CHAPTER XII.

THE FALL OF ASSYRIA.

From modest beginnings, with a land of moderate extent, Assyria, after passing through a training of severe warfare against the immediate neighbours, slowly raised herself by unwearied efforts, and extended wider and wider the circle of her dominion. The end of the twelfth century, the course and close of the ninth century, denote the epochs and the halts in this advance, which are followed in turn by periods of decline. With the middle of the eighth century, with the accession of Tiglath Pilesar II., Assyria, by the subjugation of Babylonia and complete overthrow of Syria, and by reducing Media to a regular payment of tribute, passed beyond any height previously attained. Sargon, Esarhaddon, and Assurbanipal raised Assyria yet higher. She ruled over the land of the Euphrates as far as the mouth of the river; the east of Asia Minor and Cyprus bring tribute; Lydia seeks her support; the pride of Babylon is at last broken; Egypt is conquered and maintained by repeated conquests; Thebes has been pillaged, Susa destroyed, and Elam annihilated.

Hardly fifty years after the full tide of these successes--forty years after the overthrow of the strong opponent on the lower Tigris, the ancient Elam--Nineveh had fallen. No slow decline, no gradual extinction after a long period of ripening, during which she grew up to the wide extent of her dominion, was the fortune of Assyria:--this iron city of war and conquest, of cruel desolation and bloody punishments, collapsed suddenly. It seems as if the ceaseless efforts of the last century had overstrained and exhausted the power of the State; at any rate, the most thorough establishment of this power in the first half of the reign of Assurbanipal--perhaps the most energetic, and certainly the most fierce and bloody, ruler of Assyria--was quickly followed by its relaxation and fall.

The monuments of Assyria naturally give us no information on the fall of the kingdom; and it is not easy to ascertain the true facts from the Western writers who narrate the extinction of Assyria. The account which Ctesias and Nicolaus of Damascus have preserved of the matter is as follows: Sardanapalus was the thirty-sixth ruler of Assyria after Ninus. He neither carried weapons like his forefathers, nor went to the chase, but he surpassed all his predecessors in luxury and effeminacy. He was never seen outside the palace. He passed his life with the women, shaved his beard, smoothed his skin by rubbing it with pumice-stone, so that it became whiter than milk, painted himself with white lead, coloured his eyes and eyebrows, put on female apparel, and vied with his concubines in adornment, in dressing his hair, and all the arts of courtezans, and lived as effeminately as a woman. He sat among the women, with his legs stretched out before him, wove purple wool with them, imitated the voice of a woman, delighted himself continually with the food and drink most adapted to excite sensual desire, and pursued without shame the pleasures of either sex.

At the gate of the palace were the satraps of the nations, who led out the forces prescribed for each year (II. 13); among these was Arbaces, the satrap of Media, a man of prudent conduct, experienced in affairs, a good hunter and warrior, who had already performed valiant acts, and aimed at something higher still. When he heard of the life and manners of the king, he was of opinion that Sardanapalus was only ruler over Assyria for lack of a braver man. He was acquainted with Belesys, the viceroy of Babylon, who waited with him at the door of the king. Belesys was of the tribe of the Chaldæans, who were the priests, and enjoyed the greatest respect; the Babylonians were also the most skilful astronomers, and distinguished by experience in matters divine, in the art of the seer, and the interpretation of dreams and wonders. To this man Arbaces imparted his thoughts. Once they conversed in the neighbourhood of the palace, near a manger out of which two horses ate, and, as it was noon, they rested there. Then Belesys saw in a dream that one of the two horses let chaff fall out of his mouth on Arbaces, who also was asleep; and the other horse inquired why he had done this. The first horse replied: "Because he will rule over all those over whom Sardanapalus rules now." Then Belesys roused Arbaces, and invited him to a walk on the bank of the Tigris. Here he said to him: "What would you give me, Arbaces, for the good news, if I told you that Sardanapalus had made you viceroy over Cilicia?" "Why do you mock me?" Arbaces replied; "how is he likely to nominate me, and pass over many better men?" "Still, if such a thing should happen--I know very well what I am saying," replied the other. "Then," said Arbaces, "it would not be the lesser part of this sovereignty that would fall to you." "But if," continued the other, "Sardanapalus made you satrap of all Babylonia, what would you give me then?" "Cease to annoy me," answered Arbaces; "I am a Mede, and not to be scorned by a Babylonian." "By the great Belus," answered Belesys, "I do not say this in mockery, but instructed by signs." Then Arbaces replied: "If I were satrap of Babylonia, I would make you under-governor of the whole satrapy." Belesys continued: "But if you were made king of the whole empire which Sardanapalus now possesses, what would you do?" "Wretch!" said Arbaces; "if Sardanapalus were to hear this, you and I would perish miserably; how comes it into your mind to talk such nonsense?" But Belesys seized his hand, and said: "By this right hand, which is dear to me, and the great Belus, I am not speaking in jest, but because I know accurately the things divine." Then Arbaces replied: "I would give you Babylonia to rule over, as long as you live, without tribute." And when Belesys required him to join hands over the promise, he gladly gave him his right hand; whereupon Belesys answered: "Be assured, you shall certainly be king." When they had concluded this, they went back to the gate of the king to perform their ordinary service. When subsequently Arbaces became acquainted with Sparameizes, one of the most trusted eunuchs of the king, he besought him to allow him to see the king--he desired eagerly to approach his master to see how he lived. When the eunuch replied that this was impossible, and never permitted, Arbaces at first desisted; but after a few days he repeated his request more urgently, and added that he would requite the favour with much gold and silver. The eunuch, who was of an easy disposition, was overcome, and promised to think of the matter at a convenient opportunity. Arbaces presented him with a golden goblet. Sparameizes conversed with the king, and the latter permitted the request. Then Arbaces saw Sardanapalus sitting among the women, spinning purple wool with them, and putting white upon his eyes.[514] Arbaces now knew accurately what the king was, and was more inclined than before to realise the prospect which the Chaldæan had opened to him. He entered into a league with the captains of the other nations, and by entertainments and persuasions won the friendship of each. At length he agreed with Belesys that he should himself excite the Medes and Persians to rebellion, while Belesys prepared the Babylonians for a similar attempt, and persuaded the chiefs of the Arabs, with whom he was on friendly terms, to take part in the undertaking. When the year of service was over, and the new troops came in, the troops which had finished service returned as usual to their countries. On this occasion, Arbaces succeeded in persuading the Medes to rebel against the king, and in gaining the Persians for the same object, on condition that they should remain free for the future. In the same way Belesys induced the Babylonians to rise for their freedom, and by ambassadors prepared the chiefs of the Arabians to join in the undertaking. When the year was past they collected the multitude of their warriors together, and marched with their whole force to Nineveh, in order, as they gave out, to set themselves free, but in reality to destroy the empire of the Assyrians. From the four nations mentioned, about 400,000 men were in all collected, and when these were united, the leaders consulted what was to be done. When Sardanapalus received the intelligence of their defection, he led the forces of the remaining nations against them. A battle took place in the plain: the rebels were defeated; they lost many men, and were pursued as far as the mountains, which lie at a distance of 70 stades from Nineveh; and when they came down a second time into the plain to battle, Sardanapalus drew out his army against them, and sent heralds to proclaim that he would give 200 talents of gold to the man who slew Arbaces the Mede; the man who brought him alive should receive double this sum, and in addition the satrapy of Media. The same promise was made to any one who should slay Belesys, or bring him alive. These messages remained without effect; Sardanapalus attacked, again slew a number of the rebels, and pursued the remainder as far as the camp on the mountains. The rebels, disheartened by two defeats, assembled round Arbaces for consultation; the majority were of opinion that every one should return to his own land, occupy fortified places, and provide everything necessary for war: but Belesys said, that the signs of the gods announced that they would attain their object by toil and disaster, and thus persuaded them all to persist in the dangerous undertaking. In this way it came to a third battle, in which Sardanapalus was again victorious, took the camp of the enemy, and pursued them to the borders of Babylonia. Arbaces fought with the utmost bravery, and slew many of the Assyrians, but was wounded. After so many losses and these repeated defeats, the rebels abandoned all hope, and set themselves to withdraw to their several homes. Belesys, who had kept watch in that night, and observed the stars, told the dejected host that if they would only persist for five days, help would come to them spontaneously, and a great change for the better take place. He was assured, from his knowledge of the stars, that the gods announced this to them. Let them only remain for so many days, and thus put to the proof the favour of the gods, and his own skill. All were called back to wait for the appointed time, when it was suddenly announced that a large force, sent to Sardanapalus from Bactria, was marching up hastily, and already close at hand. Then Arbaces was of opinion that they must go to meet the Bactrians with the best and bravest warriors, and if they could not be persuaded to join the rebellion, they must be compelled to do so by force of arms. First, the leaders of the Bactrians listened to the proposal for liberation, and then the soldiers also, so that the Bactrians united with the rest. The king of the Assyrians knew nothing of the defection of the Bactrians, and, misled by his good fortune, gave himself over to indolence. He caused a feast to be prepared for his soldiers, with many sacrificial victims, abundance of wine, and other accompaniments. By means of deserters the rebels ascertained the carelessness and intoxication of their enemies, and unexpectedly made an attack in the night. Attacking in good order the disordered, well-armed the unarmed, they gained the camp, slew many, and pursued the remainder as far as the city. The king undertook the defence of the city in person, and transferred the command of the army to Salæmenes, his wife's brother. But the Assyrians were defeated in two battles in the plain before the city; many took to flight, many were driven into the Tigris, when their return to the city was cut off, so that the Assyrian army was almost entirely destroyed. The number of the slain was so great that the river was stained with blood for a great distance in its course. The king was now shut up in the city, and many of the subject nations revolted to the rebels in order to acquire their freedom. Sardanapalus saw that the kingdom was in the greatest danger; he sent his three sons and two daughters, with much treasure, to Cottas, the viceroy of Paphlagonia, who was the most loyal of his viceroys, and gave with them 3000 talents of gold.[515] At the same time, by sending out messengers with scribes, he gave orders to all his subjects to send forces to his assistance, while he prepared all that was necessary for the siege. He had received an oracle from his forefathers, that Nineveh would never be taken till the river became an enemy to the city. Since this would never happen, he hoped to be able to maintain the city, and waited for the troops sent by his viceroys. The rebels carried on the siege with vigour, but could not do any harm owing to the strength of the walls, and, thanks to the care of the king, the inhabitants of the city had everything that they required in abundance. Hence the only result obtained by two years of siege was that no one left the city. But in the third year it happened that the Tigris, swollen by constant rains, overflowed a part of the city, and tore away the walls for a space of 20 stades. Then the king knew that the river was an enemy of the city, and abandoned all hope of resistance and rescue.[516] In order not to fall into the hands of his enemies, he caused an enormous pyre, about 400 feet high, to be built in the royal citadel. Upon this was erected a chamber of beams 100 feet in length and breadth. Into this chamber were brought 150 golden couches with cushions, and an equal number of golden tables. Then 10 million talents of gold, and 100 million talents of silver, and a quantity of robes of all kinds, of mantles and purple stuffs, were placed on the pyre. Then Sardanapalus took his place in the chamber on one of the couches with his wife, and on the rest were his concubines. The chamber was roofed with long and massive beams, and when wood had been placed in great quantities round it, so that no one could pass out, the king gave command to light the pile of wood. It burned for 15 days. The people in the city wondered at the smoke rising from the royal citadel; but they believed that the king was sacrificing, for only the eunuchs knew the circumstances. Thus Sardanapalus burnt himself, with all who were in the royal citadel, and, after indulging in pleasure beyond measure, brought his life to a noble end.[517] When the rebels became acquainted with the death of the king, they took the city by forcing their way through the breach in the wall, arrayed Arbaces in the royal robe, saluted him as king, and gave him authority over all. To the captains who had fought with him he gave gifts according to their services, and made them viceroys over the nations. Belesys reminded the king of his services, and the promise to make him ruler over Babylonia. He had also made a vow to Belus in the perils of war, that after the conquest of Sardanapalus and the burning of his royal citadel, he would carry the ashes to Babylon, and make a heap of them near the temple of Belus, on the shore of the Euphrates, which should be to all who navigated the Euphrates an imperishable memorial of the man who had overthrown the empire of the Assyrians. He had ascertained from a eunuch of Sardanapalus how much gold and silver was in the ashes of the citadel. Arbaces, who knew nothing of this, because all besides were burnt with the king, allowed the ashes to be carried away, and gave Belesys Babylonia free of tribute. But when the theft was known to the king, he made the captains of the army with whom he had fought against Sardanapalus, the judges. Belesys acknowledged his fault, and the court condemned him to death. But the king, who was magnanimous, and wished to distinguish the beginning of his reign, not only forgave Belesys the penalty, but allowed him to keep the gold and silver, which had been already conveyed to Babylon; he did not even take from him the government of Babylon, saying that his former services were greater than his recent fault. When this conduct became known, it brought not only good-will, but glory, to Arbaces among the nations, for all judged him to be worthy of the kingdom who treated those who had served in such a manner. He was also gentle in his treatment of the inhabitants of Nineveh. They were divided into villages, it is true, but each retained his possessions: the city he levelled to the ground. But the gold and silver of the pyre which still remained--and it amounted to many talents--he caused to be carried to Ecbatana in Media.[518] After this Arbaces reigned 28 years, and was succeeded in the kingdom over the Medes by his son Mandaces, who was followed by Sosarmus, Artycas, Arbienes, Artæus, Artynes, Astibaras, and Aspadas. Aspadas was conquered by Cyrus the Persian, and the dominion passed to the Persians.[519]

