36 ASSYRIA tnre of tins disaster, there can be no doubt that Sennacherib looked upon it as an indi- cation of divine displeasure; for during the remaining 20 years of his reign he made no new attempt upon Judah, although he held on to his conquests in Phoenicia. He was there- after engaged in numerous and for the most part successful wars. Merodach-baladan again revolted, and was finally crushed in lower Chaldea. Again the combined rulers of Baby- lon and Elam, aided by the Arabs on the mid- dle Euphrates, attempted to make head against Assyria, but were defeated in a great battle on the Tigris. Three times more Babylonia re- volted, and at the close of the last revolt Baby- lon was captured and sacked (683). The annals of Sennacherib are silent as to the last three years of his reign, from which it may be in- ferred that they were years of disaster to his kingdom. He was assassinated in the temple of Nisroch by two of his sons, who fled to Armenia. His great work was the restora- tion and embellishment of Nineveh, of which his palace at Koynnjik, the most magnificent of the Assyrian ruins, was a part. Sennache- rib was succeeded by his fourth son, Esar- haddon (680-667). He appears to have re- conquered Babylonia, and to have been ap- pointed viceroy. Esar-haddon is the only Assyrian king who ruled also over Baby- lonia during his whole reign. He pushed his conquests far and wide, extending them to Cilicia on the west and across the sea to Cyprus, and on the east he advanced into Media further than any of his predecessors had done. He overran Judah, and carried King Manasseh a captive to Babylon, which seems to have been his joint capital with Nineveh. He was the first Assyrian king who actually invaded Egypt, and assumed the title of king of Egypt and Ethiopia. He built two great palaces at Nineveh and Baby- lon, and began another at Oalah. In this un- finished palace the slabs which line the walls were torn from the palaces of former kings, their sculptured faces placed toward the wall, and the backs smoothed preparatory to being carved with the king's own exploits. Toward the close of his reign he divided the empire, placing one of his sons as viceroy over Babylo- nia. Asshur-bani-pal, whom some consider the Sardanapalus of the Greek romances, ascended the throne in 667, and reigned till 660, or ac- cording to others till 647. He was also a great conqueror; but his chief glory is that during his reign, and under his patronage, Assyrian art and literature reached their highest point. He established what may properly be called a great public library. In his palace of Koyunjik were found three chambers the floors of which were covered a foot deep with tablets of clay of all sizes from an inch long to nine inches, covered with inscriptions, many of them so mi- nute as to be read only by the aid of a magni- fying glass. The letters had been punched into the moist clay, which was afterward burned. Most of these tablets were broken into fragments ; but as there were four copies of each, many of them have been pieced to- gether, so that they have been deciphered. These partially restored tablets are among the most precious of the cuneiform inscriptions, and contain the annals of the first seven years (which some suppose to be the whole) of the reign of Asshnr-bani-pal. (See CUNEIFORM IN- SCRIPTIONS.) His first campaign was in Egypt, against Tirhakah, who had broken the treaty by which he had agreed to confine himself to his own country of Ethiopia. The Assyrian drove him out of Egypt, of which he took pos- session, but left the petty rulers in actual gov- ernment. He had scarcely returned to Nine- veh when these rulers allied themselves again with Tirhakah. Asshur-bani-pal went back and took summary vengeance. Memphis, Sals, and other cities were stormed and their peo- ple put to the sword. Thebes was taken and sacked to its foundations. When Asshur- bani-pal died, Assyria seemed at the summit of its greatness. But its fall was close at hand. Of his successor nothing remains but a few bricks inscribed with a name which has been read Asshur-emit-ilin. He commenced a palace at Nimrud, the inferiority of which to earlier structures bears witness to the decline, while its unfinished state indicates the sudden downfall of the kingdom. No Assyrian rec- ords describe the fall of Nineveh or the events which led to it. Its very time is uncertain, some placing it in 625, others in G06. It is not certain that Asshiir-cmit-ilin was the last king, for a fragment attributed to Berosus gives Sa- racus as the name of the ruler under whom the kingdom fell. The account gathered from sev- eral writers is this : The Medes, having estab- lished their independence and power, made war upon Assyria. The Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Susianians revolted, and joined the Medes. Saracus sent against them his general Nabo- polassar, who turned traitor, and, having be- trothed his son Nebuchadnezzar to a daugh- ter of the Median king, led the Babylonians upon Nineveh. When Saracus learned this, he burned himself in his palace, as told in the legend of Sardanapalus. Assyria ceased to be a kingdom, not even being embraced within the brief but splendid empire of Babylon, which comprised Babylonia, Chaldea, Susiana, and the region along the Euphrates. All that was properly Assyria fell to the share of the Medes. The Assyrians were undoubtedly a homogeneous people of Semitic stock, while the Babylonians were a mixed race, embracing Hamite, Aryan, and Turanian elements. The re- ligion of the Assyrians was apparently in general similar to that of the Babylonians, distinguished mainly by the greater predominance of Asshur, the national deity. He was the " great god," the " king of all the gods," " he who rules supreme over the gods." He was from first to last the main object of worship, never confounded with the personified or individualized deities : Sha-
