ASSYRIA. According to Gesenius, the Hebrew term initit.; is used in three different applications. 1. It expresses the cour.ttry known to Ptolemy * and the Greeks by the name Assyria. In this case the word is feminine in Hebrew, owing to the ellipse of 171N, the land of 2. It is used to express'' the • : Empireof Assyria, which comprehended Babylonia and Mesopotamia, and of which the centre was Nineveh. 3. After the subdivision of the Assyrian empire, it was used with reference to those lands in which that empire had formerly flourished, e.g., 1. of Babylonia (2 Kings xxiii. 29; Jer. IL IS; Lam.
v. 6; Judith i. 7; ii. i ; etc.), where Nebuchad nezzar is called king of Assyria; 2. of Persia (Ezra vi. 22), where Darius is called king of Assyria.
History.—Formerly the history of the Assyrian empire was one of the most obscure chapters in the world's annals. Much light has been thrown upon it of late years in the progress of cuneiform dis covery, though it must be confessed there are still many points open to elucidation, as well as several whose greater certainty would be desirable.
Nearly all that we know of the history of Assyria from classical authorities is derived from Ctesias, Berosus and Herodotus. The first of these writers attributes to the earlier Assyrian dynasty a duration of 1306 years. ± Although Mr. Layard, in his earlier work on Nineveh, is inclined to credit this statement, it has of ]ate been satisfactorily proved erroneous ; and from the inscriptions which have been deciphered, we have learnt that the accounts of Berosus and Heroclotus are far more worthy of reliance. By them a duration of 526 and 520 years respectively, has, with much greater probability, and in singular accordance with the native monu ments, been assigned. The available records of the Assyrian empire preserver'. in cuneiform inscrip tions on bricks, slabs, and sculptures, furnish us with the traces of two distinct dynasties. We have the names of an earlier and a later line of kings un connected with each other. It is, with one or two exceptions, the second of these dynasties which comes in contact with the history of the Hebrew nation : as it is also to this later dynasty that the vast palaces and temples which have recently been discovered by the excavations in Assyria are for the most part to be referred.
The earliest mention of Assyria is in Gen. x. II. There, however, it is disputed whether or not we should refer the building of Nineveh to Asshur in stead of Nimrod, as in fact is done in the Auth. Vers.: Out of that land went forth Asshur, and built Nineveh ;' or, `out of that land (of Shinar or Babylonia) he went forth (i.e., Nimrod) to Assyria, and built Nineveh.' The it to denote motion to a place is not absolutely indispensable in Hebrew, so that we are released from the necessity of regarding 'irjz.; as a nominative subject ; and it certainly seems more in harmony with the context to sup pose that the historian is still speaking of the family of Ham, than to think that he would mix up with it an account of the doings of an individual in the family of Shem, to which Asshur belonged, more especially as he proceeds afterwards, in• the same chapter, at the 21st verse, to record the his tory of this family. Cf. also Micah v. 6, where it would seem that the land of Assyria and the land of Nimrod are identical. If the passage above is read in the way proposed, it would appear that Asshur, in the generation above Nimrod, who was the descendant of Ham, had obtained sufficient footing in the country to cause it to be named after himself, and consequently the mighty hunter must have ejected the original occupiers of the territory when he built the cities ascribed to him, or at least established a dominion over them. Of course, the sequence of events in times so remote is lost in un certainty.
