ARIOCH or venerable).
1. Arioch, king of Ellasar, according to the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, was one of the four confederate kings who, under the lead of Chedor laomer, king of Elam, invaded Palestine in the time of Abraham.
The entire interest of the name centers in George Smith's identification of Arioch with a king who had previously been known from the in scriptions, as Rim-Sin. king of Larsa. George Smith found evidence that the moon-god Sin bore the name of Agu or Aku in the Mongolian or Akkadian language. Translated from the Semi tic into the Akkadian, the name Rim-Sin would be Eri-Agu or Eri-Aku.
These proper names in earlier times do not often appear spelled out in full, a single ideograph having the meaning servo,' to be read either Rim, or Eri, or Arad, or Agu: just as we read the same algebraic sign either minus or less, the one word being Latin and the other English. But in one case at least we find the name Eri-Agn spelled out in full, so that we know that this pronunciation was used as well as Rim-Sin. Now Eri-Agu or Eri-Akii is as near an approximation to Arioch as the language will allow.
As for the Ellasar of which Arioch of Genesis was king, that instantly suggests the Larsa over which Eri-Aku ruled. \Ve do not even need to suppose transposition of the r and s, for we have the spelling Larsa in the old monuments. Before the discovery that there was an Eri-Aku, king of Larsa, there was no other easy identification of the name Ellasar except Kalah-Shergot, the early capital of Assyria, on the Tigris, the old name of which was Alu-Asser or the "City of Assur," which might be transformed into Ellasare.
But the confederacy antedates, so far as we know, the founding of this northern city. We may then dismiss Alu-Asser and content our selves with considering who was Eri-Aku, king of Larsa.
The only Ari-Aku we know of as a Babylonian king anywhere or at any time was this Ari-Aku, or Arioch, king of Larsa or Ellasar, and he reigned just at this time of Abraham. If there were to be such an invasion of Palestine in the time of Abraham, Eri-Aku, king of Larsa, would be one of the confederate kings.
This is a fact which could not possibly be known or confirmed except by the original records hand ed down from the time of the author of Genesis, and now carefully investigated. It is true some careful scholars like Tiele are slow to accept this identification, but Hommel and others have fully accepted and defended it, and in Billerbreck's "Susa," recently published, it is treated as now to be fully admitted.
We have no small number of inscriptions which mention Rim-Sin, or Eri-Aku, and the events of his life are fairly well known for the king of a small province who lived not far from two thou sand years before Christ. Larsa was one of the vassal states of Babylonia, while it was subject to the king of Elam and its king was simply a ruler under the king of Elam up to the time when the Elamite or Mongol rule was overthrown by the Semitic Babylonian patriot, Hammurabi. The last of the kings of Larsa was this Eri-Aku, and it is quite possible, as argued by Schrader, that Hammurabi was no other than Amraphel, king of Shinar, who was another of the confederate kings, and who may have taken part in this in vasion of Palestine before his rebellion.
Eri-Aku's father was Kudur-Mabug, and his mother was Rim-Nannar; his grandfather was Simtishilhak.
One of the most important of the old monu ments which mentions Eri-Aku (Rim-Sin) is the record of the dedication of a temple and it gives us the genealogy of Eri-Aku, and shows that he and his father, Kudur-Mabug, ruled at the same time in Yamutbal, which lay on the eastern or Ela mite side of the Tigris. The father was the "over-lord," while his son and vassal, Eri-Aku, reigned in Larsa ; perhaps both were vassals of the Elamite king in Susa, who may have been Chederlaomer.
Another inscription of Kudur-Mabug, found at Ur, tells us very much the same thing, giving the names of the three generations. There are no less than three other similar inscriptions known in which Eri-Aku appears as the builder, and prays for the blessing of the god upon himself and his father.