). Sargon, for whose history see SARGON, captured Samaria in 722 bc, carrying 27,290 of its inhabitants into captivity. A large part of his reign was spent in combating a great confederation of the northern nations (Armenia, Mann?, etc.) against Assyria. Carchemish, the Hittite capital, was captured in 717 bc, a revolt of the states in southern Palestine was suppressed in 711 bc and Merodach-Baladan, the Chaldean, who had possessed himself of Babylonia in 722 bc, was driven back to the marshlands at the head of the Persian Gulf. In 705 bc Sargon was murdered, and succeeded by his son SENNACHERIB (which see). Sennacherib (705-681 bc) had neither the military skill nor the administrative abilities of his father. His campaign against Hezekiah of Judah in 701 bc was a failure; so, also, was his policy in Babylonia which was in a constant state of revolt against his rule, and which ended in his razing the sacred city of Babylon to the ground in 689 bc. Nine years previously his troops had been called upon to suppress a revolt in Cilicia, where a battle was fought with the Greeks.
4. Last Period and Fall of the Empire
His son Esar-haddon, who succeeded him (681-669 bc) after his murder by two other sons on the 20th Tebet (compare 2Ki_19:37), was as distinguished a general and administrator as his father had been the reverse. For his history see ESARHADDON. Under him the Second Empire reached the acme of its power and prosperity. Babylon was rebuilt and made the second capital of the empire, Palestine became an obedient province, and Egypt was conquered (674 and 671 bc), while an invasion of the Cimmerians (Gomer) was repelled, and campaigns were made into the heart of both Media and Arabia. Esar-haddon died while on his way to repress a revolt in Egypt, and his son Assur-bani-pal succeeded him in the empire (669-626 bc), while another son Šamaš-šum-ukı̂n was appointed viceroy of Babylonia. Assur-bani-pal was a munificent patron of learning, and the library of Nineveh owed most of its treasures to him, but extravagant luxury had now invaded the court, and the king conducted his wars through his' generals, while he himself remained at home. The great palace at Kouyunjik (Nineveh) was built by him. Egypt demanded his first attention. Tirhakah the Ethiopian who had headed its revolt was driven back to his own country, and for a time there was peace. Then under Tandamane, Tirhakah's successor, Egypt revolted again. This time the Assyrian punishment was merciless. Thebes - ?No-amon? (Nah_3:8) - was destroyed, its booty carried away and two obelisks transported to Nineveh as trophies of victory. Meanwhile Tyre, which had rebelled, was forced to sue for peace, and ambassadors arrived from Gyges of Lydia asking for help against the Cimmerians. Elam still remained independent and endeavored to stir up disaffection in Babylonia. Against his will, therefore, Assur-bani-pal was obliged to interfere in the internal affairs of that country, with the result that the Elamites were finally overthrown in a battle on the Eulaeus beneath the walls of Susa, and the conquered land divided between two vassal kings. Then suddenly a revolt broke out throughout the greater part of the Assyrian empire, headed by Assur-bani-pal's brother, the viceroy of Babylonia. For a time the issue was doubtful. Egypt recovered its independence under Psammetichus, the founder of the 26th Dynasty (660 bc) who had received help from Lydia, but Babylonia was reconquered and Babylon after a long siege was starved out, Šamaš-šum-ukı̂n burning himself in the ruins of his palace. Elam remained to be dealt with, and an Assyrian army made its way to Susa, which was leveled to the ground, the shrines of its gods profaned and the bones of its ancient kings torn from their graves. Then came the turn of northern Arabia, where the rebel sheikhs were compelled to submit. But the struggle had exhausted Assyria; its exchequer was empty, and its fighting population killed. When the Cimmerians descended upon the empire shortly afterward, it was no longer in a condition to resist them. Under Assur-etil-ilāni, the son and successor of Assur-bani-pal, Calah was taken and sacked, and two reigns later, Sin-sar-iskun, the last king of Assyria, fell fighting against the Scythians (606 bc). Nineveh was utterly destroyed, never again to be inhabited, and northern Babylonia passed into the hands of Nabopolassar, the viceroy of Babylon, who had joined the northern invaders. Assur, the old capital of the country, was still standing in the age of Cyrus, but it had become a small provincial town; as for Nineveh and Calah, their very sites were forgotten.
Literature
See G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies of the Eastern World, 1862-67; Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquit?, II, 1884; Maspero, Struggle of the Nations, and Passing of the Empires, 3 volumes, 1894-1900; Rogers, A History of Babylonia and Assyria, 1900; Johns, Assyrian Deeds and Documents, 1898; Schrader, KAT, English translation by Whitehouse, 1885; Pinches, The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and Babylonia, 1902.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Assyr?ia. We must here distinguish between the country of Assyria, and the Assyrian empire. They are both designated in Hebrew by Asshur. The Asshurim of Gen_25:3, were, however, an Arab tribe; and in Eze_27:6, the word ashurim (in our version 'Ashurites') is only an abbreviated form of teashur, box-wood.
Assyria Proper
Assyria Proper was a region east of the Tigris, the capital of which was Nineveh. It derived its name from the progenitor of the aboriginal inhabitants?Asshur, the second son of Shem (Gen_10:22; 1Ch_1:17). Its limits in early times are unknown; but when its monarchs enlarged their dominions by conquest, the name of this metropolitan province was expended to the whole empire.
According to Ptolemy, Assyria was in his day bounded on the north by Armenia, the Gordi?an or Carduchian mountains, especially by Mount Niphates; on the west by the river Tigris and Mesopotamia; on the south by Susiana, or Chuzistan, in Persia, and by Babylonia; and on the east by a part of Media, and mounts Choathras and Zagros. It corresponded to the modern Kurdistan, or country of the Kurds (at least to its larger and western portion), with a part of the pashalik of Mosul. 'Assyria,' says Mr. Ainsworth (Researches in Assyria, Babylonia, and Chald?a, Lond. 1838), 'including Taurus, is distinguished into three districts: by its structure, into a district of plutonic and metamorphic rocks, a district of sedentary formations, and a district of alluvial deposits; by configuration, into a district of mountains, a district of stony or sandy plains, and a district of low watery plains: by natural productions, into a country of forests and fruit-trees, of olives, wine, corn, and pasturage, or of barren rocks; a country of mulberry, cotton, maize, tobacco, or of barren clay, sand, pebbly or rocky plains; and into a country of date-trees, rice, and pasturage, or a land of saline plants.' The northern part is little else then a mass of mountains, which, near Julamerk, rise to a very great height, Mount Jewar being supposed to have an elevation of 15,000 feet; in the south it is more level, but the plains are often burnt up with scorching heat, while the traveler, looking northward, sees a snowy alpine ridge hanging like a cloud in mid air. On the west this country is skirted by the great river Tigris, the Hiddekel of the Hebrews (Gen_2:14; Dan_10:4), noted for the impetuosity of its current [TIGRIS].
The most remarkable feature, says Ainsworth, in the vegetation of Taurus, is the abundance of trees, shrubs, and plants in the northern, and their comparative absence in the southern district. Besides the productions above enumerated, Kurdistan yields gall-nuts, gum-arabic, mastich, manna (used as sugar), madder, castor-oil, and various kinds of grain, pulse, and fruit. Rich informs us that a great quantity of honey, of the finest quality, is produced; the bees (comp. Isa_7:18, 'the bee in the land of Assyria') are kept in hives of mud. The naphtha springs, on the east of the Tigris, are less productive than those in Mesopotamia, but they are much more numerous. The zoology of the mountain district includes bears (black and brown), panthers, lynxes, wolves, foxes, marmots, dormice, fallow and red deer, roebucks, antelopes, etc. and likewise goats, but not (as was once supposed) of the Angora breed. In the plains are found lions, tigers, hyenas, beavers, jerboas, wild boars, camels, etc.
Ptolemy divides Assyria into six provinces. Farthest north lay Arrapachitis, south of it was Calakine, perhaps the Chalach of 2Ki_17:6; 2Ki_18:11. Next came Adiabene, so called from the above-mentioned rivers Dhab or Diab; it was so important a district of Assyria, as sometimes to give name to the whole country [ADIABENE]. North-east of it lay Arbelitis, in which was Arbela, famous for the battle in which Alexander triumphed over Darius. South of this lay the two provinces of Apolloniatis and Sittakene. The capital of the whole country was Nineveh, the Ninos of the Greeks, the Hebrew name being supposed to denote 'the abode of Ninos,' the founder of the empire. Its site is believed to have been on the east bank of the Tigris, opposite the modern town of Mosul, where there is now a small town called Nebbi Yunus (i.e. the prophet Jonah) [NINEVEH]. At the town of Al Kosh, N. of Mosul, tradition places the birth and burial of the prophet Nahum, and the Jews resort thither in pilgrimage to his tomb.
The greater part of the country which formed Assyria Proper is under the nominal sway of the Turks, who compose a considerable proportion of the population of the towns and larger villages, filling nearly all public offices, and differing in nothing from other Osmanlis. But the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, and of the whole mountain-tract that here divides Turkey from Persia, are the Kurds, from whom the country is now designated Kurdistan. They are still, as of old, a barbarous and warlike race, occasionally yielding a formal allegiance, on the west, to the Turks, and, on the east, to the Persians, but never wholly subdued; indeed, some of the more powerful tribes, such as the Hakkary, have maintained an entire independence. Some of them are stationary in villages, while others roam far and wide, beyond the limits of their own country, as nomadic shepherds; but they are all, more or less, addicted to predatory habits, and are regarded with great dread by their more peaceful neighbors. They profess the faith of Islam, and are of the Sunni sect. All travelers have remarked many points of resemblance between them and the ancient Highlanders of Scotland.
