Neo-Assyrian Empire

Background

Imperialism and the ambition of establishing a universal, all-encompassing empire was a long-established aspect of royal ideology in the ancient Near East prior to the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia (c. 2900 – c. 2350 BCE), the Sumerian rulers of the various city-states in the region often fought with each other in order to establish small hegemonic empires and to gain a superior position relative to the other city-states. Eventually, these small conflicts evolved into a general ambition to achieve universal rule. Reaching a position of world domination was not seen as a wholly impossible task in this time since Mesopotamia was believed to correspond to the entire world. One of the earliest Mesopotamian "world conquerors" was Lugalzaggesi, king of Uruk, who conquered all of Lower Mesopotamia in the 24th century BCE. The succeeding Akkadian Empire is generally regarded as the first known empire.

Numerous imperialist states rose and fell in Mesopotamia and the rest of the Near East after the time of the Akkadian Empire. Most early empires and kingdoms were limited to some core territories, with most of their subjects only nominally recognizing the authority of the central government. Still, the general desire for universal rule dominated the royal ideologies of Mesopotamian kings for thousands of years, bolstered by the memory of the Akkadian Empire and exemplified in titles such as "king of the Universe" or "king of the Four Corners of the World". This desire was also manifested in the kings of Assyria, who ruled in what had been the northern part of the Akkadian Empire. Assyria experienced its first period of ascendancy with the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BCE, previously only having been a city-state centered around the city of Assur. From the time of Adad-nirari I (r. c. 1305–1274 BCE) onwards, Assyria became one of the great powers of the ancient Near East. Under Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243–1207 BCE) the empire reached its greatest extent and became the dominant force in Mesopotamia, for a time even subjugating Babylonia in the south. After Tukulti-Ninurta's assassination, the Middle Assyrian Empire went into a long period of decline, becoming increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland. Though this period of decline was broken up by Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114–1076 BCE), who once more expanded Assyrian power, his conquests overstretched Assyria and could not be maintained by his successors. The trend of decline was substantially reversed in the reign of the last Middle Assyrian king, Ashur-dan II (r. 934–912 BCE) who campaigned in the northeast and northwest.

History

Resurgence of Assyrian power

The early Neo-Assyrian kings initially set out to reverse the long decline of Assyria, retake its former lands, and reestablish the position it held at the height of its power. These two empires were not as distinct as their portrayal sometimes suggests, with Neo-Assyrian rulers part of the same continuous dynasty as their earlier counterparts. The outward reexpansion by these new kings was cast as war to liberate those Assyrians cut off from Assyrian territory and forced to live under foreign rulers. This held at least some truth, with material evidence from sites lost and then reconquered by the empire demonstrating an endurance of Assyrian culture in the interim. Early efforts at reconquest were mostly focused on the region up to the Khabur in the west.

One of the first conquests of Ashur-dan II had been Katmuḫu in this region, which he made a vassal state rather than annexing it outright; this suggests that the resources available to the early Neo-Assyrian rulers were very limited and that the imperial reconquest had to begin nearly from scratch. In this context, the successful expansion conducted under early rulers was an extraordinary achievement. The initial phase of the Assyrian reconquista was slow, beginning under Ashur-dan II near the end of the Middle Assyrian period and covering the reigns of the first two Neo-Assyrian rulers, Adad-nirari II (r. 911–891 BCE) and Tukulti-Ninurta II (r. 890–884 BCE). Ashur-dan's efforts mostly worked to pave the way for the more sustained work under Adad-nirari and Tukulti-Ninurta.

Among the conquests of Adad-nirari, the most strategically important campaigns were the wars directed to the southeast, beyond the Little Zab. These lands had previously been under Babylonian rule. One of Adad-nirari's wars brought the Neo-Assyrian army as far south as Der, close to the border of the southwestern kingdom of Elam. Though Adad-nirari did not manage to incorporate territories so far from the Assyrian heartland into the empire, he secured Arrapha (now Kirkuk), which later served as the launching point for numerous Assyrian campaigns into eastern lands. Adad-nirari managed to secure a border agreement with the Babylonian king Nabu-shuma-ukin I, sealed by both kings marrying the other's daughter. Adad-nirari continued Ashur-dan's efforts in the west; in his wars, he defeated numerous small western kingdoms. Several small states, such as Guzana, were made vassals, and others, such as Nisibis, were placed under pro-Assyrian puppet kings. After his successful wars in the region, Adad-nirari was able to undertake a long march along the Khabur and the Euphrates, collecting tribute from all the local rulers without military opposition. He also conducted important building projects; Apku, located between Nineveh and Sinjar and destroyed c. 1000 BCE, was rebuilt and became an important administrative center.

Age of the magnates

In the latter years of Shalmaneser's reign, Urartu rose again as a powerful adversary. Though the Assyrians campaigned against them in 830 BCE, they failed to fully neutralize the threat posed by the restored kingdom. The 830 BCE campaign against Urartu was not led by Shalmaneser but by the long-serving and prominent turtanu Dayyan-Assur. Dayyan-Assur led other campaigns on behalf of the kings. Shalmaneser's final years became preoccupied by an internal crisis when one of his sons, Ashur-danin-pal, rebelled in an attempt to seize the throne, possibly because the younger son Shamshi-Adad V had been designated as heir instead of him. When Shalmaneser died in 824 BCE, Ashur-danin-pal was still in revolt, supported by a significant portion of the country, including Assur. Shamshi-Adad was perhaps initially a minor and a puppet of Dayyan-Assur. Though Dayyan-Assur died during the early stages of the civil war, Shamshi-Adad was eventually victorious, apparently with help from Marduk-zakir-shumi or his successor Marduk-balassu-iqbi.