The account given by Herodotus of the fall of the Assyrian kingdom is different: "When the Assyrians had reigned over Upper Asia for 520 years the Medes were the first to revolt from them, and, as they fought bravely against the Assyrians, they obtained their freedom. After them the other nations did what the Medes had done. And when all the nations of Asia had become independent, they fell under the dominion of one man in this manner. The Medes dwelt in villages, and as lawlessness prevailed among them, they chose Deioces, the son of Phraortes, a man of ability, whose decisions were most sought after for their justice and equity, to be their king. He caused a palace to be built, and surrounded himself with body-guards, and when this was done he compelled the Medes to build a city in order to keep their attention from his further designs, and a fortress, which is now called Ecbatana. In this way he strengthened his power, and united the Median nation. When he had ruled 53 years, he was succeeded by his son Phraortes. This prince was not content to rule over the Medes only; he marched against the Persians, and was the first to make them subject to the Medes, and with these two nations, both of which were strong, he subdued Asia, advancing from one nation to another, till he finally attacked the Assyrians, who possessed Nineveh, and had formerly ruled over all. Their previous confederates had, it is true, now fallen from them, but they were still in an excellent position. Against these Phraortes now took the field, but he and the greater part of his army were lost in the attempt, after he had reigned for 22 years. He was succeeded by his son Cyaxares. In order to avenge his father Cyaxares collected the warriors from all the nations governed by him, and marched against Nineveh to destroy the city. He had conquered the Assyrians in the battle, and shut up Nineveh, when the great army of the Scythians came down upon him, led by Madyas, the son of Protothyas. These had driven the Cimmerians out of Europe, and entered Asia in pursuit of them, and so came to Media. From the lake Mæotis to the Phasis and the Colchians it is, for an active man, a journey of thirty days: but from the Colchians to Media the journey is an easy matter, for there is only one nation between the two--the Saspires--when these are crossed you are in Media. But the Scythians did not enter by this route; they took by mistake the upper route, which is far longer, and has the Caucasus on the right hand. Then the Medes and the Scythians encountered each other; and the Medes were defeated in the battle, and lost their dominion; the Scythians traversed all Asia, and then turned towards Egypt. When they had reached Palestine, Psammetichus, the king of Egypt, came to meet them, and by presents and entreaties induced them to come no further. They returned and came to Ascalon. The greater part of the Scythians passed without doing any harm, but the camp-followers plundered the shrine of Aphrodite Urania. These the goddess punished with a loss of their manhood, and not them only but their descendants after them. For 28 years the Scythians were masters in Asia, and overturned everything in their arrogance and contempt. Beside the tribute which they imposed on all, and what they extorted in addition, they wandered to and fro stealing whatever any one possessed. The greater number were massacred by Cyaxares and the Medes, after they had entertained them and made them intoxicated. Thus the Medes won back their dominion, and ruled again over those over whom they had ruled previously, and conquered Nineveh--how they conquered the city I shall relate in another account--and made the Assyrians their subjects, as far as Babylonia."[520] "But the Scythians, who after 28 years returned to their land, were met by a disaster not less than that caused by the Medes. In the long period during which their husbands had been absent, the Scythian women had lived with their slaves, and from this intercourse a young generation had grown up, who opposed those who returned from Media. Where the Tauric Chersonese abuts on Lake Mæotis, at the point where the lake is broadest, they raised a large dyke, to mark off their territory. When the Scythians wished to enter the territory they encamped opposite them and fought. The battles were many, and the Scythians could not gain the upper hand, till one of them said: 'Our numbers become less in the struggle with our slaves if we fall, and if we continue to slay them we shall have fewer persons to rule over. Let us abandon the javelins and arrows, and take every man his whip, and go against them. So long as they see us in arms they think that they are our equals, and of equal birth; they will then know that they are our slaves, and will not stand their ground.' When this was done the others were terrified, abandoned the struggle, and fled. In this way the Scythians, after they had governed Asia, and had then been again driven out by the Medes, came back into their own land."[521] "Of the nomadic Scythians," so we are further told in another passage of Herodotus, "one tribe separated from the rest, and came into the Median territory, and asked for protection, and Cyaxares received them well, and held them in high estimation--putting boys in their care to whom they were to teach their language, and the use of the bow. The Scythians went out to the chase, and always brought something back. But it happened once that they found nothing, and returned with empty hands. Then Cyaxares, who was quick of temper, as the incident shows, received them harshly and with contempt. Enraged at the unmerited treatment they received the Scythians resolved to cut in pieces one of the boys given into their charge for education, and, after preparing him as they were accustomed to prepare venison, to set him before Cyaxares as the spoils of the chase, and at once to fly to Sardis to Alyattes. This was done. Cyaxares and those who were at table with him ate of this flesh. When Cyaxares demanded their surrender, and Alyattes refused it, the result was a war between the Lydians and Medes, which continued five years. In this war the Medes were often victorious, and also the Lydians; one battle was fought even by night. In the sixth year, when the armies met, and were already engaged, it happened that the day suddenly changed into night. When the night suddenly came upon them in the daytime, the Medes and Lydians desisted from the battle. On both sides there was an inclination to peace. But those who brought about a reconciliation were Syennesis the Cilician, and Labynetus the Babylonian. Through their instrumentality a peace was set on foot, and an intermarriage took place: they arranged that Alyattes should give his daughter Aryanis to wife to Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, for without some binding necessity treaties were not wont to continue."[522] Cyaxares was succeeded by Astyages on the throne of the Medes. When he had reigned 35 years he was defeated by Cyrus the Persian, and the dominion passed to the Persians after the Medes had reigned over Asia 128 years, beside the period during which the Scythians ruled.[523]