The Christian population is scattered over the whole region, but is found chiefly in the north. It includes Chaldeans, who form that branch of the Nestorians that adheres to the Church of Rome, a few Jacobites, or monophysite Syrians, Armenians, etc. But the most interesting portion is the ancient church of the primitive Nestorians, a lively interest in which has lately been excited in the religious world by the publications of the American missionaries, especially by a work entitled The Nestorians, by Asahel Grant, M.D. Lond. 1841. Besides the settlements of this people in the plain of Ooroomiah to the east, and in various parts of Kurdistan, where they are in a state of vassalage, there has been for ages an independent community of Nestorians in the wildest and most inaccessible part of the country. It lies at nearly equal distances from the lakes of Van and Ooroomiah, and the Tigris, and is hemmed in on every side by tribes of ferocious Kurds; but, entrenched in their fastnesses, the Nestorians have defied the storms of revolution and desolation that have so often swept over the adjacent regions; and in their character of bold and intrepid, though rude and fierce mountaineers, have so entirely maintained their independence unto the present day, as to bear among the neighbors the proud title of Ashiret, 'the tributeless.' The attempts lately made by Dr. Grant and others to prove that this interesting people are the descendants of the ten 'lost' tribes of Israel, cannot be regarded as successful, and will not bear the test of rigid examination. Another peculiar race that is met with in this and the neighboring countries is that of the Yezidees, whom Grant and Ainsworth would likewise connect with the ten tribes; but it seems much more probable that they are an offshoot from the ancient Manichees, their alleged worship of the Evil Principle amounting to no more than a reverence which keeps them from speaking of him with disrespect. Besides the dwellers in towns, and the agricultural population, there are a vast number of wandering tribes, not only of Kurds, but of Arabs, Turkomans, and other classes of robbers, who, by keeping the settled inhabitants in constant dread of property and life, check every effort at improvement; and, in consequence of this, and the influence of bad government, many of the finest portions of the country are little better than unproductive wastes.
The Assyrian Empire
No portion of ancient history is involved in greater obscurity than that of the empire of Assyria. In attempting to arrange even the facts deducible from Scripture, a difficulty presents itself at the outset, arising from the ambiguity of the account given of the origin of the earliest Assyrian state in Gen_10:11. After describing Nimrod, son of Cush, 'as a mighty one in the earth' the historian adds (Gen_10:10), 'And the beginning of his kingdom (or rather, the first theatre of his dominion) was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar,' i.e. Babylonia. Then follow the words:?'Out of that land went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh,' or (as it is in the margin) 'out of that land he (i.e. Nimrod) went out into Assyria and builded Nineveh.' Looking at the entire context, and following the natural current of the writer's thoughts, we shall find that the second translation yields the most congruous sense. It likewise agrees with the native tradition, that the founder of the Assyrian monarchy and the builder of Nineveh was one and the same person, viz. Ninus, from whom it derived its name, and in that case the designation of Nimrod (the Rebel) was not his proper name, but an opprobrious appellation imposed on him by his enemies. Modern local tradition likewise connects Nimrod with Assyria.
But though Nimrod's 'kingdom' embraced the lands both of Shinar and Asshur, we are left in the dark as to whether Babylon or Nineveh became the permanent seat of government, and consequently, whether his empire should be designated that of Babylonia or that of Assyria. No certain traces of it, indeed, are to be found in Scripture for ages after its erection. In the days of Abraham, we hear of a king of Elam (i.e. Elymais, in the south of Persia) named Chedorlaomer, who had held in subjection for twelve years five petty princes of Palestine (Gen_14:4), and who, in consequence of their rebellion, invaded that country along with three other kings, one of whom was 'Amraphel, king of Shinar.' It is possible that Chedorlaomer was an Assyrian viceroy, and the others his deputies; for at a later period the Assyrian boasted, 'Are not my princes altogether kings?' (Isa_10:8). Yet some have rather concluded from the narrative, that by this time the monarchy of Nimrod had been broken up, or that at least the seat of government had been transferred to Elam. Be this as it may, the name of Assyria as an independent state does not again appear in Scripture till the closing period of the age of Moses. Balaam, a seer from the northern part of Mesopotamia, in the neighborhood of Assyria, addressing the Kenites, a mountain tribe on the east side of the Jordan, 'took up his parable,' i.e. raised his oracular, prophetic chant, and said, 'Durable is thy dwelling-place! Yea in a rock puttest thou thy nest: nevertheless, wasted shall be the Kenite, until Asshur shall lead them captive,' Num_24:21-22. The prediction found its fulfillment in the Kenites being gradually reduced in strength (comp. 1Sa_15:6), till they finally shared the fate of the trans-Jordanite tribes, and were swept away into captivity by the Assyrians (1Ch_5:26; 2Ki_16:9; 2Ki_19:12-13; 1Ch_2:55). But as a counterpart to this, Balaam next sees a vision of retaliatory vengeance on their oppressors, and the awful prospect of the threatened devastations, though beheld in far distant times, extorts from him the exclamation, 'Ah! who shall live when God doeth this? For ships shall come from the coast of Chittim, and shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber, but he also [the invader] shall perish forever,' Num_24:23-24. This is not without obscurity; but it has commonly been supposed to point to the conquest of the regions that once formed the Assyrian empire, first by the Macedonians from Greece, and then by the Romans, both of whose empires were in their turn overthrown.
In the time of the Judges, the people of Israel became subject to a king of Mesopotamia, Chushanrishathaim (Jdg_3:8), who is by Josephus styled King of the Assyrians; but we are left in the same ignorance as in the case of Chedorlaomer, as to whether he was an independent sovereign or only a vicegerent for another. The first king of Assyria alluded to in the Bible, is he who reigned at Nineveh when the prophet Jonah was sent thither (Jon_3:6). Hales supposes him to have been the father of Pul, the first Assyrian monarch named in Scripture, and dates the commencement of his reign B.C. 821. By that time the metropolis of the empire had become 'an exceeding great' and populous city, but one pre-eminent in wickedness (Jon_1:2; Jon_3:3; Jon_4:11).
The first expressly recorded appearance of the Assyrian power in the countries west of the Euphrates is in the reign of Menahem, king of Israel, against whom 'the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul (or Phul), king of Assyria' (1Ch_5:26), who invaded the country, and exacted a tribute of a thousand talents of silver 'that his hand' i.e. his favor, might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand' (2Ki_15:19-20). Newton places this event in the year B.C. 770, in the twentieth year of Pul's reign, the commencement of which he fixes in the year B.C. 790. About this period we find the prophet Hosea making frequent allusions to the practice both of Israel and Judea, to throw themselves for support on the kings of Assyria. The supposition of Newton is adopted by Hales, that at Pul's death his dominions were divided between his two sons, Tiglathpileser and Nabonassar, the latter being made ruler at Babylon, from the date of whose government or reign the celebrated era of Nabonassar took its rise, corresponding to B.C. 747. When Ahaz, king of Judah, was hard pressed by the combined forces of Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Damascene-Syria, he purchased Tiglathpileser's assistance with a large sum, taken out of his own and the Temple treasury. The Assyrian king accordingly invaded the territories of both the confederated kings, and annexed a portion of them to his own dominions, carrying captive a number of their subjects (2Ki_15:29; 2Ki_16:5-10; 1Ch_5:26; 2Ch_28:16; Isa_7:1-11; comp. Amo_1:5; Amo_9:7). His successor was Shalman (Hos_10:4), Shalmaneser or Salmanasser, the Enemessar of the apocryphal book Tobit (Tob_1:2). He made Hoshea, king of Israel, his tributary vassal (2Ki_17:3); but finding him secretly negotiating with So or Sobaco (the Sabakoph of the monuments), king of Egypt, he laid siege to the Israelitish capital, Samaria, took it after an investment of three years (B.C. 719), and then reduced the country of the ten tribes to a province of his empire, carrying into captivity the king and his people, and settling Cuthaeans from Babylonia in their room (2Ki_17:3-6; 2Ki_18:9-11). Hezekiah, king of Judah, seems to have been for a time his vassal (2Ki_18:7). The empire of Assyria seems now to have reached its greatest extent, having had the Mediterranean for its boundary on the west, and including within its limits Media and Kir on the north, as well as Elam on the south (2Ki_16:9; 2Ki_17:6; Isa_20:6). In the twentieth chapter of Isaiah (Isa_20:1), there is mention of a king of Assyria, Sargon, in whose reign Tartan besieged and took Ashdod in Philistia. He is supposed to have been the successor of Shalmaneser, and to have had a short reign of two or three years. His attack on Egypt may have arisen from the jealousy which the Assyrians entertained of that nation's influence over Palestine ever since the negotiation between its King So, and Hoshea, king of Israel. From many incidental expressions in the book of Isaiah we can infer that there was at this time a strong Egyptian party among the Jews, for that people are often warned against relying for help on Egypt, instead of simply confiding in Jehovah (Isa_30:2; Isa_31:1; comp. Isa_20:5-6). The result of Tartan's expedition against Egypt and Ethiopia was predicted by Isaiah while that general was yet on the Egyptian frontier at Ashdod (Isa_20:1-4); and it is not improbable that it is to this Assyrian invasion that the prophet Nahum refers when he speaks (Nah_3:8-10) of the subjugation of No, i.e. No-Ammun, or Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, and the captivity of its inhabitants. The occupation of the country by the Assyrians, however, must have been very transient, for in the reign of Sargon's successor, Sennacherib, or Sancherib, we find Hezekiah, king of Judah, throwing off the Assyrian yoke, and allying himself with Egypt (2Ki_18:7; 2Ki_18:21). This brought against him Sennacherib with a mighty host, which, without difficulty, subdued the fenced cities of Judah, and compelled him to purchase peace by the payment of a large tribute. But 'the treacherous dealer dealt very treacherously' (Isa_33:1); and, notwithstanding the agreement, proceeded to invest Jerusalem. In answer, however, to the prayers of the 'good king' of Judah, the Assyrian was diverted from his purpose, partly by the 'rumour' (Isa_37:6) of the approach of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, and partly by the sudden and miraculous destruction of a great part of his army (2Ki_18:13-37; 2 Kings 19; Isaiah 36, 37). He himself fled to Nineveh, where, in course of time, when worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, he was slain by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer, the parricides escaping into the land of Armenia?a fact which is preserved in that country's traditionary history [ARARAT].
