[93] Despite his dismissal, Arda-Mulissu remained a popular figure, and some vassals secretly supported him as the heir to the throne. He never disobeyed his father, and his letters indicate he knew Sargon well and wanted to please him. Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, two scribes, standing side by side at right, record the number of the enemy slain in a campaign in southern Mesopotamia. If the battle was a southern victory, the setback faced by the Assyrians would have to have been minor as Babylon was under siege in the late summer of 690 BC (and had apparently been under siege for some time at that point). [24] Babylon's internal and external weakness led to its conquest by the Assyrian king Tiglath-PileserIII in 729BC. [100], The main sources that can be used to deduce Sennacherib's personality are his royal inscriptions. Though Babylon was respected as the well-spring of civilization, it was expected to remain passive in political matters, something that Assyria's "Babylonian bride" repeatedly refused to be. [104][105] Sennacherib's decision to keep his birth name when he became king rather than assuming a throne name, something at least 19 of his 21 immediate predecessors had done, suggests self-confidence. Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE) was the second king of the Sargonid Dynasty of Assyria (founded by his father Sargon II, r. 722-705 BCE). . Sennacherib is presented as akin to a ruthless predator, attacking Judah as a "wolf on the fold" in the famous 1815 poem The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron:[112]. Sennacherib's only known sister, Ahat-abisha, was married off to Ambaris, the king of Tabal, but probably returned to Assyria after Sargon's first successful campaign against Tabal. [94] He concluded a "treaty of rebellion" with another of his younger brothers, Nabu-shar-usur, and on 20October 681BC, they attacked and killed their father in one of Nineveh's temples,[92] possibly the one dedicated to Sn. The outcome of the Battle of Halule is unclear since the records of both sides claim a great victory. This negative view of Sennacherib endured until modern times. Because Babylon, well within his own territory, had been the target of most of his military campaigns and had caused the death of his son, Sennacherib destroyed the city in 689BC. [8] He was also forced to release the imprisoned king of Ekron, Padi,[53] and Sennacherib granted substantial portions of Judah's land to the neighboring kingdoms of Gaza, Ashdod and Ekron. He destroyed Babylon in 689 bc and, with the peace of his empire thus assured, devoted himself to rebuilding his capital, Nineveh. Sennacherib claims in his annals that Humban-undasha was killed and that the enemy kings fled for their lives whereas the Babylonian chronicles claim that it was the Assyrians who retreated. The latter fleet was then used to transport the Assyrian army to the city of Opis, where the ships were then pulled ashore and transported overland to a canal that linked to the Euphrates. [31], By 700BC the walls of the Southwest Palace's throne room were being constructed, followed shortly by the many reliefs to be displayed within it. [17] As crown prince, Sennacherib also owned an estate at Tarbisu. Arda-Mulissu held the position of the heir apparent for several years until 684BC when Sennacherib suddenly replaced him with his younger brother Esarhaddon. [37], Portions of the Assyrian army were away in Tabal in 704BC. The denizens of the Levant and Babylonia celebrated the news and proclaimed the act as divine punishment because of Sennacherib's brutal campaigns against them, while in Assyria the reaction was probably resentment and horror. Ultimately, Sennacherib decided to destroy Babylon. Accession. [72] In 1982, Assyriologist Louis D. Levine wrote that the battle was probably an Assyrian victory, though not a decisive one and that though the southerners had been defeated and fled, the Assyrian advance on Babylon itself was temporarily halted. Sennacherib figures prominently in the Old Testament. They will ride the wave of my presence and as my war Eagles they will begin to fly carried by the waves of my presence." The rooms and courtyards of his Neo-Assyrian Southwest Palace at Nineveh were decorated with a series of detailed carved stone panels. [121], The discovery of Sennacherib's own inscriptions in the 19thcentury, in which brutal and cruel acts such as ordering the throats of his Elamite enemies to be slit, and their hands and lips cut off, amplified his already ferocious reputation. An inscription on a stone lion in the quarter associated with Sennacherib's queen, Tashmetu-sharrat, contains hopes that the king and queen would both live healthily and long within the new palace. Arda-Mulissu and Nabu-shar-usur survived this purge, escaping as exiles to the