ASSYRIA, 
  
  
  
  
and civilisation reached by its inhabitants in very 
early times is attested not only by ancient writers, 
but by the extensive ruins of mighty cities, by the 
canals and contrivances for irrigation, and by the 
many proofs—furnished by recent excavations—of 
an acquaintance with the arts and sciences. The 
ruins of many cities are grouped around Nineveh’; 
while lower down, the Tigris.exhibits an almost 
unbroken line of ruing from Tekrit to Bagdad. 
Under the Mohammedans, this fine country is now 
almost a desert. 
History.—Ancient authorities differ widely from 
each other respecting the rise and progress, the 
extent and the duration, of the Assyrian empire. 
Ctesias, a Greek of Cnidus, court-physician to 
Artaxerxes Mnemon, is quoted by various ancient 
writers ; and hisinformation, though utterly incredible 
and fabulous, has been followed by most classical 
historians, and by the whole series of ecclesiastical 
writers. Many ingenious but futile attempts have 
been made to reconcile his history with the Serip- 
ture narrative. Berosus, a priest of Bel at Baby- 
lon, who wrote about 268 B.c., and Herodotus, differ 
widely from Ctesias, but are confirmed in many 
important particulars by the Bible, and by the con- 
tinually increasing evidence derived from cuneiform 
inscriptions. 
In the Bible narrative, we are told that Nineveh 
was founded by Asshur from Babylon (Gen. x. 
11). The latter city, therefore, must have been the 
capital of a more ancient empire, as Berosus asserts, 
and recent discoveries go far to prove, though Greek 
writers maintain the reverse. The next notice we 
have of A. does not occur %ill 770 B.c., when Pul, 
king of A., invaded Palestine, but was bought off 
by Menahem, king of Israel. Tiglath-pileser, who 
succeeded Pul (738 B.c.), conquered Syria, and carried 
off many of the Jews into captivity. Next, Salman- 
ezer (730 B.c.) subdued Israel, which, at the instiga- 
tion of the Egyptians, had refused to pay tribute. 
The next is Sennacherib (713 =. ¢.), who attacked 
Egypt, and threatened Judah under Hezekiah. He 
was slain by his two sons, and succeeded by his 
son Ksarhaddon, who was also master of Babylon 
(2 Chron. xxxiii. 11), which, under Nabonassar, had 
been independent of Nineveh since 747. Very little 
credit is to be attached to the expedition of 
Holofernes recorded in the book of Judith. 
After this, the empire appears to have gradually 
decayed, until at last, in the reign of Sardanapalus 
IL, or Saracus, a league was formed for its destruc- 
tion between Nabopolassar, governor of Babylon, 
and Cyaxares, king of Media, which was strength- 
ened by the marriage of Nebuchadnezzar, son of the 
former, to Nitocris, daughter of the latter. The 
war and siege are said to have been interrupted 
by an invasion of the Scythians, which drew off 
Cyaxares; but at length Nineveh was taken and 
destroyed about 606 s. c., or, according to Rawlinson, 
625. In the time of Darius Hystaspes, A. rebelled 
without success in conjunction with Media. In the 
time of Herodotus, the capital had ceased to exist ; 
and when Xenophon passed it, the very name was 
forgot, though he testifies to the extent of the 
deserted city, and asserts the height of the ruined 
walls to be 150 feet. Probably in this height is 
included the elevation of the river-bank and of the 
mound on which the wall stood. An inconsiderable 
town seems to have existed on its ruins in the reign 
of Claudius ; and the last notice we have of Nineveh 
in the classics is in Tacitus. 
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 magnificent scale against Bactria, 
Ethiopia, and India.  We are told that Semiramis 
498 
  
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 Nineveh, where she 
soon afterwards died, and was reckoned among the 
gods, and was succeeded by her son Ninyas, an effemi- 
nate 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 thirty genera- 
tions after Ninyas, the kings led a life of luxury and 
indolence in their palace; the last of them, Sarda- 
napalus, made a vigorous defence against Arbaces, 
the rebel governor of Media, but finding it impos- 
sible 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 605 
B.C., and is utterly incompatible with Secripture. 
Herodotus assigns to the empire a duration of 520 
years, and Berosus of 526. In order to reconcile 
these conflicting accounts, historians have supposed 
that Nineveh was twice destroyed, but this supposi- 
tion is now generally rejected. However, thab 
Nineveh was actually destroyed by fire, is proved 
from the condition of the slabs and statues found 
in its ruins, which shew the action of intense 
heat. 
A. became a Median province, 605 B.c., and after- 
wards, in conjunction with Babylonia, formed one 
of the satrapies of the Persian empire. In 331 . c., 
at Gaugamela, near Arbela, in A., Alexander 
defeated Darius Codomannus. In 312 B.c., A. 
became part of the kingdom of the Seleucidee, whose 
capital was Seleucia, on the Tigris. It was after- 
wards subject to the Parthian kings, whose capital 
was Ctesiphon, 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 
califs. 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 satisfactorily ascertained 
from the cuneiform inscriptions. For these we are 
indebted to Rawlinson’s Herodotus. 
It has not been ascertained when A. first became 
independent of Babylon (q. v.). The seat of govern- 
ment was first at Asshur (now Kileh-Shergat), on the 
right bank of the Tigris, 60 miles south 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. The fifth king of this series, Tiglath- 
pileser I, records on this cylinder his own annals, 
and traces back his ancestors thus : ¢ Tiglath-pileser, 
the [illustrious prince, whom Asshur and Hercules 
have exalted to the utmost wishes of his heart, who 
has pursued after the enemies of Asshur, and has 
subjugated all the earth—the son of Asshur-rish-ili, 
the powerful king, the subduer of foreign countries, 
he who has reduced all the lands of the Magian 
world — the grandson of Mutaggil-nebu, whom 
Asshur the great lord aided according to the wishes 
  
  
  
  
et SN A S SR 
S RS S U 
R T % i P e S P T T g Bor 0 G N e RV e Y