Sennacherib was succeeded by his son Esarhaddon, or Assarhaddon, who had been his father's viceroy at Babylon (2Ki_19:37; Isa_37:38). Hales regards him as the first Sardanapalus. The only notice taken of him in Scripture is that he settled some colonists in Samaria (Ezr_4:2), and as (at Ezr_4:10) that colonization is ascribed to the 'great and noble Asnaapper,' it is supposed that that was another name for Esarhaddon, but it may have been one of the great officers of his empire. It seems to have been in his reign that the captains of the Assyrian host invaded and ravaged Judah, carrying Manasseh, the king, captive to Babylon. The subsequent history of the empire is involved in almost as much obscurity as that of its origin and rise. The Medes had already shaken off the yoke, and the Chaldeans soon appear on the scene as the dominant nation of Western Asia; yet Assyria, though much reduced in extent, existed as an independent state for a considerable period after Esarhaddon. The last monarch was Sarac, or Sardanapalus II (B.C. 636), in whose reign Cyaxares, king of Media, and Nabopolassar, viceroy of Babylon, combined against Assyria, took Nineveh, and, dividing what remained of the empire between them, reduced Assyria Proper to a province of Media (B.C. 606).
In this brief sketch of the history of the Assyrian empire, we have mainly followed the writers of the Old Testament, from whom alone any consistent account can be derived.
The political constitution of the Assyrian empire was no doubt similar to that of other ancient states of the East, such as Chaldea and Persia. The monarch, called 'the great king' (2Ki_18:19; Isa_36:4), ruled as a despot, surrounded with his guards, and only accessible to those who were near his person. Under him there were provincial satraps, called in Isa_10:8, 'princes' of the rank and power of ordinary kings. The great officers of the household were commonly eunuchs. The religion of the Assyrians was, in its leading features, the same as that of the Chaldeans, viz. the symbolical worship of the heavenly bodies, especially the planets. In Scripture there is mention of Nisroch, Adrammelech, Anammelech, Nebchaz, Tartak, etc. as the names of idols worshipped by the natives either of Assyria Proper or of the adjacent countries which they had subdued.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Assyria
(Α᾿σσυρία). We must here distinguish between the country of Assyria and the Assyrian empire. They are both designated in Hebrew by אִשּׁוּר, ASSHUR, the people being also described by the same term, only that in the latter sense it is masculine, in the former feminine. In the Septuagint it is commonly rendered by Α᾿σσούρ or Α᾿σσύριοι, and in the Vulgate by Assur and Assyrii, and seldom or never by Α᾿σσυρία, or Assyria. The Asshurim (Α᾿σσουριείμ) of Gen_25:3, were an Arab tribe; and at Eze_27:6, the word ashurim (in our version “Ashurites") is only an abbreviated form of tedshur, box-wood. Assyria derived its name from the progenitor of the aboriginal inhabitants-Asshur, the second son of Shem (Gen_10:22; 1Ch_1:17), a different person from Ashchur, son of Hezron, and Caleb's grandson (1Ch_2:24; 1Ch_4:5). In later times it is thought that Asshur was worshipped as their chief god- by the Assyrians (Layard, Nin. and Bab. p. 537). SEE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
The extent of Assyria differed greatly at different periods. Probably in the earliest times it was confined to a small tract of low country between the Jebel Maklub, or Taurus range on the N., and the Lesser Zab (Zab Asfal) toward the S., lying chiefly on the immediate bank of the Tigris. Gradually its limits were extended, until it came to be regarded as comprising the whole region between the Armenian mountains (lat. 37° 30') upon the north, and upon the south the country about Bagdad (lat. 33° 30'). Eastward its boundary was the high range of Zagros, or mountains of Kurdistan; westward it naturally retained the Tigris as its boundary, although, according to the views of some, it was eventually bounded by the Mesopotamian desert, while, according to others, it reached the Euphrates. Taking the greatest of these dimensions, Assyria may be said to have extended in a direction from N.E. to S.W. a distance of nearly 500 miles, with a width varying from 350 to 100 miles. Its area would thus a little exceed 100,000 square miles, or about equal that of Italy.
I. ASSYRIA PROPER.
1. Ancient Notices of its Position.-This was a great and powerful country, lying on the east of the Tigris (Gen_2:14), the capital of which was Nineveh (Gen_10:11, etc.). Its exact limits in early times are unknown; but when its monarchs enlarged their dominions by conquest, the name of this metropolitan province was extended to the whole empire. Hence, while Homer calls the inhabitants of the country north of Palestine Arimoi (evidently the Aramim or Aramesans of the Hebrews), the Greeks of a later period, finding them subject to the Assyrians, called the country Assyria, or (by contraction) Syria, a name which it has ever since borne. It is on this account that, in classical writers, the names Assyria and Syria are so often found interchanged (Henderson, On Isaiah p. 173; Hitzig, Begriff d. Krit. d. A lt. Test. p. 98); but it may be questioned whether in Hebrew "Asshur" and "Aram" are ever confounded. The same, however, cannot be affirmed of those parts of the Assyrian empire which lay east of the Euphrates, but west of the Tigris. The Hebrews, as well as the Greeks and Romans, appear to have spoken of them in a loose sense as being in Assyria, because in the Assyrian empire. Thus Isaiah (Isa_8:20) describes the Assyrians as those " beyond the river," i.e. east of the Euphrates, which river, and not the Tigris, is introduced at 8:7, as an image of their power.
In Gen_25:18, the locality of the Ishmaelites is described as being east of Egypt, " as thou goest to Assyria," which, however, could ;only be reached through Mesopotamia or Babylonia, and this idea best reconciles the apparent incongruity of the statement in the same book (ii, 14), that the Hiddekel, or Tigris, runs "on the east of Assyria," i.. e. of the Assyrian provinces of Mesopotamia and Babylonia; for there can be no doubt that, not only during the existence of the Assyrian monarchy, but long after its overthrow, the name of Assyria was given to those provinces, as having once formed so important a part of it. For example, in 2Ki_23:29, Nebuchadnezzar is termed the king of Assyria, though resident at Babylon (comp. Jer_2:18; Lam_5:6; Judith 17; Jdt_2:1); even Darius, king of Persia, is called, in Ezr_6:22, king of Assyria (comp. Plin. Hist. Nat. 19:19); and, on a similar principle, in 2Ma_1:19, the Jews are said to have been carried captive to Persia, i.e. Babylonia, because, as it had formerly been subject to the Assyrians, so it was afterward under the dominion of Persia. (Comp. Herodotus, i, 106, 178; iii, 5; 7:63; Strabo, ii, 84; 16:1; Arrian, vii; Exped. Alex. 7:21, 2; Ammianus Marcellinus, 23:20; 24:2; Justin, i, 2, 13.) One writer, Dionysius Periegetes (v, 975), applies the designation of Assyria even to Asia Minor, as far as the Black Sea. Yet, ultimately, this name again became restricted to the original province east of the Tigris, which was called by the Greeks Α᾿σσυρία (Ptolemy, 6:1), and more commonly Α᾿τουρία (Strabo, 16:507), or Α᾿τυρία (Dion Cassius, lxviii, 28), the latter being only a dialectic variety of pronunciation, derived from the Aramaean custom of changing s into t. A trace of the name is supposed to be preserved in that of a very ancient place, Athur, on the Tigris, from four to six hours N.E. of Mosul. Rich, in his Residence in Kurdistan (ii, 129), describes the ruins as those of the "city of Nimrod," and states that some of the better informed of the Turks at Mosul " said that it was Al Athur, or Ashur, from which the whole country was denominated.
2. Boundaries. — According to Ptolemy, Assyria was in his day bounded on the north by Armenia, the Gordieean or Carduchian mountains, especially by Mount Niphates; on the west by the River Tigris and Mesopotamia; on the south by Susiana, or Chuzistan, in Persia, and by Babylonia; and on the east by a part of Media, and Mounts Choathras and Zagros (Ptolemy, 6:1; Pliny, Hist. Nat. v, 13; Strabo, 16:736). It corresponded to the modern Kurdistan, or country of the Kurds (at least to its larger and western portion), with part of the pashalic of Mosul.
Toward the north Assyria bordered on the strong and mountainous region of Armenia, which may have been at times under Assyrian dominion, but was never reckoned an actual part of the country. (See 2Ki_19:37.) Toward the east her neighbors were originally a multitude of independent tribes, scattered along the Zagros chain, who have their fitting representatives in the modern Kurds and Lurs-the real sovereigns of that mountain range. Beyond these tribes lay Media, which ultimately subjected the mountaiieers, and was thereby brought into direct contactwith Assyria in this quarter. On the south, Elam or Susiana was the border state east of the Tigris, while Babylonia occupied the same position between the rivers. West of the Euphrates was Arabia, and higher up Syria, and the country of the Ilittites, which last reached from the neighborhood of Damascus to Antitaurus and Amanus.-Smith.