northern kingdom of Urartu. [125], The following titulature is used by Sennacherib in early accounts of his 703 BC Babylonian campaign:[126], Sennacherib, great king, mighty king, king of Assyria, king without rival, righteous shepherd, favorite of the great gods, prayerful shepherd, who fears the great gods, protector of righteousness, lover of justice, who lends support, who comes to the aid of the cripple and aims to do good deeds, perfect hero, mighty man, first among all kings, neckstock that bends the insubmissive, who strikes the enemy like a thunderbolt, Ashur, the great mountain, has bestowed upon me an unrivalled kingship and has made my weapons mightier than the weapons of all other rulers sitting on daises. [8] Contemporary records, even those written by Assyria's enemies, do not mention the Assyrians being defeated at Jerusalem.[9]. Sennacherib immediately abandoned Sargon's great new capital city, Dur-Sharrukin, and moved the capital to Nineveh instead. Elayi believes Sennacherib's greatest flaw was "his irascible, vindictive and impatient character" and that he, when emotional, could be pushed to make irrational decisions. I dug canals through the midst of that city, I overwhelmed it with water, I made its very foundations disappear, and I destroyed it more completely than a devastating flood. In the Aggadah When the Philistine city of Ashkelon succumbed, Sennacherib removed the king, his wife, sons, daughters, brothers, and kin, and exiled them back to Assyria. [23] The two kingdoms had competed since the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14thcenturyBC, and in the 8thcenturyBC, the Assyrians consistently gained the upper hand. Sennacherib was the king of Assyria from 704-681 BC and was famous for his building projects. The War. Like the inscriptions of other Assyrian kings, his show pride and high self-esteem, for instance in the passage: "Ashur, father of the gods, looked steadfastly upon me among all the rulers and he made my weapons greater than (those of) all who sit on (royal) daises." Kutur-Nahhunte could not organize an efficient defense against the Assyrians and refused to fight them, instead fleeing to the mountain city of Haidalu. Evidence of the increased standing of the royal women includes the larger number of texts referencing Assyrian queens from Sennacherib's reign compared to queens of earlier times, and evidence that Sennacherib's queens had their own standing military units, just like the king. [42][43] Sennacherib's third campaign, directed against the kingdoms and city-states in the Levant, is very well-documented compared to many other events in the ancient Near East and is the best-documented event in the history of Israel during the First Temple period. The ancient Aramaic story of Ahikar portrays Sennacherib as a benevolent patron of the titular character Ahikar, with Esarhaddon portrayed more negatively. [7] Marduk-apla-iddina rallied large portions of Babylonia's people to fight for him, both the urban Babylonians and the tribal Chaldeans, and he also enlisted troops from the neighboring civilization of Elam, in modern-day south-western Iran. [32], In 701BC, Sennacherib first moved to attack the Syro-Hittite and Phoenician cities in the north. [28] Sennacherib was about 35 years old when he ascended to the Assyrian throne in August of 705BC. [56] In the meantime, Sennacherib campaigned elsewhere. [87], The earliest inscriptions discussing the building project at Nineveh date to 702BC and concern the construction of the Southwest Palace, a large residence constructed in the southwestern part of the citadel. [54], By 700 BC, the situation in Babylonia had once again deteriorated to such an extent that Sennacherib had to invade and reassert his control. The foreground scribe uses pen and ink on a leather scroll; the other scribe writes with a stylus on a hinged writing-board coated with wax. Sennacherib assumed several new epithets never used by Assyrian kings, such as "guardian of the right" and "lover of justice", suggesting a desire to leave a personal mark on a new era beginning with his reign. [45], Sennacherib's account of what happened at Jerusalem begins with "As for Hezekiah like a caged bird I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city. The overwhelming majority of scholars accept Arad-Mulissu's guilt as a matter of fact. These inscriptions were not written by the king, but by his royal scribes. [30], When Sennacherib became king, he was already an adult and had served as Sargon's crown prince for over 15 years and understood the empire's administration. [23] The relationship between Assyria and Babylonia was similar to the relationship between Greece and Rome in later centuries; much of Assyria's culture, texts and traditions had been imported from the south. Sennacherib