We need not point out how widely these accounts of Ctesias and Herodotus differ from each other. In Ctesias the Assyrian kingdom is in the fulness of vigour, with an unbroken organisation. It is an effeminate ruler whose weakness rouses the viceroys of two provinces of the kingdom to rebellion, in which this effeminate ruler confronts them with the most masculine energy; and finally succumbs after the bravest resistance and marvellous changes of fortune in the struggle. The empire, the metropolis, the king of Assyria perish simultaneously. The viceroy of Media takes the place of the king of Asshur as the lord of Asia. In the narrative of Herodotus the empire of the Assyrians is first overthrown; in the struggle against this the Medes win back their freedom; the remaining nations, who were subject to the Assyrians, follow their example, and also attain independence. Then out of the anarchy of the Medes there springs up a monarchy, of which Phraortes is the inheritor. He subdues one nation of Asia after the other. When this object has been obtained, he advances to the attack upon the Assyrians, and in the struggle against these he perishes. After this the Scythians conquer the Medes, and overthrow the dominion of the Medes over the nations of Asia, which Phraortes had won. For twenty-eight years they devastate Asia as far as the borders of Egypt, till the Median Cyaxares becomes their master by treachery, and again overthrows the Assyrians and conquers Nineveh. According to this, Assyria did not receive the death-blow till the Medes and the other nations were liberated from her dominion, and the Medes had twice established their supremacy over the rest of the nations.

In Ctesias it is Arbaces who overthrows the kingdom of the Assyrians; in Herodotus it is Phraortes who founds the empire of the Medes, and Cyaxares, the father of Astyages, who conquers Nineveh. The dates of the overthrow, no less than the authors of it, differ widely in Herodotus and Ctesias. In Herodotus, Cyaxares, the conqueror of Nineveh, reigns 40 years, his son Astyages 35 years. As the latter was defeated by Cyrus in 558 B.C., the reign of Cyaxares, and the invasion and conquest of the Scythians, the re-establishment of the Median kingdom, the war with the Lydians, the marriage of Astyages with the daughter of the king of Lydia, the conquest of Nineveh, must fall in the period between 633 and 593 B.C. On the other hand, according to the dates which Ctesias gives for Aspadas and his predecessors, up to the rebellion of Arbaces, Arbaces destroyed the kingdom and metropolis of Assyria in the year 878 B.C.[524]

Let us first examine each of the two accounts separately. In Ctesias the motives of the actors, the interpretations of dreams and constellations, all the incidents and occurrences, are known. He is acquainted with the conversations which Arbaces and Belesys carry on at the gate of the palace at Nineveh, and in their walks on the banks of the Tigris--and knows how they intend to divide the lion's skin before it is won. The effeminate life and nature of the king of Asshur are described in the strongest traits and with the most minute detail. Yet this effeminate man has a lawful wife, with whom he ends his existence, three sons and two daughters, whom, in his care for their lives, he sends away before Nineveh is shut up. After a life passed in the harem, an effeminate ruler, such as this account describes the last king of Assyria to have been, might, under the pressure of great danger, perhaps put himself to death; but he could hardly have the resolution and the capacity to struggle for three years, with heroic courage and obstinacy, for his kingdom and throne. In the narrative of Ctesias this effeminate king three times vanquishes his opponents in great battles. The latter are already resolved to abandon their undertaking, when the unexpected desertion of the Bactrians to the enemy again raises their courage. This desertion, the successful surprise of the Assyrian camp, and the overflow and floods of the Tigris, decide against Sardanapalus, who now, as Ctesias himself says, ends his life in a noble manner. This end takes place in a most remarkable way. In a country without wood, in a besieged city, a wooden mountain 400 feet in height is erected, which must have towered high above all the walls and towers, and have been seen from far by friend and foe. Least of all could the inhabitants of Nineveh, who saw the pyre building, be astonished at the rising smoke, as the narrative relates (p. 255). The narrative allows the pyre to go on burning for fifteen days undisturbed, and though the breach is opened before the building and lighting of the pyre, the besiegers quietly wait till it is burned down before forcing their way into the city.

All these contradictions and marvels, combined with the detailed and lively delineation of the life of the king among his women, the full account of the relation of Arbaces and Belesys, their characteristic traits, and the dramatic description of the battle, where victory hangs by a hair, and the preparations for self-incremation, show us that Ctesias has followed a poetical authority in describing the end, no less than the beginning of the Assyrian kingdom,--an authority of the same kind as that which could give us such accurate information about the origin, character, and fortunes of Semiramis, and the war with the Indians. The question about the origin of this authority is easier to answer here than in regard to the former descriptions. It is a Mede who is brought to honour, whose force and vigour can overthrow a great kingdom, whose courage and bravery are marked in comparison with the ruler of Assyria, no less than his honesty and gentleness puts to shame the treachery and avarice of his Babylonian accomplice. On him, the skilful hunter, the brave warrior, when in his service at the gate he hears of the king's effeminate life, the thought forces itself, that there is need of a brave man. The dream of the horse, which lets chaff fall on Arbaces, belongs decidedly to the conceptions of the Iranian nations, the Medes and Persians. The interpreter skilled in the stars, the Babylonian, knows at once what is the significance of the dream, and hastens to secure his share of the spoil, the satrapy of Babylonia, by a solemn promise taken from Arbaces. The sight of the king in female adornment, painting himself, which Arbaces finally obtains by bribing Sparameizes, decides his resolve. He gains the captains of the troops stationed with him at Nineveh. The war commences. The rebels are defeated even in the third battle, in spite of the heroic deeds of Arbaces and the number of the Assyrians slain by him. He is wounded; the army is compelled to retire as far as the borders of Babylonia. The Babylonian, who, after the second battle, has kept up the courage of the confederates by his astrology, adjures them to remain but five days. In this space of time Arbaces, who goes boldly to meet the Bactrians, succeeds in winning them, in surprising the Assyrian camp, in defeating Salarmenes, and destroying the Assyrian army in the third battle before the gates. The rebels have lost three battles, now they win three. The old oracle is fulfilled: the river becomes hostile to the city. Arbaces takes the place of Sardanapalus. The subtilty and cunning of the Babylonian, which is brought strongly forward beside his knowledge of the heavens, is contrasted with the uprightness of the Mede. Belesys has deceived him. When condemned to death Arbaces not only gives him his life; he despises the miserable gold, and leaves it to Belesys; he keeps strictly the promise he had once made to him on the Tigris, and the nations of Asia are in consequence compelled to acknowledge that Arbaces is worthy to rule them.

It is a poetical conception which contrasts the simple character and force of the Median servant with the effeminate splendour of the sovereign of Assyria, and which places beside the former, to aid and support him, the astrology and cunning of the Babylonians. But by this contrast the Medo-Persian Epos obtained another advantage; the completion of the whole poem. A masculine woman, Semiramis, had founded the kingdom; an effeminate man brings it to ruin. Herodotus does not know the name of Sardanapalus. But the name was known to the Greeks; before Ctesias wrote it had passed into a by-word--"more luxurious than Sardanapalus."[525] The effeminate traits are marked with extraordinary depth in the narrative of Ctesias; he not only wears woman's clothes, and does woman's work, but he imitates the voice of a woman, and pursues the pleasures of the male and female. Hence we must conclude that as the Median minstrels have used the myth and the form of Istar, a goddess of the Semites, in their delineation of Semiramis; so in their delineation of Sardanapalus, the opposite of Semiramis, they have used the myth of the Semitic god, who exchanges his nature with the female goddess placed beside him, who wears the woman's robe, and spins purple wool, just as his worshippers on certain festivals wore women's garments (I. 372). But if the god placed by the side of Istar assumed the nature of the woman, as Istar assumed the nature of the man, the masculine nature was not wholly lost to him. Thus the minstrels could represent Sardanapalus as taking up arms at the approach of the danger, and fighting bravely. It is no doubt due to this interchange of the masculine and feminine nature that Hellanicus and Callisthenes maintained that there were two princes of the name of Sardanapalus; the one was noble and active; the other sought his happiness in debauchery.[526] Even in the description of the death of Sardanapalus incidents in the worship of the Syrian goddess seem to have given the type to the Median minstrels. At the great festivals vast pyres were built to the sun-god of the Syrians; a number of precious goods were heaped upon them, which were set on fire together with an image of the god placed upon the pyre, who was supposed to renew his youth in the conflagration.[527] Lucian's statement that a statue of Sardanapalus stood beside that of Semiramis in the temple at Hierapolis can only support the conclusion that traits of the god united with Istar, and of his worship, were employed in the description of Sardanapalus.