3. General geographical character. — The country within these limits is of a varied aspect. "Assyria," says Mr. Ainsworth (Researches in Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldcea, Lond. 1838, p. 17), "including Taurus, is distinguished into three districts: by its structure, into a district of plutonic and metamorphic rocks, a district of sedimentary formations, and a district of alluvial deposits; by configuration, into a district of mountains, a district of stony or sandy plains, and a district of low watery plains; by natural productions, into a country of forests and fruit-trees, of olives, wine, corn, and pasturage, or of barren rocks; a country of mulberry, cotton, maize, tobacco, or of barren clay, sand, pebbly or rocky plains; and into a country of date-trees, rice, and pasturage, or a land of saline plants." The northern part is little else than a mass of mountains, which, near Julamerk, rise to a very great height, Mount Jewar being supposed to have an elevation of 15,000 feet; in the south it is more level, but the plains are often burnt up with scorching heat, while the traveller, looking northward, sees a snowy alpine ridge hanging like a cloud in mid air. On the west this country is skirted by the great river Tigris, the Hiddekel of the Hebrews (Gen_2:14; Dan_10:4), the Dijlah of the Arabs, noted for the impetuosity of its current. Its banks, once the residence of mighty kings, are now desolate, covered, like those of its twin :river the Euphrates, with relics of ancient greatness, in the ruins of fortresses, mounds, and dams, which had been erected for the defence or irrigation of the country. Niebuhr describes a large stone dam at the :castle of Nimrod, eight leagues below Mosul, as a work of great skill and labor, and now venerable for its antiquity; and some suppose that it was from the circumstance of so many canals from the Tigris watering the country, and rendering it fruitful, that that river received the Arabic name of Nahres-Salam, the River of Peace, i.e. prosperity. It leaves the high land at some distance above Tekrit, rushing with great velocity through a pass in the Hamrine mountains. In its progress along Assyria, the Tigris receives from that country, besides other rivers, two rapid mountain streams-the Great and Little Zab (Arab. Dhab, i.e. Wolf), called by the Greeks the Lykos, or Wolf, and the Capros, or Wild Boar. The Greater Zab (called by the Kurds Zerb), used to be laid down as a different river from the Hakkary, but Dr. Grant found them to be identical; and he likewise detected an error of Kinneir, in representing the Bitlissu as the same as the Khabur, whereas they are different streams. (See Grant's Nestorians, p. 46.)
On the north and east the high mountain chains of Armenia and Kurdistan are succeeded by low ranges of limestone hills of a somewhat arid aspect, which detach themselves from the principal ridges, running parallel to them, and occasionally inclosing, between their northern or north-eastern flank and the main mountain-line, rich plains and fertile valleys. To these ridges there succeeds at first an undulating zone of country, well watered and fairly productive, which finally sinks down with some suddenness upon the great Mesopotamian plain, the modern district of ElJezireh. This vast flat, which extends in length for 250 miles from the latitude of Mardin (370 20') to that of Tekrit (34° 33'), and which is in places of nearly equal width, is interrupted only by a single limestone range, a narrow ridge rising abruptly out of the plain, which, splitting off from Zagros in lat. 33° 30', may be traced under the names of Sarazur, Hamrin, and Sinjar, from Iwan in Luristan nearly to Rakkah on the Euphrates. " From all parts of the plain the Sinjar is a beautiful object. Its limestone rooks, wooded here and there with dwarf oak, are of a rich golden color; and the numberless ravines which furrow its sides form ribs of deep purple shadow" (Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 265). Above and below this barrier, stretching southward and westward farther than the eye can reach, and extending northward and eastward 70 or 80 miles to the hill-country before mentioned, is an immense level tract, now for the most part a wilderness, scantily watered on the right bank of the Tigris, but abundantly supplied on the left, which bears marks of having been in early times throughout well cultivated and thickly peopled.
This plain is not alluvial, and most parts of it are even considerably raised above the level of the rivers. It is covered in spring time with the richest vegetation, presenting to the eye a carpet of flowers, varying in hue from day to day; but as the summer advances it is parched up, and gradually changes to an arid and yellow waste, except along the courses of the rivers. All over this vast flat, on both sides of the Tigris, rise "grass-covered heaps, marking the site of ancient habitations" (Layard, p. 245). Mr. Layard counted from one spot nearly a hundred (Nineveh and its Remains, i7 315); from another above 200 of these lofty mounds (Nin. and Bab. p. 245). Those which have been examined have been uniformly found to present appearances distinctly connecting them with the remains of Nineveh. SEE NINEVEH. It may therefore be regarded as certain that they belong to the time of Assyrian greatness, and thus they will serve to mark the extent of the real Assyrian dominion. They are numerous on the left bank of the Tigris from Bavian to the Diyaleh, and on the right they thickly stud the entire country both north and south of the Sinjar range, extending eastward beyond the Khabour (Layard, chs. xii-xiv), northward to Mardin, and southward to the vicinity of Bagdad.-Smith.
4. Natural Productions.-The most remarkable feature, says Ainsworth, in the vegetation of Taurus, is the abundance of trees, shrubs, and plants in the northern, and their comparative absence in the southern district. Besides the productions above enumerated, Kurdistan yields gall-nuts, gum Arabic, mastich, manna (used as sugar), madder, castor-oil, and various kinds of grain, pulse, and fruit. An old traveller, Rauwolf, who passed by Mosul in 1574, dwells with admiration on the finely-cultivated fields on the Tigris, so fruitful in corn, wine, and honey as to remind him of the Assyrian Rabshakeh's description of his native country in 2Ki_18:32. Rich informs us that a great quantity of honey, of the finest quality, is produced; the bees (comp. Isa_7:18, "the bee in the land of Assyria") are kept in hives of mud. The naphtha springs on the east of the Tigris are less productive than those in Mesopotamia, but they are much more numerous. The zoology of the mountain district includes bears (black and brown), panthers, lynxes, wolves, foxes, marmots, dormice, fallow and red deer, roebucks, antelopes, etc., and likewise goats, but not (as was once supposed) of the Angora breed. In the plains are found lions, tigers, hyenas, beavers, jerboas, wild boars, camels, etc.-Kitto.
5. Subdivisions and Principal Towns. — Assyria in Scripture is commonly spoken of in its entirety, and unless the Huzzab (הֻצִּב) of Nahum (Nah_2:7) is an equivalent for the Adiabene of the geographers, no name of a district can be said to be mentioned. The classical geographers, on the contrary, divided Assyria into a number of regions-Strabo (16:1 and 4) into Aturia, Arbelitis, Artacene, Apolloniatis, Chalonitis, Dolomene, Calachene, Adiabene, Mesopotamia, etc.; Ptolemy (vi, 1) into Arrapachitis, Adiabene, the Garamcean country, Apolloniatis, Arbelitis, the country of the Sambatce, Calacine, and Sittacene. These provinces appear to be chiefly named from cities, as Arbelitis from Arbela; Calcine (or Calachene) from Calah or Halah (Gen_10:11); Apolloniatis from Apollonia; Sittacene from Sittace, etc. Adiabene, however, the richest region of all, derived its appellation from the Zab (Diab) rivers on which it lay, as Ammianus Iarcellinus informs us xxiii, 20). Ptolemy (Gen_10:18) made Mesopotamia (which he understood literally as the whole country between the Euphrates and the Tigris) distinct from Assyria, just as the sacred writers distinguish " Aram-Naharain" from "Asshur." Strabo (xvi, 1) extended Assyria to the Euphrates, and even across it into Arabia and Syria! Farthest north lay the province Arrapachitis, so called, as Rosenmuller conjectures, from Arphaxad, Asshur's brother (Gen_10:22-24; but see Vater on Genesis, i, 151). South of it was Calacine, by Strabo written Calachene; perhaps the Chalach of 2Ki_17:6; 2Ki_18:11. Next came Adiabene, so important a district of Assyria as sometimes to give name to the whole country. SEE ADIABENE.
In Aramsean it is called Chadyab or Hadyab. North-east of it lay Arbelitis, in which was Arbela (now Arbil, of which see an account in Rich's Kurdistan, ii, 14; and Appendix, No. i and ii), famous for the battle in which Alexander triumphed over Darius. South of this lay the two provinces of Apolloniatis and Sittacene. The country of Kir, to which the Assyrians transported the Damascene Syrians (2Ki_16:9; Amo_1:5), was probably the region about the river Kur (the Cyrus of the Greeks), i.e. Iberia and Georgia.
The chief cities of Assyria in the time of its greatness appear to be the following: Nineveh, which is marked by the mounds opposite Mosul (Nebbi-Yunus and Kouyunjik); Calah or Halah, now Nimrud; Asshur, now Kaleh Sherghat; Sargina, or Dur-Sargina, now Khorsabad; Arbela, still Arbil; Opis, at the junction of the Diyaleh with the Tigris; and Sittace, a little farther down the latter river, if this place should not rather be reckoned to Babylonia. (See the Journal of the Geograph. Soc. vol. 9:part i, p. 35, Lond. 1830.) The capital of the whole country was Nineveh, the Ninos of the Greeks (Herodot. i, 102), the Hebrew name being supposed to denote "the abode of Ninus," the founder of the empire. Its site is believed to have been on the east bank of the Tigris, opposite the modern town of Mosul, where there is now a small town called Nebbi Yunus (i.e. the prophet Jonah), the ruins around which were explored by Rich, and are described in his work on Kurdistan. SEE NINEVEH.
