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Updated: May 2, 2025
Esar-haddon accordingly marched into the very heart of the Arabian desert a military achievement of the first rank, the memory of which was not forgotten for years. The empire at last was secure. The Assyrian king was now free to complete the policy of Tiglath-pileser by conquering Egypt. Palestine was no longer a source of trouble.
One or two notices in the Old Testament connect him with the history of the Jews. And Abydenus, besides the passage already quoted, has an allusion to some of his foreign conquests. Such are the chief materials from which the modern inquirer has to reconstruct the history of this great king. It appears that the first expedition of Esar-haddon was into Phoenicia.
Sargon, as has been already observed when he removed the Israelites from Sumaria, supplied their place by colonists from Babylon, Cutha, Sippara, Ava, Hamath, and Arabia; this planting a foreign garrison in the region which would be likely to preserve its fidelity. Esar-haddon resolved to strengthen this element.
We are thus reduced to judge of the sculptures of Esar-haddon by the reports of those who saw them ere they fell to pieces, and by one or two drawings, while we have to form our conception of his buildings from a half-explored fragment of a half-finished palace, which was moreover destroyed by fire before completion.
At Nineveh all was consternation, and public prayers, accompanied by fasting, were ordered to be offered up for a hundred days and nights to the Sun-god, that he might "forgive the sin" of his people, and avert the dangers that threatened them. The prayers were heard, and the invaders were driven into Ellipi. Then Esar-haddon marched against Teuspa, and forced him to turn from Assyria.
Esar-haddon proved himself to be not only one of the best generals Assyria ever produced, but a great administrator as well. He endeavoured to cement his empire together by a policy of reconciliation, and one of his first actions was to rebuild Babylon, to bring back to it its gods and people, and to make it one of the royal residences.
They had seen the Pyramids which had already stood for twenty centuries, the hieroglyph-covered obelisks of Luxor, avenues of silent and mysterious sphinxes, colossi of monarchs who reigned in the morning of the world. In the halls of Esar-haddon they had stood before the thrones of grim old Assyrian kings, guarded by winged bulls.
The experiment of appointing an Assyrian prince as viceroy had failed; he had identified himself with his subjects, and like them dreamed of independence. He adopted the style and titles of the ancient Babylonian mouarchs; even the Sumerian language was revived in public documents, and the son of Esar-haddon put himself at the head of a national movement.
If this expedition was really carried into the quarter here supposed, Esar-haddon performed a feat never paralleled in history, excepting by Augustus and Nushirvan. He led an army across the deserts which everywhere guard Arabia on the land side, and penetrated to the more fertile tracts beyond them, a region of settled inhabitants and of cities.
The chief record which we possess of Esar-haddon is a cylinder inscription, existing in duplicate, which describes about nine campaigns, and may probably have been composed in or about his tenth year. A memorial which he set up at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kolb, and a cylinder of his son's, add some important information with respect to the latter part of his reign.
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