To the Greeks Sardanapalus became a prophet of the philosophy which teaches us to exhaust life in enjoyment, because it is short, and nothing remains to a man beyond what the body has enjoyed. Aristobulus, the companion of Alexander, narrates: "Near Anchiale, where the camp was pitched, is a monument of Sardanapalus, on which stands a bronze figure, pressing together the fingers of the right hand, as though snapping them; the inscription says, in Assyrian letters: 'Sardanapalus, the son of Anakyndaraxes, built Anchiale and Tarsus in a single day. Eat, drink, be merry, the rest is not worth so much,' _i.e._ a snap of the fingers."[528] These words were worked out more fully among the Greeks, embodied in verse, and given out as an epitaph composed by Sardanapalus for his tomb, and to be found either at Anchiale or Nineveh.[529]

In the narrative of Herodotus also there is more than one difficulty. It is intended, as it states, to show how the nations of Asia, after this liberation from the Assyrians, again came under one master. The Medes, as brave warriors, liberate themselves from the Assyrians, but after this liberation they are found in a condition of utter lawlessness. Without combination of their powers, without union under one strong leader, could the Medes have succeeded in withdrawing themselves from a power so great as the Assyrian power was, even in the description of Herodotus? This lawlessness is brought to an end, not by a mighty warrior, but by a clever, ambitious village-judge, who by his decisions so gains the affections of the Medes, that they elect him to be king. When chosen he knows how to lead them by cunning, or rather to infatuate them into giving him a body-guard and building him a palace. Then he compels them to live together in one city, and, in the course of a long reign, establishes the despotic system of Asia to its full extent, with all its appliances, among the Medes. From this establishment of monarchy among the Medes, re-establishment of the despotic government spreads over all Asia. Phraortes, the son of Deioces, subjugates the Persians, and then all the nations which obeyed the Assyrians, in order finally to turn upon the latter. Could the Assyrians, who, according to the narrative of Herodotus, "were abandoned by their allies, but otherwise in a good state," at the time when Herodotus attacked them, have looked on at the successes of Phraortes, and quietly waited till they were reached in the series? Would they not rather have attempted in good time to meet the rise of the Medes, which occurred close upon their borders, and threatened them first of all? Phraortes, with the greater part of his army, is slain. To revenge his death, his son Cyaxares invests Nineveh. But the Scoloti have missed their way; they come upon the Medes instead of the Cimmerians, whom they are pursuing; none the less they begin battle with them, overcome them, and obtain the dominion over Asia--which they never desired--from Media to Egypt. After a part of them had suffered punishment from the goddess of Ascalon, they allow themselves to be made drunk by Cyaxares. They are massacred in part, and when they have returned to their own land--of which we are not told whether they ever possessed it before--they have to undergo a severe contest with the sons whom their wives have in the mean time brought forth to their slaves. These sons do not meet them on the Don, _i.e._ on the border which Herodotus fixes for the land of the Scoloti, but on the Crimea. The returning host bring this struggle, in which they could not conquer by force of arms, to a happy end by raising their whips. After the departure of the Scythians, Cyaxares again obtains the dominion over the nations which his father previously subjugated, and conquers Nineveh. Whether the war of Cyaxares with the Lydians took place before or after the capture of Nineveh is not clear from the narrative of Herodotus. It is at the least remarkable that Cyaxares, after he has escaped from the yoke of the Scythians by treachery and violence, should not only receive a troop of the same nation into his country, but show them favour, make them his hunters and the educators of Median boys, and then because the Lydian king prevents him from avenging a crime of the fugitives, carry on war for five years with the Lydians, till a sign from heaven puts an end to it. Were Lydia and Media neighbouring countries after Nineveh fell, or before? Had Cyaxares, when at war with Lydia, already recovered the dominion which Phraortes had established for the Medes over all Asia? If this was the case, were there princes of Cilicia and Babylonia in existence, or in such an independent position that they could come forward to negotiate peace and affinity between the contending states, Lydia and Media?

From this examination of the two accounts as to their separate contents, let us now proceed to inquire whether the statements in them agree with what has come down to us from other sources, and can be deduced from the last monuments of Assyria. The narrative of Ctesias is based on the view that the Assyrian kingdom was arranged in satrapies, like the kingdom of the Achæmenids: the inscriptions of the kings of Asshur have made it sufficiently clear that this was not the case. We have already seen that neither the statement of Ctesias about the duration of the Assyrian kingdom, nor that of Herodotus about the strength of their dominion, is tenable (II. 27, 46); not more tenable is the date given by Ctesias for the fall of Assyria. According to Ctesias, Arbaces overthrew the Assyrian kingdom in the year 883 or 878 B.C. (p. 262), and set up the dominion of himself and his descendants, the kings of Media, in the place of the dominion of the Assyrians. But we found above that Assurnasirpal, the son of Tiglath Adar, ascended the throne of Assyria in 883 B.C.--that his campaigns reached the coasts of Syria, that at his time Media was not yet subject to the Assyrian kingdom, that with him the long series of royal princes begins who raised Assyria to the height of her power, and that it was the army of his immediate successors which first trod the land of Media.

Herodotus represents the kings of the Medes as reigning over Asia for 128 years, "deducting the time during which the Scythians ruled."[530] His figures for the reigns of the Median kings, from Deioces to Phraortes, give 150 years from the beginning of Deioces down to the overthrow of Astyages.[531] The overthrow of Astyages took place in the year 558 B.C., and, therefore, Deioces began to reign in 708 B.C. How long before this the Medes liberated themselves from the dominion of Assyria, how long they lived in their free but lawless condition before electing Deioces king, Herodotus does not state. Enough that the Medes must, according to his statement, have liberated themselves in the second half of the eighth century B.C. But at this very time Tiglath Pilesar II. and Sargon ruled over Assyria; at this time the first advanced to Arachosia, repeatedly imposed tribute on the chiefs and cities of the land of Media (p. 3), while Sargon receives tribute from 22, then from 28, and finally from 45, chiefs of the Medes (p. 101). He boasts to be ruler over Media as far as the distant city of Simaspati, in the East; and the Hebrew Scriptures told us that the Israelites carried away after the capture of Samaria (722 B.C.) were settled in the cities of the Medes (p. 85). But not only did the kings of Asshur receive or compel acts of obedience from the tribes of the Medes at the time when, according to Herodotus' statement, Deioces ascended the throne of Media; Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) imposes tribute on the distant regions of Media; Esarhaddon removes distant tribes of Media, with their flocks, to Assyria, and subjugates cities which, as he maintains, lie far away in the land of Media (p. 150); and even the inscriptions of Assurbanipal, from the period before the year 650 B.C., speak of a captive chief of the Medes (p. 167). From all this it is clear that the liberation of the Medes took place later than Herodotus states. In his account, therefore, we can only retain the facts that Cyaxares, who, according to his statement, ascended the throne in the year 633 B.C., fought with success against the Assyrians--that the invasion of the Scythians, and their expulsion, the fall of Assyria, the great war with the Lydians, and, finally, the capture of Nineveh, took place in his reign, _i.e._ in the period from 633 to 593 B.C. (p. 262).