Shamshi-Adad's accession marked the beginning of a new age of Neo-Assyrian history, sometimes dubbed the "age of the magnates". This time was marked by the number of royal inscriptions being much smaller than in preceding and succeeding times, and Assyrian magnates—such as Dayyan-Assur and other prominent generals and officials—being the dominant political actors, with the kings wielding significantly less power and influence. Though the consequences of this shift in power remain debated, the age of the magnates has often been characterized as a period of decline. Assyria endured through this period largely unscathed, but there was little to no territorial expansion and central power grew unusually weak. Some developments were good for the longevity of the empire, since many magnates took the opportunity to develop stronger military and economic structures and institutions in their own lands throughout the empire. Shamshi-Adad's earliest campaigns were against a series of Urartian fortresses and western Iran and quite limited in scope. Most of Shamshi-Adad's early reign was relatively unsuccessful; his third campaign against the small states in the Zagros Mountains region may have ended in an Assyrian defeat, and many of the small kingdoms in northern Syria ceased paying tribute. In 817 or 816 BCE, there was a rebellion against the king at Tillê, within the Assyrian heartland.

From 815 BCE, Shamshi-Adad directed his efforts mainly against Marduk-balassu-iqbi. In 813 BCE, he defeated Marduk-balassu-iqbi and brought him to Assyria as a captive. A year later, he defeated the Babylonian successor Baba-aha-iddina and annexed several territories in northern Babylonia. Southern Mesopotamia was left in disarray after Shamshi-Adad's victories. Though Babylonia nominally came under Assyrian control, Shamshi-Adad took the ancient Babylonian title "king of Sumer and Akkad" but not the conventional "king of Babylon". Due to Assyria's perhaps somewhat weakened state he was unable to fully exploit the victory, and the Babylonian throne remained unoccupied for several years.

Revitalization and rise

In 745 BCE, Ashur-nirari was succeeded by Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745–727 BCE), probably another son of Adad-nirari III. His accession ushered in a new era of Neo-Assyrian history. While the conquests of earlier kings were impressive, they contributed little to Assyria's rise as a consolidated empire. Through campaigns aimed at conquest and not just extraction of seasonal tribute, as well as reforms meant to efficiently organize the army and centralize the realm, Tiglath-Pileser is regarded by some as the first true initiator of Assyria's "imperial" phase. Tiglath-Pileser is the earliest Assyrian king mentioned in the Babylonian Chronicles and the Hebrew Bible, and thus the earliest king for which there exists important outside perspectives on his reign.

Early on, Tiglath-Pileser reduced the influence of the previously powerful magnates, dividing their territories into smaller provinces under the rule of royally appointed provincial governors and withdrawing their right to commission official building inscriptions in their own names. Shamshi-ilu appears to have been subjected to a damnatio memoriae, as his name and tiles were erased from some of his inscriptions.

During his 18-year reign, Tiglath-Pileser campaigned in all directions. In his first year as king, he waged war against Nabonassar, the Chaldean king of Babylon, and conquered territories on the eastern bank of the Tigris. In 746 BCE, he conducted a successful campaign in the Zagros, where he created two new provinces. From 743 to 739 BCE, he focused on Urartu and northern Syria. Campaigns against both targets proved resoundingly successful; in 743 BCE, Sarduri II of Urartu was defeated, and in 740 BCE, Arpad, Syria was conquered after a three-year siege. With the nearest threats dealt with, Tiglath-Pileser began to focus on lands that had never been under solid Assyrian rule. In 738 BCE, the Neo-Hittite states of Pattin and Hatarikka, and the Phoenician city of Sumur were conquered. In 734 BCE, the Assyrian army marched through the Levant all the way to the Egyptian border, forcing several of the states on the way—such as Ammon, Edom, Moab and the Kingdom of Judah—to pay tribute and become Assyrian vassals. In 732 BCE, the Assyrians captured Damascus and much of Transjordan and Galilee. Tiglath-Pileser's conquests are, in addition to their extent, also noteworthy because of the large scale in which he undertook resettlement policies; he settled tens to hundreds of thousands of foreigners in both the Assyrian heartland and in distant, underdeveloped provinces.

Imperial apogee

Shalmaneser was succeeded by Sargon II (r. 722–705 BCE), who in all likelihood was a usurper who deposed his predecessor in a palace coup. Like Tiglath-Pileser before him, Sargon in his inscriptions made no references to prior kings and instead ascribed his accession purely to divine selection. Sargon's rise to power marked the foundation of the Sargonid dynasty, leading to considerable internal unrest. In his own inscriptions, Sargon claims to have deported 6,300 "guilty Assyrians", probably Assyrians from the heartland who opposed his accession. Several peripheral regions of the empire also revolted and regained their independence. The most significant of the revolts was the successful uprising of the Chaldean warlord Marduk-apla-iddina II, who took control of Babylon, restoring Babylonian independence, and allied with the Elamite king Ḫuban‐nikaš I.

