The Age of Sargon II by Albert Olmstead

Author:Albert Olmstead [Albert Olmstead]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2018-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

THE MEDIAN WARS

JUDGED RATHER BY THEIR results than by the details of their progress, the wars with the Median tribes, begun under Shalmaneser II in 836 and carried on by the later Assyrian kings with ever-decreasing hopes of success, deserve a large part in general history. Drifting westward as petty unconnected tribes, at war often with each other, they gradually drove in or conquered the more or less Assyrianized tribes along the eastern frontier, and then began to assail the empire itself. For a time the better trained Assyrian soldiers succeeded in beating them off, but the task was never-ending and the drain severe. The destruction of one clan meant only room for another to expand in, while all the time they were learning from the enemy. At last Assyria, now defended almost exclusively by mercenaries, themselves of Iranian extraction in many cases, fell, and then the collapse of Babylon was merely a question of time. Yet so thoroughly had they been transformed by the contact with their more civilized neighbors that, when at last they had conquered what was then the civilized world, they were found to stand for almost the same ideas in government and social life as did those who had preceded them in the way of empire. Here we have an interesting parallel in the evolution which led our Germanic ancestors from the idea of the rude chief with his band of personal attendants to the conception of the Holy Roman Empire. Interesting, however, as a study of these general movements may be, the details of this constant border warfare are dry to study and difficult to handle.

Thanks to the exertions of Tiglath Pileser III and to the provincial organization he brought to so high a pitch of efficiency, Sargon was well situated as regards these tribes. On the northeast and between Arbela and Muçaçir was the province of Kirruri which had been Assyrian territory since the ninth century. At this time the governor was Shamash upahhir. To the south of this was Parsuash, and again, to the south of this last, between the Lower Zab and the Diyala, on the first outliers of the eastern mountains, lay that of Arapha, now governed by Ishtar Duri. To the east of this was Lullume, an ill-defined province in the Shehrizor highland, whose governor, Sharru emur ani, whose residence probably was at the modern Suleimania, bore the brunt of the conflict.

We may now take up the operations in detail. First we have the operations of the governor of Parsuash (717). A number of towns of the land Niksama were plundered, and Sipu sharru, the ruler of Shurgardia, probably a revolted subject, was captured. Lying as they did on the Parsuash frontier, they were naturally added to that province.

The governor next advanced to Kishesim, the most important town in the Parsuash region, and captured and carried off the komarch Bel shar ugur, whose name reminds us of the Biblical Belshazzar. The site of Kishesim seemed well adapted to be the seat of a province.

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