The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]

The whole district of this river, as well as the land of Sangara farther east, is full of heaps and ruins, which mark the localities of old and later times. The most important are the ruins at the place now called Arban on the Khabur. Here are the remains of an ancient palace, built in the Assyrian style, with four winged oxen, with men’s heads, an open-mouthed lion, the portrait in relief of a warrior, etc. The oxen bear the inscription “Palace of the Mushesh-Ninib.” The possibility of getting at a satisfactory date for this palace is unfortunately not yet apparent. That scarabs of Tehutimes III and Amenhotep III have been found in Arban and Calah, is no sufficient clew. As King Asshurnazirpal III of Assyria went down the Khabur in the year 884 B.C., Shulman-khaman-ilani of Sadikkan and Ilu-Adad of Shuma brought him heavy tribute. Doubtless one of these two places is the Arban of to-day, and their governors were semi-independent Assyrian ministers, known as the Mushesh-Ninib, for the names, writing, and style of art show us that we have not here to do with a native government. The population of the valley of the Khabur was doubtless Aramæan, like that of Kharran and Nisibis.

[ca. 1090-885 B.C.]

The eleventh and tenth centuries B.C. confirmed the complete freedom of the local government of the countries of Western Asia. Whilst the kingdom of the Pharaohs was decaying from age, a new nation was rising in Syria and evolving an active intelligent life of its own.

The Phœnician merchants circulated the products of the civilisation of Syria along all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and the dwellers on the Ægean Sea having already entered the circle of cultured races, competing with the Phœnicians in trade and the traverse of the sea, took possession of the coasts one after another and thereby developed a complete political and intellectual life. The fate of Western Asia was determined by the evolution of Syria’s culture not taking a wide-reaching, powerful, political form, but rather hindering it. Since the days of the Kheta kingdom’s glory, there has been no great power in Syria. So when a conquering, military state was now formed on the Tigris, under a fearless, warlike prince, it met with no sustained resistance.

The success of Assyria was due to her military organisation. Little as we know of its particulars, there can be no doubt that the whole race regarded war and conquest as the real aims of existence, and the more successful they were, the more they ignored all other sides of life; whereas the little states of Syria made tillage, trade, and industry the chief occupations of their life, albeit every inhabitant was presumably bound, like the Israelites, to take up arms in case of need, in the defence of his country. The sole great military power was Egypt, but her warrior caste was composed of foreign mercenaries who exploited the country, although from a military point of view they evidently did not benefit it more than the generality of their class in similar cases.

The outcome of events was thus a foregone conclusion. The Assyrian campaigns of two centuries ended in the political and national fall of the races of Syria. The progress of events then led further to the annihilation of nationality in the whole of Western Asia. The kingdom of Tiglathpileser I fell, soon after his death, and there now ensues a little later a gap of more than a century in our information about Assyria. The very scanty notices commence about 950 B.C. Asshur-dan II, mentioned as “the maker of a canal,” reigned at that time. [A recently discovered inscription of Adad-nirari II speaks of his grandfather Tiglathpileser. Therefore, a new Tiglathpileser, the second of his name, is now reckoned in the list of kings, and the approximate dates 950-930 B.C. assigned to his reign. Nothing is known of him except that he is called “King of Kishshati and King of Asshur.” Asshur-dan II’s reign is now put down as beginning 930 B.C., and Adad-nirari II’s at 911.] Asshur-dan’s successor, Adad-nirari II, mentioned with the building at the “Gate of the Tigris” (890 B.C.), conquers King Shamash-mudammik of Babylon in a battle on Mount Yalman, and made war against his successor, Nabu-shum-ishkun [who was also defeated and yielded certain cities]. In the peace made by an alliance, the boundary was fixed near the city of Tel-Bari, south of the Lower Zab.