was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, when his sons smote him with the sword. In the biblical account, however, Sennacherib was already at Libnah in Judah when he received the news that the Egyptians were coming (2 Kgs 19:8-9). [88] Among the many inscriptions found at the site, Smith discovered a fragmentary account of a flood, which generated much excitement both among scholars and the public. [57], Ashur-nadin-shumi was also titled mru rt, a title that could be interpreted either as the "pre-eminent son" or the "firstborn son". First discovered and excavated from 1847 to 1851 by the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, the discovery of reliefs depicting Sennacherib's siege of Lachish in the Southwest Palace was the first archaeological confirmation of an event described in the Bible. To transform Nineveh into a capital worthy of his empire, he launched one of the most ambitious building projects in ancient history. There was also a change in rulership in Elam, where Kutur-Nahhunte was deposed in favor of Humban-menanu, who began assembling the anti-Assyrian coalition once more. In any event, Sennacherib never took action against Sargon or attempted to usurp the throne despite being more than old enough to become king himself. [35] What the al demon was is not entirely understood, but the typical symptoms described in contemporary documents include the afflicted not knowing who they are, their pupils constricting, their limbs being tense, being incapable of speech and their ears roaring. [64], The Assyrian army, by now surrounded by the Elamites in southern Babylonia, managed to kill the son of Hallutash-Inshushinak in a skirmish but remained trapped for at least nine months. He also claimed that he besieged King Hezekiah of the Judah in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage." [8] [97], Whether Naqi'a ever held the title of queen is unclear. [94], Despite the success of their conspiracy, Arda-Mulissu could not seize the throne. Any logical movement of troops here . [74] Although the Babylonians were successful initially, that was short-lived, and in the same year, the siege of Babylon was already well underway. Turning to the east, Sennacherib overwhelmed Philistine Ekron and suspended the bodies of its rebellious leaders on stakes throughout the city. [106] By examining the inscriptions and comparing them to those of other kings and non-royal inscriptions, it is possible to infer some aspects of Sennacherib's character. Although Sennacherib was one of the most powerful and wide-ranging Assyrian kings, he faced considerable difficulty in controlling Babylonia, which formed the southern portion of his empire. Although Sennacherib was successful in conquering Lachish and many other Judahite cities and towns, he did not conquer Jerusalem. Sennacherib surrounded the cities that had high walls around them. He later replaced him with a younger son, Esarhaddon, in 684BC, for unknown reasons. [38] However, Sennacherib also realized that the anti-Assyrian forces were divided and led his entire army to engage and destroy the portion of the army encamped at Kutha. Caught in a dreadful quandary, the priest [Sethos, who was also Pharaoh] entered the [92] Sennacherib noted the increasing popularity of Arda-Mulissu and came to fear for his designated successor, so he sent Esarhaddon to the western provinces. Sennacherib was the second king of the Sargonid Dynasty of Assyria, who ruled from 705 B.C. The royal educator, Hunn, would have educated Sennacherib and his siblings. Part of Tim's prophetic word was: "There is coming a tsunami generation that will ride the wave of my Spirit. Faced with a massive Assyrian army nearby, many of the Levantine rulers, including Budu-ilu of Ammon, Kamusu-nadbi of Moab, Mitinti of Ashdod and Malik-rammu of Edom, quickly submitted to Sennacherib to avoid retribution. The name probably derives from Sennacherib not being Sargon's first son, but all his older brothers being dead by the time he was born. [91], When his eldest son and original crown prince, Ashur-nadin-shumi, disappeared, presumably executed, Sennacherib selected his eldest surviving son, Arda-Mulissu, as the new crown prince. [30], Frahm and the Assyriologist Julian E. Reade have pondered the idea that Sennacherib could be classified as a feminist. He expanded the size of the city and constructed great city walls, numerous temples and a royal garden. [114] A vast majority of the Biblical accounts of King Hezekiah's reign in 2 Kings is dedicated to Sennacherib's campaign, cementing it as the most important event of Hezekiah's time. [40] As the Assyrians appeared on the horizon, Babylon opened its gates to him, surrendering without a fight. [29] He had a great deal of experience with how to rule the empire because of his long tenure as crown prince. According to Brinkman, Sennacherib might have lost the affection he once had for Babylon's gods because they had inspired their people to attack him. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the role he plays in the Hebrew Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. [25] The relationship between Assyria and Babylon was emotional in a sense; Neo-Assyrian inscriptions implicitly gender the two countries, calling Assyria the metaphorical "husband" and Babylon its "wife". For further details see *Mesopotamia. Sargon is never mentioned in Sennacherib's inscriptions. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the role he plays in the Hebrew Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. [65][66] In Ashur-nadin-shumi's place, a native Babylonian, Nergal-ushezib, became Babylon's king. to 681 B.C. Cotton plants may have been imported from as far away as India. [38] The city was reprimanded, suffering a minor sack,[38] though its citizens were unharmed. The son of Sargon II, it's believed Sennacherib became king around 705 when his father was killed in battle. The Assyrians had not marched on Babylon immediately, however, as military actions are recorded elsewhere. The rebel Shuzubu, hunted by Sennacherib in his 700 BC invasion of the south, had resurfaced under the name Mushezib-Marduk and, seemingly without foreign support, acceded to the throne of Babylon. [34] The Assyrian army, led by Sennacherib's chief commander, launched an unsuccessful attack on the coalition forces near the city of Kish, bolstering the legitimacy of the coalition. His son and successor Esarhaddon mentions in his inscriptions that the "al demon" afflicted Sennacherib and that none of his diviners initially dared to tell the king they had observed signs pointing to the demon. [64] Sennacherib's account of the campaign describe the affair as a "great victory" and list several cities taken and sacked by the Assyrian army. The king's face has been deliberately damaged in antiquity. [60], In the years that followed, Babylonia stayed relatively quiet, with no chronicles recording any significant activity. [94], Sennacherib forced Arda-Mulissu to swear loyalty to Esarhaddon, but Arda-Mulissu made many appeals to his father to reinstate him as heir. In his stead, Sennacherib proclaimed a noble by the name Ethbaal as the new king of Sidon and his vassal and oversaw the submission of many of the surrounding cities to his rule. The King's face has been deliberately slashed, perhaps by an enemy soldier at the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC. For the first six years of his reign, they were written on clay cylinders, but he later began using clay prisms, probably because they provided a greater surface area. [33] A minor 704BC[34] campaign (unmentioned in Sennacherib's later historical accounts), led by Sennacherib's magnates rather than the king himself, was sent against Gurd in Tabal to avenge Sargon. [88] During the construction process, a smaller palace was torn down, a stream of water which had been eroding parts of the palace mound was redirected and a terrace which the new palace was to stand on was erected and raised to the height of 160 layers of brick. The reasons for this are debated, but it is known that a short time later, Judah was once again paying tribute to the Assyrian Empire. [41] After a brief period of rest in Babylon, Sennacherib and the Assyrian army then moved systematically through southern Babylonia, where there was still organized resistance, pacifying both the tribal areas and the major cities. Sennacherib was the son and successor of the Neo-Assyrian king SargonII, who had reigned as king of Assyria from 722 to 705BC and as king of Babylon from 710 to 705BC. There, most of their soldiers deserted and joined Esarhaddon, who then marched on Nineveh without opposition, becoming the new king of Assyria. [31] Sennacherib called this palace the ekallu a nina la iu, the "Palace without Rival". Because of the infighting of these three major groups, Babylonia often represented an appealing target for Assyrian campaigns. The Iraqi Department of Antiquities under the Assyriologist Tariq Madhloom conducted the most recent expeditions from 1965 to 1968. They also served as intimidating tools for propaganda and psychological warfare. [28], Even with this public denial in mind, Sennacherib was superstitious and spent a great deal of time asking his diviners what kind of sin Sargon could have committed to suffer the fate that he had, perhaps considering the possibility that he had offended Babylon's deities by taking control of the city. [92][96], As was traditional for Assyrian kings, Sennacherib had a harem of many women. [77] This caused consternation in Assyria itself, where Babylon and its gods were held in high esteem. Both the blockade of Jerusalem and the siege of Lachish