Though Sargon tried early on to dislodge Marduk-apla-iddina, attacking Aramean tribes who supported Marduk-apla-iddina and marching out to fight the Elamites, his efforts were initially unsuccessful, and in 720 BCE, the Elamites defeated Sargon's forces at Der. Sargon's early reign was more successful in the west. There, another movement, led by Yau-bi'di of Hamath and supported by Simirra, Damascus, Samaria and Arpad, also sought to regain independence and threatened to destroy the sophisticated provincial system imposed on the region under Tiglath-Pileser. While Sargon was campaigning in the east in 720 BCE, his generals defeated Yau-bi'di and the others. Sargon continued to focus on both east and west, successfully warring against Šinuḫtu in Anatolia and Mannaya in western Iran.

In 717 BCE, Sargon retook Carchemish and secured the city's substantial silver treasury. Perhaps it was the acquisition of these funds that inspired Sargon to begin constructing a new capital of the empire from scratch, named Dur-Sharrukin ("Fort Sargon") after himself. Perhaps the motivating factor was that Sargon did not feel safe at Nimrud after the early conspiracies against him. As construction work progressed, Sargon continued to go on military campaigns, which ensured that Assyria's geopolitical dominance and influence expanded significantly in his reign. Between 716 and 713 BCE, Sargon fought against Urartu, the Medes, Arab tribes, and Ionian pirates in the eastern Mediterranean. A significant victory was the 714 BCE campaign against Urartu, in which Rusa I was defeated and much of the Urartian heartland was plundered.

In 709 BCE Sargon won against seven kings in the land of Ia', in the district of Iadnana or Atnana. The land of Ia' is assumed to be the Assyrian name for Cyprus, and some scholars suggest that the latter may mean 'the islands of the Danaans', or Greece. There are other inscriptions referring to the land of Ia' in Sargon's palace at Khorsabad. Cyprus was thus absorbed into the Assyrian Empire, with the victory commemorated with a stele found near present-day Larnaca.

Collapse and fall of the empire

After Ashurbanipal's death in 631 BCE, the throne was inherited by his son, Aššur-etil-ilāni. Though some historians have forwarded the idea that Ashur-etil-ilani was a minor upon his accession, this is unlikely given that he is attested to have had children during his brief reign. Despite being his father's legitimate successor, he appears to have been installed against considerable opposition with the aid of the chief eunuch, Sîn-šumu-līšir. Assyrian official Nabû-riḫtu-uṣūr appears to have attempted to usurp the throne, but Sîn-šumu-līšir swiftly crushed his revolt. Since excavated ruins at Nineveh from around the time of Ashurbanipal's death show evidence of fire damage, the plot might have resulted in violence and unrest within the capital.

Aššur-etil-ilāni appears to have been a relatively idle ruler; no records of any military campaigns are known, and his palace at Nimrud was much smaller than that of previous kings. It is possible that the government was more or less run by Sîn-šumu-līšir throughout his reign. After a reign of four years, Aššur-etil-ilāni died in unclear circumstances in 627 BCE and was succeeded by his brother, Sîn-šar-iškun.

Sîn-šar-iškun's accession did not go unchallenged. Immediately upon his rise to the throne, Sîn-šumu-līšir rebelled and attempted to claim the throne for himself, despite the lack of any genealogical claim and as the only eunuch to ever do so in Assyrian history. Sîn-šumu-līšir successfully seized several prominent cities in Babylonia, including Nippur and Babylon, but was defeated by Sîn-šar-iškun after three months. This victory did little to alleviate Sîn-šar-iškun's problems. The Babylonian vassal king Kandalanu also died in 627 BCE. The swift regime changes and internal unrest bolstered Babylonian hopes to shake off Assyrian rule and regain independence, a movement which swiftly proclaimed Nabopolassar as its leader, who was probably a member of a prominent political family in Uruk. Some months after Sin-shumu-lishir's defeat, Nabopolassar and his allies captured both Nippur and Babylon, though the Assyrian response was swift and Nippur was recaptured in October 626 BCE. Sîn-šar-iškun's attempts to retake Babylon and Uruk were unsuccessful, however, and in the aftermath Nabopolassar was formally invested as king of Babylon in November 626 BCE, restoring Babylonia as an independent kingdom.

In the years that followed Nabopolassar's coronation, Babylonia became a brutal battleground between Assyrian and Babylonian armies. Though cities often repeatedly changed hands, the Babylonians slowly pushed Sîn-šar-iškun's armies out of the south. Under Sîn-šar-iškun's personal leadership, the Assyrian campaigns against Nabopolassar initially looked to be successful: in 625 BCE, Sippar was retaken and Nabopolassar failed to take Nippur; in 623 BCE, the Assyrians recaptured Nabopolassar's ancestral home city Uruk. Sîn-šar-iškun might ultimately have been victorious had it not been for a usurper, whose name is not known, from the empire's western territories rebelling in 622 BCE, marching on Nineveh and seizing the capital. Though this usurper was defeated by Sîn-šar-iškun after 100 days, the absence of the Assyrian army allowed Nabopolassar's forces to capture all of Babylonia in 622–620 BCE. Despite this loss, there was little reason for the Assyrians to suspect that Nabopolassar's consolidation of Babylonia was a significant event and not simply a temporary inconvenience; in previous Babylonian uprisings the Babylonians had at times gained the upper hand temporarily.