From the records of Tiglath Pileser I., we learn that a temple had been founded at Asshur, or Kalah Sherghat, as early as the nineteenth century B. c., by Shamas-iva, a son of Ismi-dagon, who was one of the early kings in the series answering, to the great Chaldxan dynasty of Berosus, and from this circumstance may be inferred to have ruled over Assyria. In fact, as long as this dynasty lasted, Assyria probably occupied the position of an unimportant dependency of Babylonia, not being mentioned in one single legend, and not furnishing the Chaldrean monarchs with one of their royal titles. At what period Assyria was enabled to achieve her independence, or under what circum stances she achieved it, we have no means of know ing, but the date at which, for several reasons, we may suppose it to have been accomplished is ap proximately 1273 B.C. Probably an Arabian con quest of Babylonia, which caused the overthrow of this Chaldxan dynasty in the sixteenth century, furnished the Assyrians with an opportunity of shaking off the Babylonian yoke, but it was not till three centuries later that they appear to have gained a position of importance. During the
period of Assyrian subjection to Chaldma, and for long after she became an independent empire, the vice-regal, or the royal city, was probably Asshur, on the west bank of the Tigris, sixty miles south of Nineveh, the name of which is still preserved in the designation given by the Arabs to the neigh. bouring, district, viz.,&S. It may perhaps be as well to observe that the four kings in Gen. xiv., according to Josephus, were only commanders in the army of the Assyrian king, who had then, he says, dominion over Asia. In allusion to which statement, the words of Isaiah, x. 8, have been quoted—' Are not my princes altogether kings.' But this is very improbable, and is really contra dicted by recent discoveries, which skew, at least negatively, that Assyria was not then an indepen dent power. Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that he has found the name* of a king stamped upon bricks in Babylonia which corresponds to that of Chedor lamer,. and supposes that this king was the Ela mite founder of the great Chaldean empire of Berosus. Mr. Stuart Poole thinks it not impro bable that the expedition, of Chedorlaomer was directed against the power of the Egyptian kings of the fifteenth dynasty and their Phoenician allies or subjects. Josephus also calls Chushan Risha thaim—who, in Judg. iii., is said to have been king of Mesopotamia—king of the Assyrians, but this again demands an earlier rise of the Assyrian power than the monuments warrant us in assuming. The first known king of Assyria is or Belukh, who, with three others in succession, viz., Pudil, Ivalush, Shalmabar or Shalmarish, is re puted to have reigned shortly after its dependence on Babylon had been shaken off. The period from 1273 to 1200 may be assigned to the reign of these kings. They have left no other record but their names upon bricks, etc., which are found only at Kalah Shlrghat ; and the character in which these are inscribed is so ancient and so mixed with Babylonian forms, that it is for this reason that they are assigned to this period, though the same effects might possibly have been produced at a later period of Babylonian ascendancy. After these names, we are enabled to trace a continuous line of six hereditary monarchs, who, with the exception of the last, are enumerated on the oldest historic relic yet discovered in Assyria. This is the octagonal prism of Kalah ShergHt, on which Tiglath-Pileser I. records the events of the first five years of his reign, and traces back his pedigree to the fourth generation. He calls himself the son of Asslmr-rish-ili ; the grandson of Mutaggil Nebu ; the great grandson of Asshur-dapal-il, whose father was Nin-pala-kura, the supposed successor of Shal mabar or Shalmarish. Of his great grandfather, he relates that, sixty years previously, he had taken down the temple of Arm and Iva before alluded to, which had stood for 641 years, but was then in a ruined condition. His father seems to have been a great conqueror, and perhaps was the first to raise the character of the Assyrian arms, and to gain a foreign reputation. But whatever fame he acquired in this way was eclipsed by that of his son, who says that he won victories in Cappadocia, Syria, and in the Median and Armenian mountains. Particularly a people called Nairi, who probably dwelt at the north-west of Assyria proper, are con spicuous among his conquests. Now, it so hap pens, that the date of this king can be fixed in a remarkable way, by a rock inscription of Senna cherib at Bavian, which states that a Tiglath-Pileser occupied the throne of Assyria 418 years before the tenth year of his own reign, and as Sennacherib was reigning towards the end of the eighth, or the beginning of the seventh century, this would throw hack the time of Tiglath-Pileser's reign to the latter part of the twelfth century B.C." We also learn from this same rock inscription, that Tiglath-Pileser was himself defeated by Merodach-adan-akhi, the king of Babylon, who carried away with him images of certain Assyrian gods, sheaving that Babylon at this period was independent of Assyria, and a formidable rival to her power. Of Asshur-bani pal I., the son and successor of Tiglath-Pileser, nothing is known. Only one record of him has been hitherto discovered, and this was found at Koyunjik.t This name was softened or corrupted by the Greeks into Sardanapalus. After this king a break occurs in the line of succession which can not be supplied. It is thought, however, not to have been long, as Asshur-adan-akhi is supposed to have begun to reign about 1050, and therefore to have been contemporary with David. This monarch, and the three kings who succeeded him, are obscure and unimportant, not being known for anything else than repairing and adding to the palaces at Kalah Sherghat. Their names are As shur-danin-il, Iva-lush II., and Tiglathi-Nin.