United States or Palestine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
After thus displaying his power and extending his dominions towards the south-west, the north-west, and the south-east, Asshur-bani-pal turned his arms towards the north-east, and invaded Minni, or Persarmenia the mountain-country about Lakes Van and Urumiyeh.
Collecting as large an army as he could, both from his Arian and his Scythic subjects, he marched into Assyria, met the troops of Asshur-bani-pal in the field, defeated them signally, and forced them to take refuge behind the strong works which defended their capital.
He was conspired against by the commander of his archers, a second Umman-aldas, who killed him and occupied his throne. Many pretenders, at the same time, arose in different parts of the country; and Asshur-bani-pal, learning how Elam was distracted, determined on a fresh effort to conquer it.
The character of Asshur-bani-pal stands really in the strongest contrast to the description be it a portrait, or be it a mere sketch from fancy which Ctesias gives of his Sardanapalus. Asshur-bani-pal, was beyond a doubt one of Assyria's greatest kings.
Umman-ibi, though he had received his crown from Asshur-bani-pal, joined him, seduced by a gift of treasure from the various Babylonian temples. Vaiteha, a powerful Arabian prince, and Nebo-belsumi, a surviving grandson of Merodach-Baladan, came into the confederacy; and Saul-Mugina had fair grounds for expecting that he would be able to maintain his independence.
The waning glory of the monarchy was made patent both to the nation and to strangers by an edifice where coarse slabs of common limestone, unsculptured and uninscribed, replaced the alabaster bas-reliefs of former times; and where a simple plaster above the slabs was the substitute for the richly-patterned enamelled bricks of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Asshur-bani-pal.
About the same time Asshur-bani-pal entered into communication with the Cilician monarch, whose name is not given, and took to wife a daughter of that princely house, which was already connected with the royal race of the Sargonids. Shortly after his second Egyptian expedition, Asshur-bani-pal seems to have invaded Asia Minor.
There he appears to have died in B.C. 668, or early in B.C. 667, leaving Asshur-bani-pal sole sovereign of the entire empire. Of the architecture of Esar-haddon, and of the state of the arts generally in his time, it is difficult to speak positively.
As the pretensions of those princes were dangerous, Temin-Umman endeavored to seize their persons with the intention of putting them to death; but they, having timely warning of their danger, fled; and, escaping to Nineveh with their relations and adherents, put themselves under the protection of Asshur-bani-pal.
To his military ardor Asshur-bani-pal added a passionate addiction to the pleasure of the chase. Lion-hunting was his especial delight. Sometimes along the banks of reedy streams, sometimes borne mid-channel in his pleasure galley, he sought the king of beasts in his native haunts, roused him by means of hounds and beaters from his lair, and despatched him with his unerring arrows.
Word Of The Day