Most remarkable is the sudden incursion of the Scythians into Media, the ground for which is a pursuit wholly without any reason (p. 242), and the missing of the proper route. Let us examine the separate statements about this invasion, in order to come, if possible, nearer to the actual facts. The incursion of northern nations into Hither Asia at the time stated by Herodotus, _i.e._ in the second half of the seventh century, is a fact. In the reign of Josiah, king of Judah (640-609 B.C.), the prophet Zephaniah[532] announces a great judgment, which will come not only on Judah, Gaza and Ascalon, Ashdod and Ekron, Moab and Ammon, Egypt and Ethiopia, but also on Nineveh. Hence the prophet cannot have in his eye a punishment coming on Syria and Egypt from Assyria. From the earnest manner in which the prophet exhorts to repentance and improvement, to the purification of the sanctuary, and removal of "the remnant of Baal," the servants of Baal, it follows that this announcement of a coming judgment belongs to the period in the reign of Josiah, which lies before the reform of the worship and the publication of the new law, _i.e._ to the period from 640 to 622 B.C. (p. 213). Jeremiah speaks more definitely in the thirteenth year of Josiah[533] or soon after, _i.e._ in or immediately after the year 628 B.C. "I will bring evil from the north, and great destruction. The lion is come up from the thicket, and the destroyer of the nations is on his way." "Evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction."[534] "Lo! a people cometh from the north, and a great nation riseth from the uttermost end of the earth. It is a mighty nation, whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. They come on like clouds, like a whirlwind are their chariots; their horses are swifter than eagles. They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth as the sea, and they ride on horses set in array as men of war against thee. Their quiver is an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. Jehovah called the families of the kingdoms of the north; a burning wind comes from the hills of the desert, besiegers come from a distant land. Lions shall roar against Israel, and shall make his land a desert, his cities shall be burned, empty of inhabitants. Declare ye in Judah and publish in Jerusalem; blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Bethhaccerem.[535] Suddenly will the destroyer come upon us, suddenly are the tents spoiled, and the carpets in a moment. Every place shall flee before the noise of the horseman and the archer; they shall creep into thickets and climb up the rocks. Let us go into the strong cities; go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way: for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side. Our hands are feeble, pain and anguish have taken hold upon us. O my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes. The besiegers come up from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah. As keepers of a field they are against Jerusalem round about. The shepherds and their flocks shall come to Jerusalem, they shall feed every one in his own place. They shall glean the remnant of Israel as a vine, saith Jehovah of Hosts; the land shall be a desert. Nevertheless I will not make a full end."

From this description, taken in combination with the proclamation of Zephaniah against the Philistines, against Ascalon and Egypt, it is clear that the whole of Syria, as Herodotus told us, as far as the borders of Egypt--on which, in his account, the Scythians were induced to turn back by the entreaties and presents of Psammetichus (p. 258)--was overrun and laid waste. It is also clear that Jerusalem and the fortified cities of Syria withstood the invaders, and the storm soon passed by. It is not known whether the name Scythopolis, given by the Greeks to Bethshan, is in any way connected with this incursion of Scythians.[536] The only other author who knows of this incursion of Scythians into Asia is Pompeius Trogus. With him it is their third invasion. In the first, which they made before the time of Ninus of Assyria, the marshes prevented them from invading Egypt; on their return from these they spent fifteen years in subjugating Asia and imposing a moderate tribute upon the land, the payment of which was brought to an end by Ninus. The second invasion was made in aid of the Amazons, when hard pressed by Heracles and Theseus, at their entreaty. On the third campaign against Asia they were absent eight years, and on their return had to carry on war against their slaves; in this they finally got the victory by their rods and whips, and all the slaves whom they could capture were crucified.[537]

The chronology which can be deduced from the data found in the announcements of the two prophets gives us the period from 640 to 625 B.C. for the invasion of Hither Asia by the Scythians, and this completely agrees with the statements of Herodotus. In order to avenge the death of his father Phraortes, who fell, with the greater part of his army, before the Assyrians, Cyaxares, according to Herodotus, immediately after his accession, _i.e._ in the year 633 B.C., set out against Nineveh. During his siege of Nineveh, the incursion of the Scythians into Media took place. According to this, Herodotus placed the commencement of the invasion of Media by the Scythians in the year 633 B.C. or 632 B.C. The chronographers, Eusebius and Hieronymus, put the invasion at the same time; they observe, the first at the year 632 B.C., the second at the year 634 B.C., that "the Scythians forced their way as far as Palestine." Syncellus gives only the general statement, that in the days of king Josiah, Palestine was overrun by the Scythians, and the city of Bethshan taken by them, whence its name.[538]

The name Scythians, as has been already remarked, was applied by the Greeks and Romans in a wider sense to all the nomadic and equestrian tribes of the North; it was a comprehensive title for almost all the whole complex of the northern nations. To which nation of the Scythians, we may ask, did these hordes belong, which in the period just fixed, _i.e._ between 632 and 625 B.C., invaded and laid waste Hither Asia, from the Caucasus to Egypt? According to Herodotus, they were the ancestors of the Scythians between the Danube and the Don, the Scoloti. Herodotus represents them as invading Asia in their pursuit of the Cimmerians. But what reason was there for the pursuit, when the Cimmerians had voluntarily abandoned the land which the Scoloti desired? Besides, for more than a century before the date at which Herodotus represents them as flying to Asia before the Scythians, the Cimmerians were settled on the Halys, and must have been well known to the nations of Asia Minor; and ever since the emigration of the Cimmerians, _i.e._ for an equal period, the Scoloti had possessed the old abodes of the Cimmerians on the Pontus. What could have induced the Scoloti to undertake such a pursuit a good hundred years later? What made them miss the way, and come into Media instead of Cappadocia? Herodotus tells us that the Scoloti had taken a far longer route than that which led past Colchis, to Asia, so that they came out in Media, with the Caucasus on the right hand. By this "upper way," the pass of Derbend, on the Caspian Sea, may be meant, which would have brought the hordes of the North into Media through the land of the Cadusians, who were hostile to the Medes; but if we measure from the banks of the Don, where, according to Herodotus' narrative, we have to conceive the Scoloti as situated in their advance upon the Cimmerians from the East, this route could hardly be described as much longer than that by Colchis. By the upper route Herodotus apparently means the route round the Caspian Sea. The supposed error in the proper route may lead us into the right path, if we assume that the hordes which then invaded Media and inundated Asia were not mounted nomads from the steppes above the Black Sea, on the upper course of the Don, but nomads dwelling beyond the Caspian, in the steppes on the Oxus and Jaxartes. The legendary poetry of East Iran is filled with long and mighty struggles of the ancient heroes with those nations; and Ctesias tells us, again, without doubt, following the minstrelsy of West Iran, of the severe and doubtful wars which the predecessor of Astyages of Media, whom he calls Artæus, and Herodotus Cyaxares, carried on against the Sacæ, the neighbours of the Parthians and Hyrcanians in the steppes on the Oxus. It was these Sacæ who, four centuries after the invasion of Media by Herodotus' Scythians, burst through Parthia and Hyrcania, possessed themselves of the valleys of the Hilmend, the best region in the east of Iran, and gave to this region the name of Sikashtan, _i.e._ land of the Sacæ, now Sedshestan. On the earlier occasion the Sacæ may have made the same attempt to break into Iran. If nations on the steppes on the Oxus had overpowered Media, if they had also established themselves in Hither Asia, youthful bands of Sarmatians and Scoloti might have felt tempted to go out from the Pontus and take part in the campaign of plunder. In ascribing the invasion of Asia to the Scoloti, Herodotus no doubt followed the authority of his own people, the Greek settlers on the northern coast of the Pontus. The Cimmerians had once dwelt in these regions, and had retired from them before the Scoloti. It happened that at the time of king Ardys of Lydia (his reign, according to Herodotus, extended from 681 B.C. to 632 B.C.), these Cimmerians made an incursion into the west of Asia Minor from the abodes which they had obtained on the Halys, and forced their way at that time as far as Lydia and the Greek cities on the coast. They took Sardis, except the Acropolis. "It was not a subjugation of the cities," says Herodotus, "but only a passing raid."[539] The narrative of Herodotus proves conclusively that he knew nothing of the earlier incursions of the Cimmerians into the west of Asia Minor, and therefore he assumed that this campaign against Sardis and the cities of the Greeks, in the time of Ardys, was identical in date, and, in fact, the same as the incursion of the Cimmerians into Asia Minor. And as Herodotus also learnt that Cyaxares of Media was overthrown by Scythian hordes who devastated all Asia, and that fugitives of these hordes had also come into the west of Asia Minor to the grandson of Ardys, Alyattes of Lydia, he represents the Cimmerians as being pursued towards Asia, along the Pontus, by their ancient enemies, the Scoloti, who, he thinks, missed their way. He was evidently confirmed in this opinion by the fact that certain families of the Scoloti suffered from a loss of sexual power (p. 258), a disease which the Greeks on the Pontus attributed to the anger of Aphrodite Urania, the goddess of fertility, whose oldest and most famous temple was at Ascalon, in Syria. Hippocrates says that this disease showed itself among the wealthiest families of the Scoloti, and not among the poor, because the former were always on horseback;[540] according to Aristotle the disease was hereditary in the royal family of the Scythians.[541] Lastly, a story of the slaves of the Scythians, who, in the absence of their masters, had made themselves masters, helped to attribute the invasion of Asia to this nation of the Scythians. The basis of the story, which obviously belongs to the Crimea, lies in the fact that after the Scoloti had forced the Tauri, the ancient inhabitants of the Crimea, into the mountains of this peninsula, and had subjugated and made slaves of those who remained behind in the plains, both the one and the other must have seized a favourable opportunity to make themselves again masters of the peninsula, and close it against the Scoloti by means of a trench. The supposed effect of the whips is due, no doubt, to the Hellenes in Scythia, who thus marked the nature and the existence of slavery.

