According to the Greek legends, the Assyrian empire was founded by Ninus. • To this monarch and his consort Semiramis are ascribed expeditions on an incredibly magnifi cent scale against Baetria, Ethiopia, and India. We are told that Semiramis led an army of 3,000,000 infantry, 500,000 cavalry, and 100,000 chariots, and a fleet of 2000 ships, and was encountered by forces more numerous still, and defeated; that she returned to :Nin eveh, where she soon afterwards died, and was reckoned among the gods, and was suc ceeded by her son, Ninyas, an effeininhte prince. The succeeding part of the history as related by Ctesias is equally false, though that writer managed to make the ancient world give credit to his narrative in preference to that of Herodotus. He gives a list of monarchs from Ninus to Sardanapalus, which is now considered to be a clumsy forgery. According to him, for 30 generations after Ninyas, the kings led a life of luxury and indolence in their palace; the last of them, Sardanapalus, made a vigorous defense against Arbaces, the rebel governor of Media, but finding it impossible to defend Nineveh, he set fire to his palace, and burnt himself with all his treasures; this event took place 1306 years after Ninus. Now, the above account represents Nineveh to have perished nearly three centuries before the real date, which was about 603 , and is utterly incompatible with Scripture. Herodotus assigns to the empire a duration of 520 years, and Berosus of 526 years, In order to reconcile these conflicting accounts, historians have supposed! that Nineveh was twice destroyed, but this supposition is' now generally rejected. However, that Nineveh was actually destroyed by fire is proved from the condition of the slabs and statues found in its ruins, which show the action of intense heat.
A. became a Median province, 605 B.C., and afterwards, in conjunction with Baby lonia, formed one of the satrapies of the Persian empire. In 331 'Lc., at Gaugamela, near Arbela, in A., Alexander defeated Darius Codomanuus. In 812 A. became part of the kingdom of the Seleucidie, whose capital was Seleucia, on the Tigris. It was afterwards subject to the Parthian kings, whose capital was Clesiplion, and was more than once temporarily in possession of the Romans. When the Persian monarchy of the Sassanides was destroyed by the successors, of Mohammed, A. was subject to the caliphs. . Their seat was Bagdad from 762 A.D. till 1258. It has been under the Turks from 1638, at which period it was wrested from the Persians.
We shall now proceed to mention a few historical points that have been satisfac torily ascertained from the cuneiform inscriptions. For these we are indebted to Rawl inson's Herodot us.
It has not been ascertained when A. first became independent of Babylon (q.v.). The seat of government was first at Asshur (now Kileh-Shergat), on the right bank of the Tigris, 60 in. s. of the later capital, Nineveh. At this place have been found the bricks and fragments of vases bearing the names of the earliest known Assyrian kings, for Ninus and Semiramis are to be considered as mere inventions of Greek writers. The earliest known king is Bel-lush, one of a series of four. These reigns probably occupy from 1273 to 1200 B.C. Of the next series of six, the names of five are recorded on the famous Kileh-Shergat cylinder, the earliest purely historical document as yet discovered in Mesopotamia.
Tiglathi-nin, the last of the Kileh-Shergat series, was succeeded by his son, Asshur dani-pal, the warlike Sardanapalus I. of the Greeks. lie made Calah, the modern Kim-ad, his capital, lying 40 m. further n., on the left bank of the Tigris. His annals
are very complete. Among other conquests, he mentions that he had taken tribute from Tyre, Sidon, and other Phoenician cities. He was the founder of the n.w. palace at Nimrud, which, next to that of Sennacherib at Koyunjik, is the largest and most magnificent of all the Assyrian edifices. The greater portion of the sculptures now in the British museum are from this building.
Sardanapalus I. was succeeded by his son Shalmanubar, whose deeds are briefly recorded on the black obelisk now in the British museum, the full account being ap parently reserved for the colossal bulls, which seem to have been the usual dedication after a victory. Of his campaigns, the most interesting to us are thoseNin which lie defeated Benhadad of Damascus, and his murderer and successor Hazael. According to his own account, Shalmanubar defeated Hazael, killing 16,000 of his fighting-men, and capturing more than 1100 chariots (884 n.c.). The obelisk also records the tribute paid by Yahua, son of Khumri, i.e., Jehu, son of Omri, king of Israel. Now Jehu was son of Jehoshaphat, and had done his utmost to extirpate the family of Omri; but probably Jehu, like other Usurpers, was anxious to identify himself with the family which he had dispossessed, and of course the Assyrians accepted the title he gave him self.
Ira-bush, probably the Pul of the Scriptures, is recorded on a pavement-slab from Nimrud to have received tribute from Samaria, Tyre, Damascus, Idumma, and Palestine, which assertion agrees with the account given (2 Kings xv.) of the 1000 talents paid by Menahem. With this king ends the first dynasty, in which we have 18 monarchs from Bel-lush to Iva-lush (1273-747 is.c.).
The later Assyrian empire begins with Tiglukh-pileser TI. (747 B.C.), and ends with the destruction of Nineveh (625 B.C.). It is plain from Scripture that the empire was in a flourishing condition during the reigns of those kings who came in contact with the Hebrews, and this account exactly accords with the monuments, but contradicts Her odotus. Probably, on the accession of Tiglath pileser II., Babylon had revolted, and this partial rebellion had reached Iferodottis in an exaggerated form. The annals of this prince exist only in a very fragmentary state. The name of his successor, Shal maneser, has not yet been found on the monuments. The capture of Samaria is usually ascribed to this prince, but his successor, Sargon, expressly 'asserts that Samaria was taken by himself in his first year. Sargon's palace at K/wrsabad, near Nineveh, furnished the valuable series of monuments now in the Louvre. Sargon was succeeded by his son Sennacherib. He fixed the scat of government at Nineveh, and employed the forced labor of 360,000 men to repair the great palace. Later in his reign, he built a new and more magnificent edifice, which he. deconited with sculptures representing his various exploits. This is the palace excavated by Layard. It contained at least three spacious halls—one of them 150 ft. by 125, and two long galleries, one of 200, the other of 185 ft., besides innumerable chambers. The excavated portion covers above 8 acres. The annals of Sennacherib extend only to his eighth year. He relates at length his successful attack upon Babylon, his invasion of Judrea, the submission of Ilezekiali, and his deportation of 200,000 Jews. This expedition is not to be confounded with the second invasion, in which he failed ignominiously, and which is not recorded on his monuments. His assassination very shortly after his return to Nineveh, after Ins second expedition, readily accounts for this silence..