Reasons for the fall of Assyria

The fall of Assyria was swift, dramatic and unexpected; scholars continue to grapple with what factors caused the empire's quick and violent downfall. One commonly cited possible explanation is the unrest and the civil wars that immediately preceded Nabopolassar's rise. Such civil conflict could have caused a crisis of legitimacy, and the members of the Assyrian elite may have felt increasingly disconnected from the Assyrian king. However, there is no evidence that Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun warred with each other, and other uprisings of Assyrian officials—the unrest upon Aššur-etil-ilāni's accession, the rebellion of Sîn-šumu-līšir, and the capture of Nineveh by a usurper in 622 BCE—were dealt with relatively quickly. Protracted civil war is thus unlikely to have been the reason for the empire's fall.

Another proposed explanation was that Assyrian rule suffered from serious structural vulnerabilities; most importantly, Assyria appears to have had little to offer the regions it conquered other than order and freedom from strife; conquered lands were mostly kept in line through fear and terror, alienating local peoples. As such, people outside of the Assyrian heartland may have had little reason to remain loyal when the empire came under attack. Further explanations may lie in the actions and policies of the Assyrian kings. Under Esarhaddon's reign, many experienced and capable officials and generals had been killed as the result of the king's paranoia; under Ashurbanipal, many had lost their positions to eunuchs. Some historians have further deemed Ashurbanipal to have been an "irresponsible and self-indulgent king" since he at one point appointed his chief musician the name of the year. Though it would be easy to place the blame on Sîn-šar-iškun, there is no evidence to suggest that he was an incompetent ruler. No defensive plan existed for the Assyrian heartland since it had not been invaded for centuries, and Sîn-šar-iškun was a capable military leader using well-established Mesopotamian military tactics. In a normal war, Sîn-šar-iškun could have been victorious, but he was unprepared to go on the defensive against an enemy that was both numerically superior and that aimed to destroy his country rather than conquer it.

Yet another possible factor was environmental issues. The massive population growth in the Assyrian heartland at the height of the empire might have led to a severe drought that affected Assyria far more than nearby territories such as Babylonia. It is impossible to determine the severity of such demographic and climate-related effects.

Government

Kingship and royal ideology

Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, king of the Four Corners of the World; favorite of the great gods; the wise and crafty one; strong hero, first among all princes; the flame that consumes the insubmissive, who strikes the wicked with the thunderbolt.

In documents describing coronations of kings from both the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods, it is specifically recorded that he was commanded by Aššur, the national deity of Assyria and whose favored city was also called Aššur, to "broaden the land of Aššur" and "extend the land at his feet". The Assyrians saw their empire as being the part of the world Aššur oversaw and administered through human agents. In their ideology, the realm beyond Assyria was characterized by chaos and uncivilised people with unfamiliar cultural practices and strange languages. The existence of the "outer realm" was regarded as a threat to the cosmic order within Assyria, and as such it was the king's duty to expand the realm of Aššur, Assyria, and incorporate these strange lands, converting chaos to civilization.

The king's position above all others was regarded as natural, since he, though not divine, was seen as the divinely-appointed representative of Aššur on earth. His power thus derived from his unique position among humanity, and his obligation to extend Assyria to eventually cover the whole world was cast as a moral, humane and necessary duty rather than exploitative imperialism. Though their power was nearly limitless, the kings were not free from tradition and their obligations. The kings were obliged to campaign once a year to bring Aššur's rule and civilization to 'the Four Corners' (the entire world); if a king did not campaign, their legitimacy was severely undermined. Campaigns were usually justified through an enemy having made a real or fabricated affront against Aššur. The overwhelming force of the Assyrian army was used to instill the idea that it was invincible, thus further legitimizing the king's rule. The king was also responsible for performing various rituals in support of the cult of Aššur and his priesthood.

Because the rule and actions of the king were seen as divinely sanctioned, resistance to Assyrian sovereignty in times of war was regarded to be resistance against divine will, which deserved punishment. Peoples and polities who revolted against Assyria were seen as criminals against the divine world order.

Neo-Assyrian queens

Queens were titled issi ekalli in the Assyrian variety of the Akkadian language, which could be abbreviated sēgallu, both terms meaning "woman of the palace". The feminine version of the word for king (šarru) was šarratu, but this term was only applied to goddesses and queens of foreign nations who ruled in their own right as queens regnant. Since queen consorts did not rule, the Assyrians did not refer to them as šarratu. The difference in terminology does not necessarily mean that foreign queens, who often governed significantly smaller territories, were seen as having a higher status than the Assyrian queens. A frequently used symbol, apparently the royal symbol of the queens, used in documents and on objects to designate the queens was a scorpion.