The liberation of the Medes from the dominion of the Assyrians must not only have taken place later, but in a different manner from that narrated by Herodotus. The inscriptions of the kings of Asshur showed us that the tribes of the Medes whom Herodotus calls Arizantes, Busæ, Struchatæ, Budæans, and Parætaceni, lived separately, under a number of princes. Not long after the settlement of the Israelites in the cities of the Medes, in the year 715 B.C., Sargon represents a prince Dayaukka as carried away captive with his people; and in 713 B.C. he takes the field against Bit Dayauku, and receives tribute from 45 princes of the Medes (p. 101). Hence among the regions of the chieftains of Media, there was a region which the Assyrians called the land or house of Dayauku, just as with them Israel was Bit Omri. Deioces, the prince from whom Bit Dayauku received its name, who, in Herodotus, is a son of Phraortes, must in consequence have founded a sovereignty in Media, or at any rate have been at the head of a sovereignty derived from his father, about the year 720 B.C. at the lowest. We may without hesitation look for this region in the land of Ecbatana, but at that time it cannot have taken up a large part of Media. Neither the inscriptions of Sargon, nor those of his successors, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Assurbanipal, mention Deioces or his land either in the payment of tribute by the Medes, or in the conquest of the separate tribes. Nothing is said of any central monarchy among the Medes, or of a kingdom of the Medes. If Media had been united and free at the time of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Sennacherib would not have marched against Syria and Cilicia, nor Esarhaddon against Egypt; they would not and could not have left in the rear, in the most threatening proximity, the most dangerous enemy. If we nevertheless assume that during the sway of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon over Assyria the influence of Deioces steadily increased, we must concede to Herodotus that this higher position was gained not by martial deeds, but by craft and advice urging union. Then Phraortes, who, according to Herodotus, succeeded his father Deioces in the year 655 B.C., must have been able formally to assemble the tribes of the Medes round Bit Dayauku, and to organise them: it was he who united Media under his dominion. But we cannot place this union earlier than the period at which Assurbanipal destroyed Elam, and directed his arms against Arabia (p. 177): _i.e._ it must come after the year 645 B.C. Assurbanipal could not possibly employ his troops in repeated campaigns for the maintenance of Egypt, the reconquest of Babylon, the destruction of Elam, and the punishment of the Arabians, if a strong and compact force stood behind the passes of the Zagrus; still less could he look idly on while Phraortes subjugated the Persians, and then one nation after another in Asia, as Herodotus supposes, with the view of throwing himself on Assyria--if he could prevent it. The more probable course of events is, that Phraortes, as soon as he accomplished the union of the Median tribes, had to await and repel the attack of Assyria--that the tribes of the Persians among whom, precisely about this time, Achæmenes obtained the first place,[542] being threatened by the extension of the dominion of Assyria over Elam on their borders, combined with Phraortes for common defence, and consented to be led by the stronger nation. The tradition of the Medes, and their poems, on which the statements of Herodotus rest, would naturally antedate the liberation of their nation, and would place it in the times before Deioces; they would even ascribe conquests to Phraortes, and represent him as falling in an attack on Nineveh. It agrees with the position of affairs and the relation of the powers, that Phraortes should have fallen with the greater part of his army, as Herodotus says, in repulsing Assyria and Assurbanipal in the year 633 B.C. The first duty of his son Cyaxares must have been to avert from Media the consequences of the heavy defeat which destroyed his father. That Cyaxares, and not Phraortes, a century after the death of the latter, passed in the nation of the Medes as the founder of the Median supremacy, is clear from the fact that Phraortes, the head of the rebellion of the Medians against Darius, lays aside his proper name in order to call himself "Kshatrita, descendant of Cyaxares," and that at this time the leader of the Sagartians also gives himself out as a descendant of Cyaxares of Media.

Let us first cling to the fact that in the decade which followed the conquest of Elam by Assurbanipal (644-634 B.C.) Media united her tribes under a sovereign, and freed herself from the dominion of Assyria, and in combination with the Persians on the East obtained the position of a considerable power beside Assyria. In the West, before this date, Assurbanipal had already lost the dominion over Egypt, and the advance of Psammetichus towards Syria (p. 180) must have made the obedience of the Syrian cities and princes doubtful. The rise of the Medes under Phraortes, the successful resistance which they made to Assyria, must have had a far-reaching influence. After such a long series of successes the arms of Assyria could not prevail against this new power. In Judah, where the prophets of the Hebrews from the second half of the eighth century had looked on Assyria as the instrument of Jehovah for the visitation of the nations and the punishment of the sins of Israel and Judah, the position of that power, soon after the year 640 B.C., was seriously shattered or threatened, since the prophet Nahum, when looking back on the destruction of Thebes by the army of Assurbanipal, could already announce that the line of destruction would reach even to Assyria and Nineveh. The lively description of the defenders and the devastation of Thebes, shows that the capture (which had taken place in the year 663 B.C.)[543] was already fresh in the remembrance of the Syrians. "The lion," so we find it in Nahum, "did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin. I am against thee, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and I will burn thy chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions; and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messenger shall no more be heard. I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile. Woe to the well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcraft; woe to the bloody city; it is full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not. The noise of the whip, and of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots; the horseman cometh on, the bright sword and glittering spear." "Art thou better than No-Ammon (Thebes) that was situate by the Nile?"[544] "The destroyer is come up before thee, Nineveh; keep the munition, watch the way, gird thy loins, fortify thyself mightily. Draw thee water for the siege, fortify thy strongholds; go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln. Thy mighty men hasten to the walls, but they stumble in their walk. The covering shall be prepared for the besiegers. All thy strongholds shall be fig-trees with the first ripe figs; if they be shaken they shall fall even into the mouth of the eater. Fire shall devour thee, and the sword shall cut thee off."[545] "With an overrunning flood Jehovah will make an utter end of her habitations; the gates of the river shall be opened, and the palace dissolved. Behold, thy people are women for thy enemies; the gates of thy land shall be set wide open; the fire shall devour thy bars. Nineveh was full of men while she stood, but they flee. Halt! halt! Yet no one turneth; her maids sigh like doves, and beat the breast. Take the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; there is no end of the store; abundance of all kinds of costly vessels. She is empty, and void, and waste, and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; there is no end of their corpses. They stumble on the corpses. Thy captains fly, O king of Assyria, thy mighty men slumber, thy people is scattered on the mountains, and no man gathereth them. Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion, and the lioness, and the lion's whelp walked and none made them afraid? No more of thy name shall be sown; there is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous. All that look on thee shall flee from thee and say, Nineveh is laid waste; all that hear of thee shall clap their hands over thee, for upon whom has not thy wickedness passed continually?"[546]

How far the successes which Cyaxares obtained soon after his accession (633 B.C.) in repelling and attacking Assyria and Assurbanipal carried him--whether even then the army of the Medes advanced to the walls of Nineveh, as Herodotus states, cannot be ascertained, and cannot be denied. Whatever advantage Media may have obtained at that time it was not only lost, but the Median empire collapsed, when Cyaxares had vainly attempted to repulse the Sacæ (632 B.C.). These Sacæ, however, were not content with the possession of Media; they descended from the table-land of Iran into the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and spread over Hither Asia. We saw how clearly the prophet Zephaniah announced in those days (about 630 B.C.) the great judgments that would come upon Nineveh and Judah, on Gaza and Ascalon, on Ashdod, and Ekron, and Ethiopia. "Jehovah," he says, "will stretch out his hand against the North, and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations; the pelican and the bittern shall lodge in the lintels of it; the birds shall sing in the windows of it; desolation shall be on the thresholds. The cedar work is torn down. All who go by shall hiss and wag the hand. This is the rejoicing city which dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am and there is none beside me! How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in!"[547]

Assurbanipal, as we saw, ascended the throne of Assyria in the year 668 B.C., and he retained it till the year 626 B.C. Though we have no evidence from Assyrian inscriptions to fix the end of his reign, the canon of Ptolemy puts the end of the dominion of Saosduchin (by whom is meant Samul-sum-ukin) in the year 648 B.C., _i.e._ in the year in which Assurbanipal crushed his rebellion and took Babylon. We also possess an Assyrian tablet which dates from the twentieth year of Assurbanipal in Babylon, and consequently extends his reign in the city from 648 B.C. to 628 B.C. Further, the canon of Ptolemy represents a new reign as commencing in Babylon in the year 625 B.C., and therefore we are certain that Assurbanipal remained on the throne for 42 years, down to 626 B.C.[548] The first half of his reign was filled with the most brilliant successes; his armies marched to Thebes, Babylon, and Susa; but the second half was the reverse of the first. Egypt was lost. Serious struggles without results were carried on against the Medes, though they were once varied by a great victory. The Median power advanced nearer and nearer to the native land and the chief cities. The Medes had indeed been compelled to turn against the Sacæ; but these not only overthrew Media, they covered Asia, destroyed the cohesion of the Assyrian kingdom, and entirely disorganised it. Cleitarchus narrated: "Sardanapalus (Assurbanipal) died in old age, after the dominion of the Syrians had been broken down;"[549] and the Syrians, according to the usage of Cleitarchus, are the Assyrians.