probably prevented further Egyptian aid from reaching Hezekiah, and intimidated the kings of other smaller states in the region. Tashmetu-sharrat is likely to have been the mother of at least some of them. Thankful, Sinharib then converts to Christianity and founds an important monastery near Mosul, called Deir Mar Mattai. Sennacherib 's campaign in the Levant in 701 BCE was a military campaign undertaken by the Neo-Assyrian Empire to bring the region back under control following a rebellion against Assyrian rule in 705 BCE. [56] The Assyrians searched the northern marshes of Babylonia in an attempt to find and capture Shuzubu, but they failed. They took the cities of Ekron and Timnah and Judah stood alone, with Sennacherib setting his sights on Jerusalem. Other types of non-royal inscriptions from Sennacherib's reign, such as administrative documents, economic documents and chronicles, are more numerous. [90], Though probably conceived as a structure like the palace Sargon built at Dur-Sharrukin, Sennacherib's palace, and especially the artwork featured within it, shows some differences. Though Sargon's reliefs usually show the king as close to other members of the Assyrian aristocracy, Sennacherib's art usually depicts the king towering above everyone else in his vicinity due to being mounted in a chariot. [2] Nineveh had been the designated seat of the Assyrian crown prince since the reign of Tiglath-Pileser. After distributing such financial resources, Sennacherib sent letters to his father to inform him of his decisions. Sennacherib oversaw domestic affairs and often informed Sargon of the progress being made on building projects throughout the empire. [70], Sennacherib met his enemies in battle near the city of Halule. Because the Assyrians venerated the long history and culture of Babylon, it was preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king, or by the Assyrian king in a personal union. [30] His reaction to his father's fate was to distance himself from Sargon. In Mesopotamian mythology, the afterlife suffered by those who died in battle and were not buried was terrible, being doomed to suffer like beggars for eternity. Heads lie in a heap at their feet. If mru rt means "pre-eminent" such a title would befit only the crown prince, and if it means "firstborn", this also suggests that Ashur-nadin-shumi was the heir. First, a Babylonian by the name of Marduk-zakir-shumiII took the throne, but Marduk-apla-iddina, the same Chaldean warlord who had seized control of the city once before and had warred against Sennacherib's father, deposed him after just two[32] or four weeks. For most of Sennacherib's reign, the queen was Tashmetu-sharrat, whose name literally means "Tashmetum is queen". Shortly thereafter, the severe weather forced Sennacherib to retreat and return home. Sennacherib's annals locate that encounter at Eltekeh in Philistia, while his army was on its way from Joppa to Ekron. [18], Sennacherib's name, Sn-a-erba, means "Sn (the moon-god) has replaced the brothers" in Akkadian. Sennacherib's campaign in Judah was a military conflict in 701 BC between Kingdom of Judah and the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the conflict is part of the greater conflict of Sennacherib's campaigns. [49] Though Babylonia to the south had also once been a large kingdom, it was typically weaker than its northern neighbor during this period, due to internal divisions and the lack of a well-organized army. Sargon continued to live in Nimrud long after he had become king, leaving the city in 710BC to reside at Babylon, and later at his new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, in 706 BC. He thought he could win the battle over them. These are significant artifacts as they record Sennacherib's campaign into Judah in 701 BC. From the upper sea of the setting sun to the lower sea of the rising sun, all princes of the four quarters (of the world) he has brought in submission to my feet. The hands of my people laid hold of the gods dwelling there and smashed them; they took their property and goods.I destroyed the city and its houses, from foundation to parapet; I devastated and burned them. Sennacherib , (died January 681 bc), King of Assyria (r. 705/704-681 bc), son and successor of Sargon II.Between 703 and 689 he undertook six campaigns against Elam (southwestern Iran), which was stirring up Chaldean and Aramaean tribes in Babylonia; Babylon was sacked during the last campaign. [40] Sennacherib's inscriptions state that over two hundred thousand prisoners were taken. [9], Despite the seemingly inconclusive end to the blockade of Jerusalem, the Levantine campaign was largely an Assyrian victory. During Sargon's longer absences from the Assyrian heartland, Sennacherib's residence would have served as the center of government