Though the queens, like all other members of the royal court, whether male or female, ultimately derived their power and influence from their association with the king, they were not pawns without political power. The queens had their own say in financial affairs, and while they ideally were supposed to produce an heir to the throne, they also had several other duties and responsibilities, often at very high levels of the government. The queens were involved in the organization of religious activities, the dedication of gifts to the gods, and the financial support of temples. They were in charge of their own, often considerable, financial resources, as evidenced not only by surviving texts concerning their household and activities but also by the treasures uncovered in the Queens' tombs at Nimrud. Under the Sargonid dynasty, military units subservient to the queen were created. Such units were not just an honor guard for the queen, but included commanders, cohorts of infantry and chariots and are sometimes known to have partaken alongside other units in military campaigns.

Perhaps the most powerful of the Neo-Assyrian queens was Shammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad V, who might have ruled as regent in the early reign of her son Adad-nirari III and participated in military campaigns. The mythical queen Semiramis was based on her. Also powerful was Esarhaddon's mother Naqiʾa, though whether she held the status of queen is not certain. Naqiʾa is the best documented woman of the Neo-Assyrian period, and she is seen influencing politics in the reigns of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.

Elite and administration

The unprecedented success of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was tied to its ability to efficiently incorporate conquered lands into its administrative system. It is clear that there was a strong sense of order in the Assyrian mindset, so much so that the Neo-Assyrians have sometimes been referred to as the "Prussians of the ancient Near East". This sense of order manifested in various parts of Neo-Assyrian society, including the more square and regular shape of the characters in Neo-Assyrian writing and in the organized administration of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was divided into a set of provinces. The idea of imposing order by creating well-organized hierarchies of power was part of the justifications used by Neo-Assyrian kings for their expansionism: in one of his inscriptions, Sargon II explicitly pointed out that some of the Arab tribes he had defeated had previously "known no overseer or commander".

At the top of the provincial administration was the provincial governor (bēl pīhāti or šaknu). Second-in-command was probably the šaniu (translated as "deputy" by modern historians, the title literally means "second") and at the bottom of the hierarchy were village managers (rab ālāni), in charge of one or more villages or other settlements with the primary duty to collect taxes in the form of labor and goods. Provincial governors were directly responsible for various aspects of provincial administration, including construction, taxation and security. Security concerns were often mostly relevant only in the frontier provinces, whose governors were also responsible for gathering intelligence about enemies across the border. To this end, a vast network of informants or spies (daiālu) were employed to keep officials informed of events and developments in foreign lands.

Provincial governors were also responsible for supplying offerings to temples, in particular to the temple of Ashur. This channeling of revenues from across the empire was not only meant as a method to collect profit but also as a way to connect the elites across the empire to the religious institutions in the Assyrian heartland. The royal administration kept close watch of institutions and individual officials across the empire through a system of officials responsible directly to the king, called qēpu (usually translated as "royal delegates"). Control was maintained locally through regularly deploying low-ranking officials to the smaller settlements, i.e. villages and towns, of the empire. Corvée officers (ša bēt-kūdini) kept tallies on the labor performed by forced laborers and the remaining time owed and village managers kept provincial administrators informed of the conditions of the settlements in their provinces. As the empire grew and time went on, many of its foreign subject peoples became incorporated into the Assyrian administration, with more high officials in the later times of the empire being of non-Assyrian origin.

State communications

To govern an empire of unprecedented size, the Neo-Assyrian Empire, probably first under Shalmaneser III, developed a sophisticated state communication system. Use of this system was restricted to messages sent by high officials; their messages were stamped with their seals, which demonstrated their authority. Messages without such seals could not be sent through the communication system.

Per estimates by Karen Radner, a message sent from the western border province Quwê to the Assyrian heartland, a distance of 700 kilometers (430 miles) over a stretch of lands featuring many rivers without any bridges, could take less than five days to arrive. Such communication speed was unprecedented before the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and was not surpassed in the Middle East until the telegraph was introduced by the Ottoman Empire in 1865, nearly 2,500 years later. The quick communications between the imperial court and officials in the provinces was an important contributing factor to the cohesion of the empire and an important innovation which paved the way for its geopolitical dominance.

The government used mules for long-distance state messengers because of their strength, hardiness and low maintenance. Assyria was the first civilization to use mules for this purpose. It was common for messengers to ride with two mules, which meant that it was possible to alternate between them to keep them fresh and to ensure that the messengers were not stranded if one mule became lame. Messages were sent either through a trusted envoy or through a series of relay riders. The relay system, called kalliu, was invented by the Assyrians and allowed for significantly faster speeds in times of need, with each rider only covering a segment of the travel route, ending at a relay station at which the next rider, with a fresh pair of mules, was passed the letter. To facilitate transport and long-distance travel, the empire constructed and maintained a vast road system. Called the hūl šarri ("king's road"), the roads might originally have grown from routes used by the military during campaigns and were continually expanded. The largest phase of road expansion transpired between the reigns of Shalmaneser III and Tiglath-Pileser III.

Military

At the height of the empire, the Assyrian army was the strongest army yet assembled in world history. The number of soldiers was likely several hundred thousand. The Assyrians pioneered innovative strategies, particularly concerning cavalry and siege warfare, that would be used in warfare for millennia. Due to detailed royal records and detailed depictions of soldiers and battle scenes on reliefs, the equipment and organization of the army is relatively well understood. Communication within the army and between units was fast and efficient; using the empire's efficient methods of state communication, messages could be sent across vast distances very quickly. Messages could be passed within an army through the use of fire signals.

