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It served also to mask and overawe the larger and more wealthy city of Carchemish, a few miles north, which would remain for a long time to come free of permanent Assyrian occupation, though subjected to blackmail on the occasion of every western raid by the Great King. With this last westward advance of his permanent territorial holding, Shalmaneser appears to have rested content.
They represent the victories and military expeditions of Shalmaneser II. In the pavilion that we have abstracted from this long series of reliefs may be recognized the field-chapel of the king. When that cruel but pious conqueror wished to thank Assur for some great success, he could cause a tabernacle like this to be raised in a few minutes even upon the field of battle itself.
It is quite in accordance with this erection of a sort of second capital, further to the north than the old one, to find, as we do, by the inscriptions of Asshur-izir-pal, that Shalmaneser undertook expeditions against the tribes on the upper Tigris, and even founded cities in those parts, which he colonized with settlers brought from a distance.
Nevertheless, though Shalmaneser and his dynastic successors down to Adadnirari III were unable to enter Palestine, the shadow of Assyrian Empire was beginning to creep over Israel. The internal dissensions of the latter, and its fear and jealousy of Damascus had already done much to make ultimate disaster certain.
Still, an element of love also enters into the relationship with her subjects. As a goddess of war she is of course 'perfect in courage, as Shalmaneser II. declares. Temples are erected to her in the city of Ashur, in Nineveh and Arbela.
At a later date the people became idolatrous, and Shalmaneser, an Assyrian king, reduced them to subjection, and carried numbers of them into Assyria, and replaced them with men from Babylon and other places. By the intermarriage of Jews remaining in the country with these foreigners a mixed race, called Samaritans, sprang up.
Now the sculpture upon the alabaster slabs with which the palace walls of Shalmaneser and Sargon, of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal, were covered, confines itself mainly to marches, combats, and sieves, it is more realistic than the sculpture of Chaldæa, a country that had done less, especially upon fields of battle, but had invented more and done more thinking than its bellicose rival.
Endure, indeed, it would for more than two centuries. But it was not so strong as it appeared. Before the century of Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II was at an end, certain inherent germs of corporate decay had developed apace in its system.
Especially in the days of Ashurnasirbal and Shalmaneser II. the ninth century does the sun-cult receive great prominence. These kings call themselves the sun of the world.
Ay, and if it had been left unto thee, verily I might have been given over to the destroyer, even as Hoshea was given unto Shalmaneser. Speak, thou deformity, lest, finding thy mind as base as its casket, I let it forth from its vile dwelling, even as a thing of nought."
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