In Gen_10:11-12, three other cities are mentioned along with Nineveh, viz. Rechoboth Ir, i.e. the city of Rehoboth, the locality of which is unknown. Calach (in our version Calah), either a place in the province of Calachene above mentioned, or the modern Hulwan, called by the Syrians Chalach; and Resen, " a great city between Nineveh and Calach," which Bochart identifies with the Larissa of Xenophon (Anabasis, iii, 47), and Michaelis with a place called Ressin (Rish-Ain, caput fontis?), destroyed by the Arabs A.D. 772. Rich notices an old place and convent of that name near Mosul (ii, 81). At the town of Al-Kosh, north of Mosul, tradition places the birth and burial of the prophet Nahum, and the Jews resort thither in pilgrimage to his tomb. But, though he is styled an Elkoshite (Nah_1:1), his denunciation against Assyria and Nineveh were evidently uttered in Palestine; and St. Jerome fixes his birthplace at Helkesei, a village in Galilee.-Kitto; Smith. SEE JONAH.
6. Present Condition. — The greater part of the country which formed Assyria Proper is under the nominal sway of the Turks, who compose a considerable proportion of the population of the towns and larger villages, filling nearly all public offices, and differing in nothing from other Osmanlis. The Pasha of Mosul is nominated by the Porte, but is subject to the Pasha of Bagdad; there is also a pasha at Solymaneah and Akra; a bey at Arbil, a mussellim at Kirkuk, etc. But the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, and of the whole mountain tract that here divides Turkey from Persia, are the Kurds, the Carduchii of the Greeks; from them a chain of these mountains were anciently called the Carduchian or Gordymean, and from them now the country is designated Kurdistan. Klaproth. in his Asia Polyglotta (Paris, 1823, 4to, p. 75), derives the name from the Persian root kurd, i.e. strong, brave. They are still, as of old, a barbarous and warlike race, occasionally yielding a formal allegiance, on the west, to the Turks, and on the east to the Persians, but newer wholly subdued; indeed, some of the more powerful tribes, such as the Hakkary, have maintained an entire independence. Some of them are stationary in villages, while others roam far and wide, beyond the limits of their own country, as nomadic shepherds; but they are all more or less addicted to predatory habits, and are regarded with great dread by their more peaceful neighbors. They profess the faith of Islam, and are of the Sunite sect. All travellers have remarked many points of resemblance between them and the ancient Highlanders of Scotland. (See Mr. Ainsworth's second work, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, etc., Lond. 1842, 2 vols.)
The Christian population is scattered over the whole region, but is found chiefly in the north. It includes Chaldaeans, who form that branch of the Nestorians that adheres to the Church of Rome, a few Jacobites, or monophysite Syrians, Armenians, etc. But the most interesting portion is the ancient Church of the primitive Nestorians, a lively interest in which has lately been excited in the religious world by the publications of the American missionaries (see, especially, The Nestorians, by Asahel Grant, M.D., Lond. 1841; and compare Dr. E. Robinson, in the Am. Bibl. Repos. Oct. 1841; Jan. 1842; Rev. J. Perkins, ib. Jan. 1843; and Residence in Persia, N. Y. 1843). SEE NESTORIANS.
Another peculiar race that is met with in this and the neighboring countries is that of the Yezidecs (q.v.), whom Grant and Ainsworth would likewise connect with the ten tribes; but it seems much more probable that they are an offshoot from the ancient Manichees, their alleged worship of the Evil Principle amounting to no more than a reverence which keeps them from speaking of him with disrespect (see Homes, in the Am. Bibl. Repos. for April, 1842). Besides the dwellers in towns and the agricultural population, there are a vast number of wandering tribes, not only of Kurds, but of Arabs, Turkomans, and other classes of robbers, who, by keeping the settled inhabitants in constant dread of property and life, check every effort at improvement; and, in consequence of this and the influence of bad government, many of the finest portions of the country are little better than unproductive wastes. A copy of a famous history of Kurdistan, entitled Tarikh al-Akrad (Akrad being the collective name of the people), was procured by Mr. Rich when in the country, and is now, along with the other valuable Oriental MSS. of that lamented traveller, preserved in the British Museum. SEE KURDISTAN.
II. THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. — No portion of ancient history is involved in greater obscurity than that of the empire of Assyria. Nor is this obscurity in any very great degree removed by the recent remarkable discoveries of the monumental records of the nation by Layard, Botta, and Loftus.
1. Scriptural Notices of Assyrian History. — In attempting to arrange even the facts deducible from Scripture, a difficulty presents itself at the outset, arising from the ambiguity of the account given of the origin of the earliest Assyrian state in Gen_10:11. After describing Nimrod, son of Cush, " as a mighty one in the earth," the historian adds (Gen_10:10), " And the beginning of his kingdom (or, rather, the first theatre of his dominion) was Babel, and Erech, and Accad; and Calneh, in the land of Shinar," i.e. Babylonia. Then follow the words (as it is in the margin), " Out of that land he (i.e. Nimrod) went out into Assyria and builded Nineveh," (comp. Noldius, Concord. Hebr. Particles, ed. Tymp., p. 223.) Moses is enumerating the descendants of Ham, and it is not likely that he would interrupt the' details to give an account of Asshur, a son of Shem, whose posterity are not introduced till Gen_10:21. Besides, in the circumstance of Asshur leaving one country to settle in another, there was nothing remarkable, for that was the case with almost all Noah's grandchildren. But if we understand it of Nimrod, both the connection and the sense will be manifest. The design obviously is to represent him as a potent monarch and ambitious conqueror. His brethren, the other sons of Cush, settled in the south, but he, advancing northward, first seized on Babylonia, and, proceeding thence into Assyria (already partially colonized by the Asshurites, from whom it took its name), he built Nineveh and the other strongholds mentioned, in order to secure his conquests.
This view is confirmed by a passage in Mic_5:6, where, predicting the overthrow of Assyria by the Medes and Babylonians, the prophet says, "They shall devour the land of Asshur with the sword: even the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof" (comp. Mic_5:5). It likewise agrees with the native tradition (if we can depend on the report of Ctesias), that the founder of the Assyrian monarchy and the builder of Nineveh was one and the same person, viz., Ninus, from whom it derived its name (q. d. Nin's Abode), and in that case the designation of Nimrod (the Rebel) was not his proper name, but an opprobrious appellation imposed on him by his enemies. Modern tradition likewise connects Nimrod with Assyria; for while, as we have seen, the memory of Asshur is preserved in the locality of Athur, that place is also termed the "city of Nimrufd," and (as the above-mentioned dam on the Tigris is styled Nimrod's Castle) Rich informs us that "the inhabitants of the neighboring village of Deraweish consider him as their founder." He adds, that the village story-tellers have a book they call the Kisseh-Nimrud, or "Tales of-Nimrod."
It is true that the Authorized Version of Gen_10:11 is countenanced by most of the ancient translators and by Josephus; but, on the other hand, the one we have preferred is that of the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, and of Jerome; and (among the moderns) of Bochart, Hyde, Marsham, Wells, Faber, Hales, and many others. Yet, though Nimrod's " kingdom" embraced the lands both of Shinar and Asshur, we are left in the dark as to whether Babylon or Nineveh became the permanent seat of government, and consequently whether his empire should be designated that of Babylonia or that of Assyria. No certain traces of it, indeed, are to be found in Scripture for ages after its erection. In the days of Abraham, we hear of a king of Elam (i.e. Elymais, in the south of Persia) named Chedorlaomer, who had held in subjection for twelve years five petty princes of Palestine (Gen_14:4), and who, in consequence of their rebellion, invaded that country along with three other kings, one of whom was "Amraphel, king of Shinar." Josephus says "the Assyrians had then dominion over Asia;" and he styles these four kings merely commanders in the Assyrian army. It is possible that Chedorlaomer was an Assyrian viceroy, and the others his deputies; for at a later period the Assyrian boasted, "Are not my princes altogether kings ?" (Isa_10:8.) Yet some have rather concluded from the narrative that by this time the monarchy of Nimrod had been broken up, or that at least the seat of government had been transferred to Elam. Be this as it may, the name of Assyria as an independent state does not again appear in Scripture till the closing period of the age of Moses. Balaam, a seer from the northern part of Mesopotamia, in the neighborhood of Assyria, addressing the Kenites, a mountain tribe on the east side of the Jordan, "took up his parable," i.e. raised his oracular, prophetic .chant, and said, " Durable is thy dwelling- place! yea, in a rock puttest thou thy nest: nevertheless, wasted shall be the Kenite, until Asshur shall lead them captive." In this verse, besides the play upon the word ken (the Hebrew for a nest), the-reader may remark the striking contrast .drawn between the permanent nature of the abode, and the transient possession of it by the occupants. The prediction found its fulfilment in the Kenites being gradually reduced in strength (comp. 1Sa_15:6), till they finally shared the fate of the Transjordanite tribes, and were swept away into captivity by the Assyrians (1Ch_5:26; 2Ki_16:9; 2Ki_19:12-13; 1Ch_2:55.)