Ctesias told us above, that the dominion of the Assyrians succumbed to the united efforts of the viceroys of Media and Babylon, the combined efforts of the Medes and Babylonians. Herodotus, as we saw, represents a prince of Babylon as negotiating peace between Lydia and Media. In an excerpt of Abydenus which has been preserved we read: "After Sardanapalus (Assurbanipal), Saracus reigned over Assyria: when he found that multitudes of a collected horde came up from the sea like locusts, he at once sent Busalossorus as commander of the army to Babylon. This officer resolved on rebellion, and betrothed his son Nabukodrossorus to the daughter of Astyages, king of Media, Amuhea by name."[550] According to the excerpt of Syncellus, Alexander Polyhistor gave the following account: Saracus sent Nabopolassar as general, but he married Amyite the daughter of Astyages, the satrap of the Medes, to his son Nabuchodonossor, and rebelled against Saracus and Nineveh.[551] Hence in Abydenus and Polyhistor, the successor of Assurbanipal on the throne of Assyria was Saracus. Against hosts who came from the sea, _i.e._ against the hosts of the Sacæ coming up from the Caspian Sea, or marching, on their return from Syria, _i.e._ from the Mediterranean, against Babylon, he sends the general whom Abydenus calls Busalossorus, and Polyhistor Nabopolassar. According to the canon of Ptolemy, the reign of Nabopolassar in Babylon begins in the year 625 B.C. This prince, the Nabopolassar of the canon and Polyhistor, is not distinct from the Busalossorus of Abydenus. It is the same name: in the one writer he is the father of Nabukodrossorus, in the other the father of Nabuchodonossor. Nabukodrossorus is Nabukudurussur; Nabuchodonossor is Nebuchadnezzar, the corrupted Hebrew form of the name Nabukudurussur. The Belesys of Ctesias, the confederate of the Mede, is Nabopolassar. In both fragments Nabopolassar, whom the king of the Assyrians sends as a viceroy or general to Babylonia, and whose rule over Babylonia begins with the year 625 B.C., resolves to rebel against the king of Assyria; with this object he enters into a league with the king or satrap, _i.e._ the Assyrian viceroy of Media, who in Abydenus and Polyhistor is called Astyages.[552] In both fragments Nabopolassar marries his son Nebuchadnezzar to Amuhea or Amyite, the daughter of the Mede. Astyages was the son of Cyaxares of Media, who began to reign in the year 593 B.C. Hence in both fragments the father must be put in the place of the son, just as in Herodotus the Nabopolassar of Polyhistor must be put in the place of Labynetus.

The invasion of the Sacæ certainly gave the most severe blow to the Assyrian kingdom: it reached the native territory, and broke the cohesion of the kingdom. The lands previously subjugated could not be protected, and therefore could not be maintained. We found above, that about the year 625 B.C., the Sacæ marched through Syria to the borders of Egypt. It is also certain, from the canon of Ptolemy, that it was the king of Assyria who succeeded Assurbanipal on the throne in 626 B.C., who named Nabopolassar his viceroy in Babylon, in order to protect Babylonia against the Sacæ. Nabopolassar cannot have entered into a league with Cyaxares of Media; Babylonia cannot have broken with Assyria; the rebellion against Saracus cannot have taken place, till Cyaxares was again master in his own land and the Sacæ were driven out of Media, whether this expulsion took place as recorded in Herodotus or in some other way. That Nabopolassar felt himself called upon to draw the league with Media as close as possible is clear from the fact that he at the same time married his son to the daughter of the king of Media. And he not only brought about this marriage, he did away with the war between Media and Lydia, and established an alliance between the royal families of the two nations. This war must be placed before the destruction of Assyria; had it not been necessary to set the forces of Media free against Assyria, the prince of Babylon would have had no interest in reconciling the differences between Lydia and Babylonia. After the destruction of Assyria it would have been much more advisable for Babylon that Media, whose power surpassed that of Babylonia, should be engaged elsewhere. This conclusion is confirmed by the eclipse which separated the armies of the Lydians and the Medes in the sixth year of the war, in the middle of a battle (p. 260). This took place in the year 610 B.C.[553] The war between Cyaxares of Media and Alyattes of Lydia must therefore have begun in the year 615 B.C.

But what caused Media to be at war with the distant land of Lydia? We must assume that Cyaxares first succeeded in setting his land free from the hordes of the Sacæ. He availed himself of this to give aid to the lands bordering on the west of Media, the Armenians and Cappadocians, against the same plundering tribes; to exhibit himself there as a liberator from the Sacæ; and, at the same time, as a liberator from the dominion of the Assyrians. In this way he quickly advanced the borders of Media to the Halys. Here he came upon the Lydians, who on their part had made use of the convulsion and confusion which had been caused by the advance of the Cimmerians as far as the western shore of Asia Minor, to extend their dominion over Phrygia as far as the Halys. As the war between him and the Lydians commences in the year 615 B.C., Cyaxares must have mastered the Sacæ in Media as early as the year 620 B.C. The dominion of the Scythians in Asia, which Herodotus represents as lasting 28 years, is thus narrowed down to a short ten years--or indeed to eight years, the number given by Justin. From this point--the liberation of Media from the Sacæ, _i.e._ about 620 B.C.,--we have to fix not only the advance of Cyaxares to the West, but his league with Nabopolassar of Babylon, and the marriage of his daughter to Nabopolassar's son must be put about the same time. When Nabopolassar had arranged the peace between Media and Lydia, which fixed the Halys as the border of the two kingdoms, Aryanis, the daughter of Alyattes, is married to the son of Cyaxares (610 B.C.), Media and Babylonia, Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, unite their forces against Assyria.

On the ruins of Chalah, in the south-east corner of the terrace, on which stand the palaces of the kings of Asshur, to the south of the ruins of the house of Samsi-Bin III. (II. 325), are the remains of a not very extensive building; some bricks bear the inscription: "I Assur-idil-ili, king of the nations, king of the land of Asshur, son of Assurbanipal, king of the nations, king of the land of Asshur, son of Esarhaddon, king of Asshur. I caused bricks and beams to be prepared for the building of the house of salvation, situated at Chalah: for the life of my soul I did this."[554] Another inscription of Assur-idil-ili mentions his restoration of the temple of Nebo at Chalah.[555] Hence we must assume that Assur-idil-ili, the son of Assurbanipal, ascended the throne of Assyria after the death of his father, in the year 626 B.C.; that it is he who is called Saracus in Polyhistor, who appointed Nabopolassar viceroy of Babylonia, in order to maintain Babylon against the Sacæ; and that about the year 620 B.C. the latter broke away from Assur-idil-ili. Yet from a broken tablet of Assur-idil-ili, recently discovered, we shall gather that he did not ascend the throne immediately after his father's death, but later;[556] and the opinion is held that the immediate successor of Assurbanipal was Bel-zakir-iskun, whose name occurs in a cylinder found at Kuyundshik. The name of the father of this king is broken off; and he is only placed immediately after Assurbanipal because he styles himself, not only king of Assyria, but also king of Sumir and Accad.[557] But are there not numerous instances to prove that titles of dominion are retained after the lands which they denote as subject have long been lost? Lastly, in two fragmentary tablets the name of Cyaxares is supposed to be concealed in the form Castarit. The first fragment mentions Esarhaddon and Castarit, the lord of the city of Carcassi, beside Mamiti-arsu, the lord of the city of the Medes. At the very earliest, Cyaxares of Media cannot have been born when Esarhaddon died. The second fragment speaks of a hundred days of prayer and thanksgiving, because Castarit with his warriors, and the warriors of the Cimmerians, and the warriors of the Mannai, had taken the towns of Khartam and Kissassu. But here also the inscription seems to be speaking of another period, and indeed of conflicts from the days of Esarhaddon, when the Cimmerians set foot on the southern shore of the Black Sea; and I would not, on this account, allow myself to be led astray, even if a third tablet, supposed to narrate the same circumstances, should mention Castarit as a prince of the Medes.[558]

Of the incidents of the war, which Cyaxares and Nabopolassar commenced in the year 609 B.C. against Assyria, we have no account. According to the songs of the Medes, which lie at the base of the account of Ctesias, it continued three years; many severe battles were fought, with varying fortune, before Nineveh could be invested. The capture of the city was finally achieved, because the Tigris carried away a portion of the city walls. When Xenophon marched past Chalah, which he calls Larissa, 200 years after the fall of Nineveh, and found long strips of wall 120 feet high still standing, he was informed that the king of the Persians, when he took the dominion from the Medes, could not by any means capture the lofty and strong walls of this city of the Medes (II. 16). A cloud hid the sun, and made the city invisible till the inhabitants had left it; and thus it was taken. At that time the queen of the Medes fled to Mespila (the name given by Xenophon to Nineveh), where he saw the walls still standing of the height of 150 feet. This city the king of the Persians could not take, either by length of siege or by storm, till Zeus had dazed the inhabitants by lightning: then the city was taken.[559]

The memory of the Assyrian kingdom had at that time so entirely disappeared, that Xenophon's guides could put the Medes in the place of the Persians, the Persians in the place of the Medes, and the king of the Persians in the place of Cyaxares. In Abydenus we are told, after the excerpt of Eusebius: Nabopolassar (Bussalossorus), after marrying his son to the daughter of the king of the Medes, marched against Nineveh. "When Saracus heard of this, he burnt himself and the royal citadel."[560] Polyhistor, following the excerpt of Syncellus, tells us: Nabopolassar, sent out by Saracus as a leader of his army, turned against his master, and marched against Nineveh. In fear of his approach, Saracus burnt himself with his palace.[561] Strabo tells us: "Nineveh was destroyed soon after the break up of the dominion of the Medes."[562] At the year 607 B.C., Eusebius and Hieronymus observe: "Cyaxares the Mede destroys Nineveh."