While on campaign, the army was symbolically led by two gods; with standards of Nergal and Adad being hoisted to the left and right of the commander. The commander was typically the king, but other officials could be assigned to lead the army into war. The army was chiefly raised through provincial governors levying troops. Provincial governors sometimes led campaigns and negotiated with foreign rulers. Under the Sargonid dynasty, some reforms appear to have been made to the leadership of armies; the office of turtanu was divided into two, and it seems that specific regiments, including their respective land-holdings, were transferred from the king's direct command to the command of the crown prince and the queen. The two most important developments in the Neo-Assyrian period were the large-scale introduction of cavalry and the adoption of iron for armor and weapons.

While the Middle Assyrian army had been composed entirely of levies, a central standing army was established in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, dubbed the kiṣir šarri ("king's unit"). Closely accompanying the king were the ša qurubte, or royal bodyguards, some drawn from the infantry. The army was subdivided into kiṣru, composed of perhaps 1,000 soldiers, most of whom would have been infantry soldiers (zūk, zukkû or raksūte). The infantry was divided into three types: light, medium and heavy. The light infantry might have in addition to serving in battles also carried out policing tasks and served in garrisons and was likely mainly composed of Aramean tribesmen, often barefoot and without helmets, wielding bows or spears. Also included in that group were probably expert archers hired from Elam. The medium infantry were also primarily archers or spearmen but were armed with characteristic pointed helmets and a shield, though no body armor was used before the time of Ashurbanipal. The heavy infantry included spearmen, archers and slingers and wore boots, pointed helmets, round shields and scale armor. In battle they fought in close formation. Foreign levy troops drafted into the army are often distinguishable in reliefs by distinct headgear.

Society

Population

At the top of society was the king. Below the king were (in descending order of prestige and power) the crown prince, the royal family, the royal court, administrators and army officers. From the time Ashurnasirpal II designated Nimrud as the new capital of the empire onwards, eunuchs held a high position. The highest offices both in the civil administration and the army were typically occupied by eunuchs with deliberately obscure and lowly origins, since this ensured that they would be loyal to the king. The members of the royal court were often handpicked from among the urban elites by eunuchs.

Below the higher classes were the Assyrian "citizens", semi-free laborers (usually mostly made up of deportees) and then slaves. There was not a large number of slaves, who were made up of prisoners of war and of Assyrians unable to pay their debts and were thus reduced to debt bondage. In many cases, Assyrian family groups or "clans" formed large population groups within the empire referred to as tribes. It was possible through steady service to the Assyrian state bureaucracy for a family to move up the social ladder; in some cases stellar work conducted by a single individual enhanced the status of their family for generations. Foreigners could also reach high positions with attestations of individuals with Aramean names in high positions by the end of the 8th century BCE. Though most of the preserved sources only give insight into the higher classes, the vast majority of the population would have been farmers who worked land owned by their families.

Families and tribes lived together in settlements near their agricultural lands. It is not clear how local settlements were organized internally beyond each being headed by a mayor who acted as a local judge (more in the sense of a counselor to involved parties than someone who passed judgement) and represented the settlement within the state bureaucracy. It is possible that the mayors were responsible for forwarding local concerns to the state; no revolts by the common people (only by local governors and high officials) are known. Though all means of production were owned by the state, there was a vibrant private economic sector within the empire, with property rights of individuals ensured by the government. Monumental construction projects were undertaken by the state through levying materials and people from local governors, though sometimes also with the help of private contractors.

The wealth generated through private investments was dwarfed by the wealth of the state, which was by far the largest employer in the empire and had an obvious monopoly on agriculture, manufacturing and exploitation of minerals. The imperial economy advantaged mainly the elite, since it was structured in a way that ensured that surplus wealth flowed to the government and was then used for the maintenance of the state throughout the empire.

Languages

The ancient Assyrians primarily spoke and wrote the Assyrian language, a Semitic language (i.e. related to modern Hebrew and Arabic) closely related to Babylonian, spoken in southern Mesopotamia. Assyrian and Babylonian are generally regarded by modern scholars as dialects of the Akkadian language. The empire was the last state to sponsor writing traditional Akkadian cuneiform in all levels of its administration. As a result, ancient Mesopotamian textual tradition and writing practices flourished to an unprecedented degree in the Neo-Assyrian period. Texts written in cuneiform were made not just in the traditionally Akkadian-speaking Assyrian heartland and Babylonia, but by officials and scribes all over the empire. At the height of the empire, cuneiform documents were written in lands today part of countries like Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Iran, which had not produced any cuneiform writings for centuries, and in cases never before.

Three distinct versions, or dialects, of Akkadian were used: Standard Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian. Standard Babylonian was a highly codified version of ancient Babylonian, used around 1500 BCE, and was used as a language of high culture, for nearly all scholarly documents, literature and poetry. The culture of the elite was strongly influenced by Babylonia in the south. Though the political relationship between Babylonia and the Assyrian central government was variable and volatile, cultural appreciation of the south was constant throughout the Neo-Assyrian period. Many of the documents written in Standard Babylonian were written by scribes who originally came from southern Mesopotamia but were employed in the north. The Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian forms of Akkadian were vernacular languages, primarily spoken in northern and southern Mesopotamia, respectively.