But, as a counterpart to this, Balaam next sees a vision of retaliatory vengeance on their oppressors, and the awful prospect of the threatened devastations, though beheld in far distant times, extorts from him the exclamation, "Ah! who shall live when God doeth this ? For ships shall come from the coast of Chittim, and shall afflict ASSHUR, and shall afflict Eber, but he also [the invader] shall perish forever." This is not without obscurity; but it has commonly been supposed to point to the conquest of the regions that once formed the Assyrian empire, first by the Macedonians from Greece, and then by the Romans, both of whose empires were in their turn overthrown. In the time of the Judges, the people of Israel became subject to a king of Mesopotamia, Chushan-rishathaim (Jdg_3:8), who is by Josephus styled King of the Assyrians; but we are left in the same ignorance as in the case of Chedorlaomer as to whether he was an independent sovereign or only a vicegerent for another. The eighty-third Psalm (Jdg_3:9) mentions Ashur as one of the nations leagued against Israel; but as the date of that composition is unknown, nothing certain can be founded on it. The first king of Assyria alluded to in the Bible is he who reigned at Nineveh when the prophet Jonah was sent thither (Jon_3:6). Hales supposes him to have been the father of Pul, the first Assyrian monarch named in Scripture, and dates the commencement of his reign B.C. 821. By that time the metropolis of the empire had become "an exceeding great" and populous city, but one pre-eminent in wickedness (Jon_1:2; Jon_3:3; Jon_4:11). SEE JONAH.
The first expressly recorded appearance of the Assyrian power in the countries west of the Euphrates is in the reign of Menahem, king of Israel, against whom "the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul or (Phul), king of Assyria" (1Ch_5:26), who invaded the country, and exacted a tribute of a thousand talents of silver "that his hand," i.e. his favor,
"might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand" (2Ki_15:19-20). Newton places this event in the year B.C. 770, in the twentieth year of Pul's reign, the commencement of which he fixes in the year B.C. 790. As to his name, we find the syllable Pal, Pel, or Pul entering into the names of several Assyrian kings (e.g. Pileser, Sardanapal-us); and hence some connect it with the Persian " balm," i.e. high, exalted, and think it may have been part of the title which the Assyrian monarchs bore. Hales conjectures that Pul may have been the second Belus of the Greeks, his fame having reached them by his excursions into Western Asia. About this period we find the prophet Hosea making frequent allusions to the practice both of Israel and Judsea, of throwing themselves for support on the kings of Assyria. In ch. 5:13; 10:6, our version speaks of their specially seeking the protection of a "King Jareb," but the original there is very obscure; and the next Assyrian monarch mentioned by name is Tiglath-pileser. The supposition of Newton is adopted by Hales, that at Pul's death his dominions were divided between his two sons, Tiglath-pileser and Nabonassar, the latter being made ruler at Babylon, from the date of whose government or reign the celebrated era of Nabonassar took its rise, corresponding to B.C. 747. The name of the other is variously written Tiglath and Tilgath, Pileser and Pilreser: the etymology of the first is unknown (some think it has a reference to the river Dijlath, i.e. the Tigris). Pileser signifies in Persian "exalted prince." When Ahaz, king of Judah, was hard pressed by the combined forces of Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of DamasceneSyria, he purchased Tiglath-pileser's assistance with a large sum, taken out of his own and the Temple treasury. The Assyrian king accordingly invaded territories of both the confederate kings, and annexed a portion of them to his own dominions, carrying captive a number of their subjects (2Ki_15:29; 2Ki_16:5-10; 1Ch_5:26; 2Ch_28:16; Isa_7:1-11; comp. Amo_1:9).
His successor was Shalman (Hos_10:4), Shalmaneser or Salmanassar, the Enemessar of the apocryphal book of Tobit (ch. 1:2). He made Hoshea, king of Israel, his tributary vassal (2Ki_17:3); but finding him secretly negotiating with So or Sabaco (the Sabakoph of the monuments), king of Egypt, he laid siege to the Israelitish capital, Samaria, took it after an investment of three years (B.C. 720), and then reduced the country of the ten tribes to a province of his empire, carrying into captivity the king and his people, and settling Cutheeans from Babylonia in their room (2Ki_17:3-6; 2Ki_18:9; 2Ki_18:11). Hezekiah, king of Judah, seems to have been for some time his vassal (2Ki_18:7); and we learn from the Tyrian annals, preserved by Menatlder of Ephesus (as cited by Josephus, Ant. 10:14, 2), that he subdued the whole of Phoenicia, with the exception of insular Tyre, which successfully resisted a siege of five years. The empire of Assyria seems now to have reached its greatest extent, having had the Mediterranean for its boundary on the west, and including within its limits Media and Kir on the north, as well as Elam on the south (2Ki_16:9; 2Ki_17:6; Isa_20:6). In the twentieth chapter of Isaiah (Isa_20:1) there is mention of a king of Assyria, Sargon, in whose reign Tartan besieged and took Ashdod in Philistia (B.C. 715) SEE SARGON; and as Tartan is elsewhere spoken of (2Ki_18:17) as a general of Sennacherib, some have supposed that Sargon is but another name of that monarch, while others would identify him either with Shalmaneser, or with Esarhaddon, Sennacherib's successor. But the correctness of all these conjectures may fairly be questioned; and we adhere to the opinion of Gesenius (Comment. zu Jesa. in loc.), that Sargon was a king of Assyria, who succeeded Shalmaneser, and had a short reign of two or three years. He thinks the name may be equivalent to Ser-jaumeh, "Prince of the Sun." Von Bohlen prefers the derivation of sergun, "gold-colored." His attack on Egypt may have arisen from the jealousy which the Assyrians entertained of that nation's influence over Palestine ever since the negotiation between its king So, and Hoshea, king of Israel. From many incidental expressions in the book of Isaiah we can infer that there was at this time a strong Egyptian party among the Jews, for that people are often warned against relying for help on Egypt, instead of simply confiding in Jehovah (Isa_30:2; Isa_31:1; comp. 20:5, 6). The result of Tartan's expedition against Egypt and Ethiopia was predicted by Isaiah while that general was yet on the Egyptian frontier at Ashdod (Isa_20:1-4); and it is not improbable that it is to this Assyrian invasion that the prophet Nahum refers when he speaks (Nah_3:8-10) of the subjugation of No, i.e. No-Ammun, or Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, and the captivity of its inhabitants. The occupation of the country by the Assyrians, however, must have been very transient, for in the reign of Sapgon's successor, Sennacherib, or Sancherib, we find Hezekiah, king of Judah, throwing off the Assyrian yoke, and allying himself with Egypt (2Ki_18:7; 2Ki_18:21). This brought against him Sennacherib with a mighty host, which, without difficulty, subdued the fenced cities of Judah, and compelled him to purchase peace by the payment of a large tribute. But "the treacherous dealer dealt very treacherously" (Isa_33:1), and, notwithstanding the agreement, proceeded to invest Jerusalem. In answer, however, to She prayers of the " good king" of Judah, the Assyrian was diverted from his purpose, partly by the "rumor" (Isa_37:6) of the approach of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, and partly by the sudden and miraculous destruction of a great p rt of his army (2Ki_18:13-37; 2 Kings 19; Isaiah 36, 37). He himself fled (B.C. 712) to Nineveh, where, in course of time, when worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, he was slain by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer, the parricides escaping into the land of Armenia-a fact which is preserved in that country's traditionary history. SEE ARARAT.
Regarding the period of Sennacherib's death chronologists differ. Hales, following the apocryphal book of Tobit (i, 21), places it fifty-five days after his return from his Jewish expedition; but Gesenius (Comment. zu Jesa. p. 999) has rendered it extremely probable that it did not take place till long after. He founds this opinion chiefly on a curious fragment of Berosus, preserved in the Armenian translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius. It states that, after Sennacherib's brother had governed Babylon as the Assyrian viceroy, the sovereignty was successively usurped by Acises, Merodach, or BerodachBaladan (Isa_39:1; 2Ki_20:12), and Elibus or Belibus. But, after three years, Sennacherib regained dominion in Babylonia, and appointed as viceroy his own son Assordan, the Esarhaddon of Scripture.' This statement serves to explain how there was in Hezekiah's time a king at Babylon, though, both before and after, it was subject to Assyria. SEE SENNACHERIB.
Sennacherib was succeeded by- his son Esarhaddon, or Assarhaddon, who had been his father's viceroy at Babylon (2Ki_19:37; Isa_37:38). He is the Sacherdon or Sarchedon of Tobit (i, 21), and the Asaradinus of Ptolemy's Canon (B.C. 680). Hales regards him as the first Sardanapalus. The chief notice taken of him in Scripture is that he settled some colonists in Samaria (Ezr_4:2), and as (at Ezr_4:10) that colonization is ascribed to the "great and noble Asnapper," it is supposed that that was another name for Esarhaddon, but it may have been one of the great officers of his empire. It seems to have been in his reign that the captains of the Assyrian host invaded and ravaged Judah, carrying Manasseh, the king, captive to Babylon. The subsequent history of the empire is involved in almost as much obscurity as that of its origin and rise. The Medes had already shaken off the yoke, and the Chaldaeans soon appear on the scene as the dominant nation of Western Asia; yet Assyria, though much reduced in extent, existed as an independent state for a considerable period after Esarhaddon. Hales, following Syncellus, makes him succeeded by a prince called Ninus (B.C. 667), who had for his successor Nebuchodonosor (B.C. 658), for the transactions of whose reign, including the expedition of his general Holofernes into Judesa, Hales relies on the apocryphal book of Judith, the authority of which, however, is very questionable. The last monarch was Sarac, or Sardanapalus II (B.C. 636), in whose reign Cyaxares, king of Media, and Nabopolassar, viceroy of Babylon, combined against Assyria, took Nineveh, and, dividing what remained of the empire between them, reduced Assyria Proper to a province of Media (B.C. 606).
