Sennacherib then hunted for Marduk-apla-iddina, a hunt so intense the Chaldean escaped on boats with his people across the Persian Gulf, taking refuge in the Elamite city of Nagitu. [86] Whereas his father's new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, was more or less an imitation of the previous capital of Nimrud, Sennacherib intended to make Nineveh into a city whose magnificence and size astonished the civilized world. Though Babylonia to the south had also once been a large kingdom, it was typically weaker than its northern neighbor during this period, due to internal divisions and the lack of a well-organized army. [80] Sennacherib described his defeat of the Babylonian rebels in the language of the Babylonian creation myth, identifying Babylon with the evil demon-goddess Tiamat and himself with Marduk. [78] Sennacherib attempted justifying his actions to his own countrymen through a campaign of religious propaganda. Gypsum wall panel relief; carved in low relief; Sennacherib watches the capture of Lachish. [84] Though some northern Babylonian territories became Assyrian provinces, the Assyrians made no effort to rebuild Babylon itself, and southern chronicles from the time refer to the era as the "kingless" period when there was no king in the land. He also claimed that he besieged King Hezekiah of the Judah in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage." [8] As an Assyrian king of Babylon, Ashur-nadin-shumi's position was politically important and highly delicate and would have granted him valuable experience as the intended heir to the entire Neo-Assyrian Empire. After the Babylonians and Elamites captured and executed Sennacherib's eldest son Ashur-nadin-shumi, whom Sennacherib had proclaimed as his new vassal king in Babylon, Sennacherib campaigned in both regions, subduing Elam. She was referred to as the "queen mother" during Esarhaddon's reign, but as she was Esarhaddon's mother, the title may have been bestowed upon her either late in Sennacherib's reign or by Esarhaddon. So that it might be impossible in future days to recognize the site of that city and its temples, I utterly dissolved it with water and made it like inundated land. [89] Sennacherib constructed beautiful gardens at his new palace, importing various plants and herbs from throughout his empire and beyond. Kutur-Nahhunte could not organize an efficient defense against the Assyrians and refused to fight them, instead fleeing to the mountain city of Haidalu. Sennacherib recorded his triumphs in his annals, which survive on three nearly identical clay prisms: the Taylor Prism 6, the Oriental Institute Prism 7, and the Jerusalem Prism 8. [74] Although the Babylonians were successful initially, that was short-lived, and in the same year, the siege of Babylon was already well underway. [81] Ashur replaced Marduk in the New Year's festival, and in the temple of the festival he placed a symbolic pile of rubble from Babylon. The passage describing the seizure of the property of the gods and the destruction of some of their statues is one of the few where Sennacherib uses "my people" rather than "I". [44] While a portion of Sennacherib's troops prepared to blockade Jerusalem, Sennacherib himself marched on the important Judean city of Lachish. In most cases the Assyrians followed the principle of primogeniture, wherein the oldest son inherits. 32 Hezekiah had been completely faithful to the Lord. [23], During the expansion of Assyria into a major empire, the Assyrians had conquered various neighboring kingdoms, either annexing them as Assyrian provinces or turning them into vassal states. [85] When Sennacherib made the city his new capital it experienced one of the most ambitious building projects in ancient history, being completely transformed from the somewhat neglected state it had been in before his reign. They typically depict his conquests, sometimes with short pieces of text explaining the scene shown. After conspiring with Egypt (then under Kushite rule) and Sidqia, an anti-Assyrian king of the city of Ashkelon, to garner support, Hezekiah attacked Philistine cities loyal to Assyria and captured the Assyrian vassal Padi, king of Ekron, and imprisoned him in his capital, Jerusalem. According to the narrative, no enemy, not even the powerful king of Assyria, would have been able to triumph over Hezekiah as the Judean king had God on his side. [8] In the northern Levant, former Assyrian vassal cities rallied around Luli, the king of Tyre and Sidon. Dutch shares Tim Sheets research and word, on WAR EAGLE. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the role he plays in the Hebrew Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. [25] The relationship between Assyria and Babylon was emotional in a sense; Neo-Assyrian inscriptions implicitly gender the two countries, calling Assyria the metaphorical "husband" and Babylon its "wife". The first reason for this is Sennacherib's negative portrayal in the Bible as the evil conqueror who attempted to take Jerusalem; the second is his destruction of Babylon, one of the most prominent cities in the ancient world. People throughout the Near East received the news with strong emotions and mixed feelings. The Bible reveals that during the reign of the Jewish king Hezekiah, Sennacherib came to conquer Jerusalem and the Angel of the LORD (The Lord Himself) slew 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. [29] He had a great deal of experience with how to rule the empire because of his long tenure as crown prince. Nineveh was the capital of the powerful ancient Assyrian empire, located in modern-day northern Iraq. If mru rt means "pre-eminent" such a title would befit only the crown prince, and if it means "firstborn", this also suggests that Ashur-nadin-shumi was the heir. A tent is behind him; there is a chariot in the foreground and bodyguards stationed around. The ancient Aramaic story of Ahikar portrays Sennacherib as a benevolent patron of the titular character Ahikar, with Esarhaddon portrayed more negatively. As regent, Sennacherib's primary duty was to maintain relations with Assyrian governors and generals and oversee the empire's vast military intelligence network. Mushezib-Marduk ensured Humban-menanu's support by bribing him. After the death of his eldest son and crown prince, Ashur-nadin-shumi, Sennacherib originally designated his second son Arda-Mulissu heir. The relief bears two cuneiform inscription. [40] As the Assyrians appeared on the horizon, Babylon opened its gates to him, surrendering without a fight. He never disobeyed his father, and his letters indicate he knew Sargon well and wanted to please him. Sennacherib described all of his campaigns, even the unsuccessful ones, as victories in his own accounts. Sennacherib figures prominently in the Old Testament. Furthermore, he did not "take the hand" of the Statue of Marduk, the physical representation of the deity, and thus did not honor the god by undergoing the traditional Babylonian coronation ritual. [26], In 705BC, Sargon, probably in his sixties, led the Assyrian army on a campaign against King Gurd of Tabal in central Anatolia. Many of Sennacherib's Babylonian troubles stemmed from the Chaldean[7] tribal chief Marduk-apla-iddinaII, who had been Babylon's king until Sennacherib's father defeated him. Arda-Mulissu and Nabu-shar-usur survived this purge, escaping as exiles to the northern kingdom of Urartu. [121], The discovery of Sennacherib's own inscriptions in the 19thcentury, in which brutal and cruel acts such as ordering the throats of his Elamite enemies to be slit, and their hands and lips cut off, amplified his already ferocious reputation. Sennacherib, on a magnificent throne, watches as prisoners are brought before him and sometimes executed. [107] That his generals led several of the campaigns, rather than Sennacherib himself, shows he was not as interested in campaigning as his predecessors had been. Many of Sennacherib's reliefs are exhibited today at the Vorderasiatisches Museum, the British Museum, the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris. He expanded the size of the city and constructed great city walls, numerous temples and a royal garden. In Midrash, examinations of the Old Testament and later stories, the events of 701BC are often explored in detail; many times featuring massive armies deployed by Sennacherib and pointing out how he repeatedly consulted astrologers on his campaign, delaying his actions. As his name implies Sennacherib was not the eldest son of Sargon II, but was chosen as crown prince and made military governor of the troublesome northern frontier. The Assyrians began by taking Ashkelon and defeating Sidqia. [118] The legend of the 4th-century Saints Behnam and Sarah casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib, as their royal father. [2] Nineveh had been the designated seat of the Assyrian crown prince since the reign of Tiglath-Pileser. . The rebel Shuzubu, hunted by Sennacherib in his 700 BC invasion of the south, had resurfaced under the name Mushezib-Marduk and, seemingly without foreign support, acceded to the throne of Babylon. [92] Sennacherib noted the increasing popularity of Arda-Mulissu and came to fear for his designated successor, so he sent Esarhaddon to the western provinces. They probably received a scribal education, learning arithmetic and how to read and write in Sumerian and Akkadian. [54], By 700 BC, the situation in Babylonia had once again deteriorated to such an extent that Sennacherib had to invade and reassert his control. Other events of his reign include his destruction of the city