"Because Asshur was high of growth," such are the words of Jehovah in the prophet Ezekiel, "and shot up his top, and his heart was lifted up in its height, I have delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations that he may deal with him at his pleasure; I have driven him out for his wickedness. And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off and cast him away. Upon the mountains and in all vallies his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers in the land. All the people from the earth are gone down from his shadow and have left him. Upon his fallen trunk the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with those that descend into the pit. In that day I caused a mourning, and restrained the floods round him; the great waters were stayed; I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field lamented him. Asshur's grave is made in the depth of the pit, round about are the graves of his host; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living."[563]

Media stood triumphant over the kingdom which had so long ruled over Hither Asia and the western edge of Iran; Babylon was victorious over the branch which had grown up out of her own root, had far surpassed the mother-stem, and had struck home the mother-country in many a tough struggle. Babylon had suffered far more heavily than Media. At last retribution had come. Chalah and Nineveh, which had received the tribute of the nations for so many years, which had seen so many vanquished princes, so many embassies of subjugated lands in their walls, were annihilated. And not the ancient cities only, but the condition of the Assyrian nation must have been severely smitten by this war of annihilation. Often as Babylon had been overthrown by the Assyrians--even though mastered by Cyrus--she still was able to rise repeatedly in stubborn rebellion against the Achæmenids: Elam repeatedly attempted to regain her old independence; but of the native land of Assyria, which after the fall of Nineveh became a part of Media, and passed with Media under the dominion of the Persians, we hear only once that the Assyrians, with the Armenians, rebelled against king Darius. But the picture of Behistun, which mentions the double rebellion of Babylon, the three rebellions of Elam against Darius, and exhibits the conquered leaders of these nations, is silent on the rebellion of the Assyrians and Armenians: it was not of enough importance to be mentioned.

The low ruin heaps of Nineveh (Kuyundshik, Nebbi Yunus, and Khorsabad), of Chalah (Nimrud), and Asshur (Kileh Shergat), washed down as they are by streams of rain, have yet preserved for us the remains of the buildings and palaces of the kings of Asshur, from the days of Samsi-Bin I., Tiglath Pilesar I., Shalmanesar I., down to Assur-idil-ili. Set on fire at the time of destruction, the wooden roofs of the palaces were reduced to cinders, and fell in upon the floor of the chambers, where portions of them are still to be found. The upper parts of the brick-walls were then washed down by wind and rain, and covered the lower part of the rooms. Even where the fire did not spread, the beams of the roofs at length broke down, the upper layers of the bricks on the walls were gradually washed down, and raised the floors of the chambers, as well as the ground immediately surrounding them. By this process the palaces of Nineveh, Chalah, and Dur Sarrukin, were changed into heaps of earth. But while the upper part of the buildings buried the lower in their ruins, the lower part, with all the inscriptions and sculptures contained in it, was saved from further destruction; and these unsightly heaps have preserved to us the civilisation and the characteristics of the Assyrians, as truly as the lofty monuments and rock tombs on the Nile have preserved the picture of ancient Egypt, though they do not present the same breadth, and extend in the same way to every side of life.

FOOTNOTES:

[514] Nicol. Dam. Frag. 9, ed. Müller. Athenæus, p. 529. Diod. 2, 24.

[515] Athenæus, p. 528.

[516] Diod. 2, 24-27.

[517] Athenæus, p. 529.

[518] Diod. 2, 28.

[519] Diod. 2, 32-34.

[520] Herod. 1, 95, 96.

[521] Herod. 4, 1-4.

[522] Herod. 1, 73, 74.

[523] Herod. 1, 130.

[524] Or, as in Ctesias the victory of Cyrus over Astyages is placed in 564 B.C.--even in the year 883 B.C. Cf. Vol. II., p. 26.

[525] Aristoph. Aves, 102.

[526] Hellan. Frag. 158. Callisth. Frag. 32, ed. Müller.

[527] Movers, "Relig. der Phoeniker," s. 154. 394, 465, 496, 612. The pyre which Alexander caused to be erected in Babylon to Hephæstion, after the Semitic pattern, was four stades in circuit and 200 feet in height. Diod. 17, 115.

[528] Aristob. Frag. 6, ed. Müller. Cf. above, p. 145, 146.

[529] _e.g._ Diod. 2, 24; Amyntas in Athenæus, p. 529.

[530] If we assume that the 28 years of the Scythian dominion have already been deducted from the 128 years, and must therefore be added to them, 714 B.C. (= 558 + 156) is the beginning of the Median dominion. In the other case this must have commenced in the year 658 (558 + 100) B.C. Since Herodotus represents Phraortes as first conquering Asia, and represents him as ascending the throne in 655 B.C., the duration of the Median empire is not even 100, but only 79 years. We shall soon see that it was even shorter.

[531] Deioces reigned 53 years, Phraortes 22, Cyaxares 40, Astyages 35. Each pair of rulers makes up a total of 75 years.

[532] Zeph. i. 1.

[533] Jerem. i. 1; xxv. 3.

[534] Jerem. iv. 6.

[535] Jerem. vi. 1.

[536] 2 Maccab. xii. 29. Strabo, p. 763; Joseph. "Antiq." 5, 1, 22, etc. Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 5, 16; Steph. Byzant. [Greek: Skuthopolis].

[537] Justin, 1, 2-5.

[538] Syncell. "Chron." p. 405, ed. Bonn.

[539] Herod. 1, 6, 15, 16.

[540] Hippocr. "De aero," c. 22.

[541] "Ethic. Nicom." 7, 7 (8).

[542] Vol. V., chap. 3.

[543] Above, p. 164.

[544] Nahum iii. 8.

[545] Nahum ii. 13, 14; iii. 1-5, 12-15.

[546] Nahum i. 8, 14; iii. 7-12; iii. 7, 13.

[547] Zeph. ii. 13-15.

[548] In Polyhistor Sardanapalus reigns over the Chaldæans for 21 years after Samuges.

[549] In Athenæus, p. 553.

[550] Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 37, ed. Schöne. Kiepert, "Monatsb. B. A.," 1873, s. 191.

[551] Syncell. "Chron." p. 210, ed. Bonn.

[552] Asdahag is the Armenian form in the Armenian Eusebius.

[553] As we have the choice between the two eclipses of 610 and 584 B.C. the preference must be given to that of 610 B.C. Where the battle was fought between the Medes and Lydians we do not know; but we do know that in the year 584 B.C. Cyaxares and Nabopolassar were no longer alive. If we replace these names by Astyages and Nebuchadnezzar--although the children of the princes who conclude peace and alliance are expressly named as the parties contracting in marriage--and Astyages had no son, Nineveh had fallen long before 584 B.C., and Babylonia would not have had the least interest in bringing about a peace between Lydia and Media. On the contrary, Nebuchadnezzar, who had erected such enormous fortifications against Media, in order to secure his own weaker kingdom against any attacks of the Median power, would only have been too glad to keep Media engaged in the West by the continuance of the Lydian war. Yet that it was a question of the rescue of Lydia in the interest of Babylonia cannot be supported in the face of the assertion of Herodotus, that the fortune of arms was equal. As the dates given by Herodotus for the reigns of the Lydian kings have to be replaced by those of Eusebius (below, Chapter 17), the dating of the beginning of the war at the year 615 B.C. would allow the first three years to fall in the reign of Sadyattes; but in this there is no difficulty.

[554] E. Schrader, "K. A. T.," s. 233.

[555] G. Smith, "Disc.," p. 344.

[556] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 382.

[557] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 382.

[558] Sayce, "Babylon. Litterature," p. 79, _seqq._

[559] "Anab." 3, 4, 7-9.

[560] Euseb. "Chron." I., p. 37, ed. Schöne.

[561] Syncell, "Chron." p. 396, ed. Bonn.

[562] Strabo, p. 737.

[563] Ezek. xxxi. 11-16; xxxii. 22, 23.