2. Comparison with ancient Historians and the Intimations on the Monuments. —The original sources of profane history on this subject are Herodotus and Ctesias; but every attempt to reconcile their statements with those of Scripture, or even with each other, has hitherto failed. The former fixes the duration of the Assyrian dominion in Upper Asia at 520 years (Herod. i, 95), while the latter again assigns to the Assyrian empire, from Ninus to Sardanapalus, no less a period than 1305 years (Diodor. Sicul. ii, 21). The authority of Ctesias, however, is very generally discredited (it was so even by Aristotle), though he has recently found a defender in Dr. Russell, in his Connection of Sacred and Profane History. The truth is (as is remarked by the judicious Heeren), that the accounts of both these historians are little better than mere traditions of ancient heroes and heroines (witness the fables about Semiramis!), without any chronological data, and entirely in the style of the East. To detail all the fanciful hypotheses which have been propounded, with the view of forming out of them a consistent and coherent narrative, forms no part of our present design. Considerable light, however, has been thrown, by recent researches, upon certain points of this history.-Kitto.
(1.) The original Settlement of the Country. —Scripture informs us that Assyria was peopled from Babylon (Gen_10:11), and both classical tradition and the monuments of the country agree in this representation. In Herodotus (i, 7), Ninus, the mythic founder of Nineveh, is the son (descendant) of Belus, the mythic founder of Babylon-a tradition in which the derivation of Assyria from Babylon, and the greater antiquity and superior position of the latter in early times, are shadowed forth sufficiently. That Ctesias (ap. Diod. Sic. ii, 7). inverts the relation, making Semiramis (according to him, the wife and successor of Ninus) found Babylon, is only one out of a thousand proofs of the untrustworthy character of his history. The researches recently carried on in the two countries clearly show, not merely by the statements which are said to have been deciphered on the historical monuments, but by the whole character of the remains discovered, that Babylonian greatness and civilization was earlier than Assyrian, and that, while the former was of native growth, the latter was derived from the neighboring country. The cuneiform writing, for instance, which is rapidly punched with a very simple instrument upon moist clay, but is only with much labor and trouble inscribed by the chisel upon rock, must have been invented in a country where men "had brick for stone' (Gen_11:3), and have thence passed to one where the material was unsuited for it. It may be observed, also, that while writing occurs in a very rude form in the earlier Babylonian ruins (Loftus's Chaldaa, p. 169), and gradually improves in the later ones, it is in Assyria uniformly of an advanced type, having apparently been introduced there after it had attained to perfection.
(2.) Date of the Foundation of the Kingdom.-With respect to the exact time at which Assyria became a separate and independent country, there is an important difference between classical authorities, Herodotus placing the commencement of the empire almost a thousand years later than Ctesias! Scripture does but little to determine the controversy; that little, however, is in favor of the former author. Geographically, as a country, Assyria was evidently known to Moses (Gen_2:14; Gen_25:18; Num_24:22; Num_24:24); but it does not appear in Jewish history as a kingdom till the reign of Menahem (B.C. cir. 770). In Abraham's time (B.C. 2000 ?) it is almost certain that there can have been no Assyrian kingdom, or its monarch would have been found among those who invaded Palestine with Chedorlaomer' (Gen_14:1). In the time of the early judges (B.C. 1575), Assyria, if it existed, can have been of no great strength; for Chushan-Rishathaim, the first of the foreigners who oppressed Israel (Jdg_3:8), is master of the whole country between the rivers (Aram Naharim=" Syria between the two rivers"). These tacts militate strongly against the views of Ctesias, whose numbers produce for the founding of the empire the date of B.C. 2182 (Clinton, Fast. Hell. i, 263). The more modest account of Herodotus is at once more probable in itself, more agreeable to Scripture, and more in accordance with the native writer Berosus. Herodotus relates that the Assyrians were "lords of Asia" for 520 years, when their empire was partially broken up by a revolt of the subject- nations (i, 95). After a period of anarchy, the length of which he does not estimate, the Median kingdom was formed, 179 years before the death of Cyrus, or B.C. 708. He would thus, it appears, have assigned to the foundation of the Assyrian empire a date not very greatly anterior to B.C. 1228. Berosus, who made the empire last 526 years to the reign of Pul (ap. Euseb. Chronicles Arm. i, 4), must have agreed nearly with this view-at least he would certainly have placed the rise of the kingdom within the 13th century. This is, perhaps, the utmost that can be determined with any approach to certainty. If, for convenience' sake, a more exact date be desired, the conjecture of Dr. Brandis has some claim to be adopted, which fixes the year B.C. 1273 as that from which the 526 years of Berosus are to be reckoned (Rerum Assyriarum Tempora Emendata, p. 17).
(3.) Early Kings, from the foundation of the Kingdom to Pul. — The long list of Assyrian kings which has come down to us in two or three forms, only slightly varied (Clinton, F. H. i, 267), and which is almost certainly derived from Ctesias, must of necessity be discarded, together with his date for the kingdom. It covers a space of above 1200 years, and bears marks besides of audacious fraud, being composed 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 presenting 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 forgery of Ctesias. Berosus spoke of 45 kings 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. Recently the researches in Mesopotamia have done something 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 inquiry, 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 cuneiform 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 Mesopotamian researches have rendered it apparent 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, divisible 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 century, and thus to have been contemporary with Samson, 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 Hittites; invaded Armenia and Cappadocia; and claims to have subduedforty-two countries " from the channel of the Lower Zab (Zab Asfal) to the Upper Sea of the Setting 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 carrying off to Babylon various idols from the Assyrian temples (Offerhaus, De ant. Assyr. imperio, Linga, 1727).
The other monarchs of the Kaleh-Sherghat series, both before and after Tiglath-Pileser, are comparatively 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, Shalmaneser or Shalmanubar, who were among the most warlike of the Assyrian princes. Sardanapalus the first, who appears to have been the warlike Sardanapalus of the Greeks (Suidas, s.v.; comp. Hellan. Frag. p. 158), transferred the seat of government from Kaleh-Sherghat to Nimrud (probably the Scriptural Calah), where he built the first of those magnificent palaces which have recently been exhumed by English explorers. A great portion of the Assyrian sculptures 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 Sardanapalus carried his arms far and wide through Western Asia, warring on the one hand in Lower Babylonia and Chaldea, on the other in Syria and upon the coast of the Mediterranean. His son, Shalmaneser or Shalmanubar, the monarch who set up the Black Obelisk, now in the British Museum, to commemorate his victories, 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; everywhere 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 personages, being opposed in his Syrian wars by Benhadad and Hazael, kings of Damascus, and taking tribute from Jehu, king of Israel. His son and grandson 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 Scripture. SEE PUL.
(4.) The Kings from Pul to Esarhaddon. — The succession of the Assyrian kings from Pul almost to the close of the empire is rendered tolerably certain, not merely by the inscriptions, but also by the Jewish records. In the 2d book of Kings we find the names of Pul, Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, following one another in rapid succession (2Ki_15:19; 2Ki_15:29; 2Ki_17:3; 2Ki_18:13; 2Ki_19:37); and in Isaiah we have the name of " Sargon, king of Assyria" (xx, 1), who is a contemporary of the prophet, and who must evidently, therefore, belong to the same series. The inscriptions, by showing us that Sargon was the father of Sennacherib, fix his place in the list, and give us for the monarchs of the last half of the 8th and the first half of the 7th century B.C. the (probably) complete list of TiglathPileser II, Shalmaneser II, Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon. For a detailed account of the actions of these kings, see each name in its place. (See Oppert, Chronologie des Assyriens et des Babylonens, Paris, 1857.)
(a.) Establishment of the Lower Dynasty. — It seems to be certain that at or near the accession of Pul a great change of some kind or other occurred in Assyria. Berosus is said to have brought his grand dynasty of forty-five kings in 526 years to a close at the reign of Pul (Polyhist. ap. Euseb. 1. c.), and to have made him the first king of a new series. By the synchronism of Menahem (2Ki_15:19), the date of Pul may be determined to about B.C. 770. It was only twenty-three years later, as we find by the Canon of Ptolemy, that the Babylonians considered their independence to have commenced (B.C. 747). Herodotus probably intended to assign nearly to this same era the great commotion which (according to him) broke up the Assyrian empire into a number of fragments, out of which were formed the Median and other kingdoms. These traditions may none of them be altogether trustworthy; but their coincidence is at least remarkable, and seems to show that about the middle of the eighth century B.C. there must have been a break in the line of Assyrian kings-a revolution, foreign or domestic and a consequent weakening or dissolution of the bonds which united the conquered nations with their conquerors.
It was related by Bion and Polyhistor (Agathias, ii, 25), that the original dynasty of Assyrian kings ended with a certain Belochus or Beleus, who was succeeded by a usurper (called by them Beletaras or Balatorus), in whose family the crown continued until the destruction of Nineveh. The general character of the circumstances narrated, combined with a certain degree of resemblance in the names-for Belochus is close upon Phaloch, and Beletaras may represent the second element in TigIath-Pileser (who in the inscriptions is called “Tiglath-Palatsira")-induce a suspicion that probably the Pul or Phaloch of Scripture was really the last king of the old monarchy, and that TiglathPileser II, his successor, was the founder of what has been called the "Lower Empire." It maybe suspected that Berosus really gave this account, and that Polyhistor, who repeated it, has been misreported by Eusebius. The synchronism between the revolution in Assyria and the era of Babylonian independence is thus brought almost to exactness, for Tiglath-Pileser is known to have been upon the throne about B.C. 740 (Clinton, Fast. Tell. i, 278), and may well have ascended it in B.C. 747.