of Babylon in 689BC and his renovation and expansion of the last great Assyrian capital, Nineveh. [18], Sennacherib's name, Sn-a-erba, means "Sn (the moon-god) has replaced the brothers" in Akkadian. Sargon continued to live in Nimrud long after he had become king, leaving the city in 710BC to reside at Babylon, and later at his new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, in 706 BC. The Iraqi Department of Antiquities under the Assyriologist Tariq Madhloom conducted the most recent expeditions from 1965 to 1968. Sennacherib knew that the glowing embers of rebellion might soon flare into a raging conflagration, a fire that might consume his throne. [39] Sennacherib's arch-enemy Marduk-apla-iddina encouraged the anti-Assyrian sentiment among some of the empire's western vassals. [55] One of Sennacherib's first measures was to remove Bel-ibni from the Babylonian throne, either because of incompetence or complicity,[32] and he was brought back to Assyria, whereafter he is not heard of again in the sources. Like many rulers of these cities had done before and would do again, Luli fled rather than face the wrath of the Assyrians, escaping by boat until he was beyond Sennacherib's reach. [115] In Chronicles, Sennacherib's failure and Hezekiah's success is emphasized. His fifth campaign in 699BC involved a series of raids against the villages around the foot of Mount Judi, located to the northeast of Nineveh. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the role he plays in the Hebrew Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. The Assyrians had not marched on Babylon immediately, however, as military actions are recorded elsewhere. Some suggest the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, were actually these gardens in Nineveh. Accession. Instead, his inscriptions often portrayed the most important parts of his reign as his large-scale building projects. Because Babylon, well within his own territory, had been the target of most of his military campaigns and had caused the death of his son, Sennacherib destroyed the city in 689BC. [75], Although Sennacherib destroyed the city, he appears to have still been somewhat fearful of Babylon's ancient gods. [61] In 694 BC, Sennacherib invaded Elam, with the explicit goal of the campaign being to root out Marduk-apla-iddina and the other Chaldean refugees. [56] The Assyrians searched the northern marshes of Babylonia in an attempt to find and capture Shuzubu, but they failed. [57], Ashur-nadin-shumi was also titled mru rt, a title that could be interpreted either as the "pre-eminent son" or the "firstborn son". Every servant involved with the security of the royal palace at Nineveh was executed. Though the biblical narrative holds that divine intervention by an angel ended Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem by destroying the Assyrian army, an outright Assyrian defeat is unlikely as Hezekiah submitted to Sennacherib at the end of the campaign. . [30], Frahm and the Assyriologist Julian E. Reade have pondered the idea that Sennacherib could be classified as a feminist. Shortly after taking the throne, Esarhaddon executed all of the conspirators and political enemies within his reach, including his brothers' families. Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef, (Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser Shalmaneser Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon Sennacherib Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II, Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes. [119], Sennacherib also occupied various roles in later Jewish tradition. In any event, Sennacherib never took action against Sargon or attempted to usurp the throne despite being more than old enough to become king himself. Sin-a-eriba, "Sin has increased (or replaced) the (lost) brothers."King of Assyria and Babylonia, 705-681 b.c.. 1. The War. [125], The following titulature is used by Sennacherib in early accounts of his 703 BC Babylonian campaign:[126], Sennacherib, great king, mighty king, king of Assyria, king without rival, righteous shepherd, favorite of the great gods, prayerful shepherd, who fears the great gods, protector of righteousness, lover of justice, who lends support, who comes to the aid of the cripple and aims to do good deeds, perfect hero, mighty man, first among all kings, neckstock that bends the insubmissive, who strikes the enemy like a thunderbolt, Ashur, the great mountain, has bestowed upon me an unrivalled kingship and has made my weapons mightier than the weapons of all other rulers sitting on daises. [108], Frahm believes that it is possible that Sennacherib suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder because of the catastrophic fate of his father. 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