in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, with the crown prince taking on significant administrative and political responsibilities. [98] Their names were: A small tablet excavated at Nineveh lists the names of mythological Mesopotamian heroes, such as Gilgamesh, and some personal names. The Biblical account of the end of Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem holds that though Hezekiah's soldiers manned the walls of the city, ready to defend it against the Assyrians, an entity referred to as the destroying angel, sent by Yahweh, annihilated Sennacherib's army, killing 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in front of Jerusalem's gates. [32], After the Babylonian war, Sennacherib's second campaign was in the Zagros Mountains. They will ride the wave of my presence and as my war Eagles they will begin to fly carried by the waves of my presence." Panels 14-16 Except for Esarhaddon, who is known to be Naqi'a's son, which of Sennacherib's wives were his children's mothers is unknown. Female members of the court were more prominent and enjoyed greater privileges under Sennacherib's reign than under the reigns of previous Assyrian kings. Babylonia and the Levant welcomed his death as divine punishment, while the Assyrian heartland probably reacted with resentment and horror. Sennacherib. He built a large second palace at the city's southern mound, which served as an arsenal to store military equipment and as permanent quarters for part of the Assyrian standing army. [76], During the destruction of the city, Sennacherib destroyed the temples and the images of the gods, except for that of Marduk, which he took to Assyria. So that it might be impossible in future days to recognize the site of that city and its temples, I utterly dissolved it with water and made it like inundated land. [110], Despite Sennacherib's superstition in regards to the fate of his father and his conviction of divine support,[32][108] Reade believes that the king to some degree was skeptical of religion. Though the biblical narrative holds that divine intervention by an angel ended Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem by destroying the Assyrian army, an outright Assyrian defeat is unlikely as Hezekiah submitted to Sennacherib at the end of the campaign. Having two names could point to Naqi'a being born outside Assyria properpossibly in Babylonia or in the Levantbut there is no substantial evidence for any theory regarding her origin.[93]. [127], (Shamshi-Adad dynasty18081736 BCE)(Amorites)Shamshi-Adad I Ishme-Dagan I Mut-Ashkur Rimush Asinum Ashur-dugul Ashur-apla-idi Nasir-Sin Sin-namir Ipqi-Ishtar Adad-salulu Adasi Wishing to consolidate his position as king, Nergal-ushezib took advantage of the situation and captured and plundered the city of Nippur. [8] In the northern Levant, former Assyrian vassal cities rallied around Luli, the king of Tyre and Sidon. [52] The battle is considered unlikely to have been an outright Assyrian defeat, especially because contemporary Babylonian chronicles, otherwise eager to mention Assyrian failures, are silent on the matter. The population of Babylonia was divided into various ethnic groups with different priorities and ideals. In the words of the Assyriologist Eckart Frahm, "the Assyrians were in love with Babylon, but also wished to dominate her". [80] Sennacherib described his defeat of the Babylonian rebels in the language of the Babylonian creation myth, identifying Babylon with the evil demon-goddess Tiamat and himself with Marduk. Eckhart Frahm considers this idea unlikely on account of the impressive royal gardens in Babylon itself. They typically depict his conquests, sometimes with short pieces of text explaining the scene shown. After they had destroyed the city, the Assyrians deported the survivors to the Assyrian Empire, forcing some of them to work on Sennacherib's building projects, and others to serve in the king's personal guard. Since Smith, the site has experienced several periods of intense excavation and study; Rassam returned from 1878 to 1882, the Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge oversaw excavations from 1889 to 1891, the Assyriologist Leonard William King from 1903 to 1904 and the Assyriologist Reginald Campbell Thompson in 1905 and from 1931 to 1932. Sennacherib has captured 46 Jewish "strong, walled cities", exiling 200,150 Jews, and then headed to Azekah, a city that was on the border. [126], This variant of the titulature is used in an inscription from the Southwest Palace at Nineveh written after Sennacherib's 700 BC Babylonian campaign:[127], Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters (of the world); favorite of the great gods; the wise and crafty one; strong hero, first among all princes; the flame that consumes the insubmissive, who strikes the wicked with the thunderbolt.