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Updated: June 29, 2025
As the next two centuries pass more and more will be heard of depletion and misery in the Assyrian lands. Already before 800 we have the spectacle of the agricultural district of Arbela rebelling against Shalmaneser's sons, and after being appeased with difficulty, rising again against Adadnirari III in a revolt which is still active when the century closes.
So an oracle, coming from Ishtar and Nabu and uttered by a woman Baya, a native of Arbela, announces: Fear not, Esarhaddon, I, the lord, to thee do I speak. The beams of thy heart I strengthen as thy mother, Who gave thee life. Sixty great gods are with me Drawn up to protect thee. The god Sin is on thy right, Shamash on thy left.
Why was the battle of Pharsalus more to the world than fifty other stricken fields where armies of strength equal to those engaged there joined in conflict? Why can these other battles be passed over as dates and names to the historian, while he assigns to this a position beside Marathon and Arbela and Tours and the Defeat of the Armada and Waterloo and Gettysburg?
Fear not! The wind which speaks to thee Comes with speech from me, withholding nothing. Thine enemies, like the ... of Siwan, At thy feet will be poured out. The great mistress am I. I am Ishtar of Arbela, who forces thine enemies to submission. Is there any utterance of mine that I addressed to thee upon which thou couldst not rely? I am Ishtar of Arbela. In front and behind thee I march.
After a severe fight, the one called Alexander conquered, and was rewarded with twelve villages and the right of wearing the Persian garb. This we are told by Eratosthenes the historian. The decisive battle with Darius was fought at Gaugamela, not at Arbela, as most writers tell us.
Something must have occurred during his reign, to bring the goddess of Arbela into such remarkable prominence, but even Ashurbanabal does not go so far as to place Ishtar of Arbela before Ishtar of Nineveh, when enumerating the gods of the pantheon. One point still remains to be mentioned before passing on. Ashurbanabal calls Ishtar he is speaking of Ishtar of Nineveh the wife of Bel.
Artahanus possessed the energy and spirit which most of the recent monarchs had lacked; and though defeated when taken at disadvantage, and unable for some months to obtain any revenge, had employed the winter in the collection of a vast army, and was determined to exact a heavy retribution for the treacherous massacre of Ctesiphon and the wanton impiety of Arbela.
He might now easily have advanced along the great post-road which connected Arbela with Dastagherd and Ctesiphon; but he had probably by this time received information of the movements of the Persians, and was aware that by so doing he would place himself between two fires, and run the chance of being intercepted in his retreat.
Again, on the sixth of Boedromion, the Persians were worsted by the Greeks at Marathon; on the third, at Plataea, as also at Mycale; on the twenty-fifth, at Arbela. The Athenians, about the full moon in Boedromion, gained their sea- victory at Naxos under the conduct of Chabrias; on the twentieth, at Salamis, as we have shown in our treatise on Days.
He then proceeded southwards along its banks, and after four days' march fell in with a few squadrons of the enemy's cavalry. The town of Arbela, after which the battle that ensued is commonly named, lay at about twenty miles distance, and there Darius had deposited his baggage and treasure.
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