(b.) Supposed Loss of the Empire at this Period. Many writers of repute- among them Clinton and Niebuhr-have been inclined to accept the statement of Herodotus with respect to the breaking up of the whole empire at this period. It is evident, however, both from Scripture and from the monuments, that the shock sustained through the domestic revolution has been greatly exaggerated. Niebuhr himself observes (Vortrige uber alte Geschichte, i, 38) that, after the revolution, Assyria soon "recovered herself, and displayed the most extraordinary energy." It is plain, from Scripture, that in the reigns of Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, Assyria was as great as at any former era. These kings all warred successfully in Palestine and its neighborhood; some attacked Egypt (Isa_20:4); one appears as master of Medil (2Ki_17:6); while another has authority over Babylon, Susiana, and Elymais (2Ki_17:24; Ezr_4:9). So far from our observing symptoms of weakness and curtailed dominion, it is clear that at no time were the Assyrian arms pushed farther, or their efforts more sustained and vigorous. The Assyrian annals for the period are in the most complete accordance with these representations. They exhibit to us the above- mentioned monarchs as extending their dominions farther than any of their predecessors. The empire is continually rising under .them, and reaches its culminating point in the reign of Esarhaddon. The statements of the inscriptions on these subjects are fully borne out by the indications of greatness to be traced in the architectural monuments. No palace of the old monarchy equalled, either in size or splendor, that of Sennacherib at Nineveh. No series of kings belonging to it left buildings at all to be compared with those which were erected by Sargon, his son, and his grandson. The magnificent remains at Kouyunjik and Khorsabad belong entirely to these later kings, while those at Nimrud are about equally divided between them and their predecessors. It is farther noticeable that the writers who may be presumed to have drawn from Berosus, as Polyhistor and Abydenus, particularly expatiated upon the glories of these later kings. Polyhistor said (ap. Euseb. i, 5) that Sennacherib conquered Babylon, defeated a Greek army in Cilicia, and built there Tarsus, the capital. Abydenus related the same facts, except that he substituted for the Greek army of Polyhistor a Greek fleet; and added that Esarhaddon (his Axerdis) conquered Lower Syria and Egypt (ibid. i, 9). Similarly Menander, the Tyrian historian, assigned to Shalmaneser an expedition to Cyprus (ap. Joseph. Ant. 9:14), and Herodotus himself admitted that Sennacherib invaded Egypt (ii, 141). On every ground it seems necessary to conclude that the second Assyrian kingdom was really greater and more glorious than the first; that under it the limits of the empire reached their fullest extent, and the internal prosperity was at the highest.
The statement of Herodotus is not, however, without a basis of truth. It is certain that Babylon, about the time of Tiglath-Pileser's accession, ventured upon a revolt, which she seems afterward to have reckoned the commencement of her independence. SEE BABYLON. The knowledge of this fact may have led Herodotus into his error; for he would naturally suppose that, when Babylon became free, there was a general dissolution of the empire. It has been shown that this is far from the truth; and it may farther be observed that, even as regards Babylon, the Assyrian loss was not permanent. Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon all exercised full authority over that country, which appears to have been still an Assyrian fief at the close of the kingdom.
(5.) Successors of Esarhaddon. — By the end of the reign of Esarhaddon the triumph of the Assyrian arms had been so complete that scarcely an enemy was left who could cause her serious anxiety. The kingdoms of Hamath, of Damascus, and of Samaria had been successively absorbed; Phoenicia had been conquered; Judsea had been made a feudatory; Philistia and Idumaea had been subjected, Egypt chastised, Babylon recovered, cities planted in Media. Unless in Armenia and Susiana there was no foe left to reduce, and the consequence appears to have been that a time of profound peace succeeded to the long and bloody wars of Sargon and his immediate successors. In Scripture it is remarkable-that we hear nothing of Assyria after the reign of Esarhaddon, and profane history is equally silent until the attacks begin which brought about her downfall. The monuments show that the son of Esarhaddon, who was called Sardanapalus by Abydenus (ap. Euseb. i, 9), made scarcely any military expeditions, but occupied almost his whole time in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the chase. 'Instead of adorning his residence-as his predecessors had been accustomed to do--with a record and representation of his conquests, Sardanapalus II covered the walls of his palace at Nineveh with sculptures exhibiting his skill and prowess as a hunter. No doubt the military spirit rapidly decayed under such a ruler; and the advent of fresh enemies, synchronizing with this decline, produced the ruin of a power which had for six centuries been dominant in Western Asia.
(6.) Fall of Assyria. — The fate of Assyria, long previously prophesied by Isaiah (Isa_10:5-19), was effected (humanly speaking) by the growing strength and boldness of the Medes. If we may trust Herodotus, the first Median attack on Nineveh took place about the year B.C. 633. By what circumstances this people, who had so long been engaged in contests with the Assyrians, and had hitherto shown themselves so utterly unable to resist them, became suddenly strong enough to assume an aggressive attitude, and to force the Ninevites to submit to a siege, can only be conjectured. Whether mere natural increase, or whether fresh immigrations from the east had raised the Median nation at this time so far above its former condition, it is impossible to determine. We can only say that soon after the middle of the seventh century they began to press upon the Assyrians, and that, gradually increasing in strength, they proceeded, about the year B.C. 633, to attempt the conquest of the country. For some time their efforts were unsuccessful; but after a while, having won over the Babylonians to their side, they became superior to the Assyrians in the field, and about B.C. 625, or a little earlier, laid final siege to the capital. SEE MEDIA. Saracus, the last king-probably the grandson of Esarhaddon- made a stout and prolonged defence, but at length, finding resistance vain, he collected his wives and his treasures in his palace, and with his own hand setting fire to the building, perished in the flames. This account is given in brief by Abydenus, who probably follows Berosus; and its outline so far agrees with Ctesias (ap. Diod. ii, 27) as to give an important value to that writer's details of the siege. SEE NINEVEH. In the general fact that Assyria was overcome, and Nineveh captured and destroyed by a combined attack of Medes and Babylonians, Josephus (Ant. 10:5) and the book of Tobit (xiv, 15) are agreed. Polyhistor also implies it (ap. Euseb. i, 5); and these authorities must be regarded. as outweighing the silence of Herodotus, who mentions only the Medes in connection with the capture
(i, 106), and says nothing of the Babylonians.
(7.) Fulfilment of Prophecy.-The prophecies of Nahum and Zephaniah (Zep_2:13-15) against Assyria were probably delivered shortly before the catastrophe. The date of Nahum is very doubtful, but it is not unlikely that he wrote about B.C. 718, or at the close of the reign of Hosea. Zephaniah is even later, since he prophesied under Josiah, who reigned from B.C. 639 to 609. If B.C. 625 be the date of the destruction of Nineveh, we may place Zephaniah's prophecy about B.C. 635. Ezekiel, writing in B.C. 588, bears witness historically to the complete destruction which had come upon the Assyrians, using the example as a warning to Pharaoh-Hophra and the Egyptians (ch. 31).
It was declared by Nahum (q.v.) emphatically, at the close of his prophecy, that there should be "no healing of Assyria's bruise" (Nah_3:19). In accordance with this announcement we find that Assyria never rose again to any importance, nor even succeeded in maintaining a distinct nationality. Once only was revolt attempted, and then in conjunction with Armenia and Media, the latter heading the rebellion. This attempt took place about a century after the Median conquest, during the troubles which followed upon the accession of Darius Hystaspis. It failed signally, and appears never to have been repeated, the Assyrians remaining thenceforth submissive subjects of the Persian empire. They were reckoned in the same satrapy with Babylon (Herod. iii, 92; comp. i, 192), and paid an annual tribute of a thousand talents of silver. In the Persian armies, which were drawn in great part from the subject-nations, they appear never to have been held of much account, though they fought, in common with the other levies, at Thermopyle, at Cunaxa, at Issus, and at Arbela.
(8.) General Character of the Empire. — In the first place, like all the early monarchies which attained to any great extent, the Assyrian empire was composed of a number of separate kingdoms. In the East, conquest has scarcely ever been followed by amalgamation, and in the primitive empires there was not even any attempt at that governmental centralization which we find at a later period in the satrapial system of Persia. As Solomon " reigned over all the kingdoms from the river (Euphrates) unto the land of the Philistines and the border of Egypt," so the Assyrian monarchs bore sway over a number of petty kings--the native rulers of the several countries-through the entire extent of their dominions. These native princes-the sole governors of their own kingdoms--were feudatories of the Great Monarch, of whom they held their crown by the double tenure of homage and tribute. Menahem (2Ki_15:19), Hoshea (2Ki_17:4), Ahaz (2Ki_16:8), Hezekiah (2Ki_18:14), and Manasseh (2Ch_33:11-13), were certainly in this position, as were many native kings of Babylon, both prior and subsequent to Nabonassar; and this system (if we may trust the inscriptions) was universal throughout the empire. It naturally involved the frequent recurrence of troubles. Princes circumstanced as were the Assyrian feudatories would always be looking for an occasion when they might revolt and re-establish their independence. The offer of a foreign alliance would be a bait which they could scarcely resist, and hence the continual warnings given to the Jews to beware of trusting in Egypt. Apart from this, on the occurrence of any imperial misfortune or difficulty, such, for instance, as a disastrous expedition, a formidable attack, or a sudden death, natural or violent, of the reigning monarch, there would be a strong temptation to throw off the yoke, which would lead, almost of necessity, to a rebellion. The history of the kings of Israel and Judah sufficiently illustrates the tendency in question, which required to be met by checks and remedies of the severest character. The deposition of the rebel prince, the wasting of his country, the plunder of his capital, a considerable increase in the amount of the tribute thenceforth required, were the usual consequences of an unsuccessful revolt; to which were added, upon occasion, still more stringent measures, as the wholesale execution of those chiefly concerned in the attempt, or the transplantation of the rebel nation to a distant locality. The captivity of Israel is only an instance of a practice long previously known to the Assyrians, and by them handed on to the Babylonian and Persian governments.
It is not quite certain how far Assyria required a religious co
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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