The imperialism of the empire was in some ways different from that of later empires. The perhaps biggest difference was that the kings did not impose their religion or language on the foreign peoples they conquered outside the Assyrian heartland; the national deity Ashur had no significant temples outside of northern Mesopotamia, and the Neo-Assyrian language, though it served as an official language in the sense that it was spoken by provincial governors, was not forced upon conquered peoples. This lack of suppression against foreign languages, and the growing movement of Aramaic-speaking people into the empire during the Middle Assyrian and early Neo-Assyrian periods, facilitated the spread of the Aramaic language. Aramaic grew in importance and increasingly replaced the Neo-Assyrian language even within the Assyrian heartland. From the 9th century BCE onwards, Aramaic became the de facto lingua franca of the empire, with Neo-Assyrian and other forms of Akkadian becoming relegated to a language of the political elite.

Scholarship and engineering

The beginnings of Assyrian scholarship is conventionally placed near the beginning of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BCE, when Assyrians began to take a lively interest in Babylonian scholarship, which they adapted and developed into their own scholarship tradition. The rising status of scholarship might be connected to the kings beginning to regard amassing knowledge as a way to strengthen their power. There was a marked change in royal attitude towards scholarship; while the kings had previously seen preserving knowledge as a responsibility of the temples and of private individuals, it was increasingly also seen as a responsibility of the king. The scholarship appears to have begun already under Tukulti-Ninurta II in the 9th century BCE, since he is the first Assyrian king under which the office of chief scholar is attested. In Tukulti-Ninurta's time the office was occupied by Gabbu-ilani-eresh, an ancestor of a later influential family of advisors and scribes.

Libraries were built to maintain scribal culture and scholarship and to preserve the knowledge of the past. Such libraries were not limited to the temples and royal palaces; there were also private libraries built and kept by individual scholars. Texts found in the libraries fall into a wide array of genres, including divinatory texts, divination reports, treatments for the sick (either medical or magical), ritual texts, incantations, prayers and hymns, school texts and literary texts.

The largest and most important royal library in Mesopotamian history was the Library of Ashurbanipal, an ambitious project for which Ashurbanipal gathered tablets from both Assyrian and Babylonian libraries. The texts in this library were gathered both through amassing existing tablets from throughout the empire and through commissioning scribes to copy existing works in their own libraries and send them to the king. The Library of Ashurbanipal included more than 30,000 documents.

The empire accomplished several complex technical projects, which indicates sophisticated technical knowledge. Various professionals who performed engineering tasks are attested in Neo-Assyrian sources, such as individuals holding positions like šitimgallu ("chief builder"), šellapajū ("architect"), etinnu ("house builder") and gugallu ("inspector of canals").

Among the most impressive engineering and construction projects were the repeated constructions and renovations of capital cities (Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin and Nineveh). Royal inscriptions commemorating the building works at these sites often detail the building process. The level of sophistication in engineering is evident from solutions to technical problems like lighting throughout large buildings and canalizations of toilets, roofs and courts. A frequent challenge was to construct the roofs of large rooms since the Assyrians had to support them using only wooden beams. As a result, large representative rooms were often much longer than they were wide.

Legacy

Culture

The empire left a cultural legacy of great consequence. The population of Upper Mesopotamia continued to keep the memory of their ancient civilization alive and to maintain a positive connection with the Assyrian Empire in local histories written as late as the Sasanian period. Figures like Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin long figured in local folklore and literary tradition. In large part, tales from the Sasanian period and later times were invented narratives, based on ancient Assyrian history but applied to local and current landscapes. Medieval tales written in Eastern Aramaic, particularly Syriac, portray Sennacherib as an archetypal pagan king, assassinated in a family feud whose children convert to Christianity. The legend of the Behnam, Sarah, and the Forty Martyrs, set in the 4th century but written long thereafter, casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib, as their royal father.

Some Aramaic stories spread far beyond Upper Mesopotamia. The Story of Ahikar follows a legendary royal advisor named Ahikar of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon and is first attested on an Elephantine papyrus from c. 500 BCE. This story proved popular and was translated into many languages. Other tales from Egypt include stories of the Egyptian hero Inarus, a fictionalized version of the rebel Inaros I, fighting against Esarhaddon's invasion of Egypt, as well as a tale recounting the civil war between Ashurbanipal and Šamaš-šuma-ukin. Some Egyptian tales feature a queen of the Amazons named Serpot, possibly based on Shammuramat.

Several legends of Assyria are known from Greco-Roman texts, including a fictional narrative of the founding of the empire and Nineveh by the legendary figure Ninus, as well as tales of Ninus's powerful wife Semiramis, another fictionalized version of Shammuramat. Legendary accounts were written of the empire's fall, erroneously linked to the reign of the effeminate Sardanapalus, a fictionalized version of Ashurbanipal.

Though the empire did not force religious conversions, its existence as a large, imperialist state reshaped the religious views of the people around it, prominently ancient Israel and Judah. The Hebrew Bible mentions Assyria about 150 times; multiple significant events which involved the Israelites are mentioned, most prominently Sennacherib's war against Hezekiah, and several Neo-Assyrian kings are mentioned, including Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and possibly Ashurbanipal. Though some positive associations of Assyria are included, the Bible generally paints the empire as an imperialist aggressor. Jewish theology was influenced by the empire: the Book of Deuteronomy bears a strong resemblance to the loyalty oaths in Assyrian vassal treaties, though with the absolute loyalty to the Assyrian king replaced with absolute loyalty to Yahweh. Additionally, some stories in the Bible appear to be at least partly drawn from events in Assyrian history; the story of Jonah and the whale might draw on earlier stories concerning Shammuramat, and the story of Joseph was likely at least partly inspired by Esarhaddon's rise to power.

Status as a world empire

Though some point to the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 BCE) or the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (c. 1550–1290 BCE), many researchers consider the Neo-Assyrian Empire to be the first world empire in history. Although the Neo-Assyrian Empire covered between 1.4 and 1.7 million square kilometers (0.54–0.66 million square miles; just a little over one percent of the land area of the planet), the terms "world empire" or "universal empire" should not be taken as denoting actual world domination. The Neo-Assyrian Empire was at its height the largest empire yet to be formed in history and was regarded by the Assyrians and many of their contemporaries as "universal", while the lands remaining outside their dominions—such as the Arabian desert and the highlands of the Zagros Mountains—were dismissed "empty", at the fringes of the world and inhabited by uncivilized peoples.

A "world empire" can also be interpreted as an imperial state without any competitors. Though there were other reasonably large kingdoms in the ancient Near East during the Neo-Assyrian period—notably Urartu in the north, Egypt in the west and Elam in the east—none were existential threats to Assyria and could do little else than defend themselves in times of war; whereas Assyrian troops routinely plundered and campaigned in the heartlands of these kingdoms, the Assyrian heartland was not invaded until the fall of the empire. Nevertheless, the existence of other organized kingdoms undermined the notion of the Assyrians as universal rulers. It is partly because of this that large military campaigns were conducted with the express goal of conquering these kingdoms and fulfilling the ideological mission of ruling the world. At the height of the empire under Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, only Urartu remained since Egypt had been conquered and Elam left destroyed and desolate.

Ideologically, the empire formed an important part in the imperial ideologies of succeeding empires in the Middle East. The idea of continuity between successive empires (a phenomenon in later times dubbed translatio imperii) was a long established tradition in Mesopotamia, going back to the Sumerian King List which connected succeeding and sometimes rival dynasties and kingdoms together as predecessors and successors. In the past, the idea of succession between empires had resulted in claims such as that of the Dynasty of Isin being the successor of the Third Dynasty of Ur, or Babylonia being the successor of the Akkadian Empire. The idea of translatio imperii supposes that there is only one "true" empire at any given time, and that imperial power and right to rule is inherited from one empire to the next, with Assyria typically seen as the first empire.

Reputation of brutality

I built a pillar over against the city gate and I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins. Some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes and others I bound to stakes round the pillar. I cut the limbs off the officers who had rebelled. Many captives I burned with fire and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their noses, their ears, and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes. I made one pillar of the living and another of heads and I bound their heads to tree trunks round about the city. Their young men and maidens I consumed with fire. The rest of their warriors I consumed with thirst in the desert of the Euphrates.

The empire is perhaps most prominently remembered for the ferocity and brutality of its army. Neo-Assyrian inscriptions and artwork are unusually explicit in description and depiction of various atrocities, often describing them with "terrifying realism". It is chiefly from the Neo-Assyrian period that royal inscriptions describe atrocities in detail, though various atrocities were enacted against enemy states and peoples by certain Middle Assyrian kings as well. This may be attributable to the Neo-Assyrian kings using fear to keep their conquered territories in-line after declines in power during the Middle Assyrian Empire.

Biblical and other historical references to Assyrian brutality were reinforced by the 19th-century discoveries of ancient art and inscriptions, as well as by unflattering comparisons drawn between Assyria and the Ottoman Empire by the historians and archaeologists who found them. Today, despite the diversity of ancient Assyrian culture, military and atrocity scenes dominate museum exhibitions on Assyria because of their distinct character.

Though there is no modern scholarly denial that the Neo-Assyrian government was brutal, the extent to which the inscriptions and artwork reflect actual atrocities is debated. Some believe that the Assyrians were more brutal than depicted because inscriptions and art do not include all the gruesome details or record every instance, whereas others believe Assyrian kings used exaggerated descriptions of brutal acts as tools for propaganda and psychological warfare.

Although Neo-Assyrian art is particularly graphic, actual practice in war was likely similar in character to their cultural neighbors, if more effective and broader in impact because of a higher level of bureaucratic organization. Detailed analysis of palace friezes suggests that brutality was typically targeted to intimidate and dissuade foreigners and vassals from fighting against Assyrian dominion. The vast majority of depicted brutal acts were directed against the soldiers and nobility of Assyria's enemies, with civilians only rarely being brutalized, suggesting cultural limits and restraints for most of neo-Assyrian rule.