[108], Frahm believes that it is possible that Sennacherib suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder because of the catastrophic fate of his father. He thought he could take them for himself. [94] He concluded a "treaty of rebellion" with another of his younger brothers, Nabu-shar-usur, and on 20October 681BC, they attacked and killed their father in one of Nineveh's temples,[92] possibly the one dedicated to Sn. [80] Sennacherib described his defeat of the Babylonian rebels in the language of the Babylonian creation myth, identifying Babylon with the evil demon-goddess Tiamat and himself with Marduk. Except for Esarhaddon, who is known to be Naqi'a's son, which of Sennacherib's wives were his children's mothers is unknown. [55] One of Sennacherib's first measures was to remove Bel-ibni from the Babylonian throne, either because of incompetence or complicity,[32] and he was brought back to Assyria, whereafter he is not heard of again in the sources. [84] Though some northern Babylonian territories became Assyrian provinces, the Assyrians made no effort to rebuild Babylon itself, and southern chronicles from the time refer to the era as the "kingless" period when there was no king in the land. Like the inscriptions of other Assyrian kings, his show pride and high self-esteem, for instance in the passage: "Ashur, father of the gods, looked steadfastly upon me among all the rulers and he made my weapons greater than (those of) all who sit on (royal) daises." She was referred to as the "queen mother" during Esarhaddon's reign, but as she was Esarhaddon's mother, the title may have been bestowed upon her either late in Sennacherib's reign or by Esarhaddon. [32], After the Babylonian war, Sennacherib's second campaign was in the Zagros Mountains. When Sargon's wife Ataliya died, she was buried hastily and in the same coffin as another woman, the queen of the previous king Tiglath-Pileser. [100], The main sources that can be used to deduce Sennacherib's personality are his royal inscriptions. Instead, his inscriptions often portrayed the most important parts of his reign as his large-scale building projects. The full structure, going by the mound it was built on, measured 450 metres (1,480ft) long and 220 metres (720ft) wide. Sennacherib's only known sister, Ahat-abisha, was married off to Ambaris, the king of Tabal, but probably returned to Assyria after Sargon's first successful campaign against Tabal. Assyria and Babylonia also shared the same language (Akkadian). The War. Because the Assyrians venerated the long history and culture of Babylon, it was preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king, or by the Assyrian king in a personal union. Sennacherib reigned from 720 BC to about 683 BC. Sennacherib surrounded the cities that had high walls around them. Historically, the most popular view has been that Sennacherib was the son of Sargon's wife Ataliya, although this is now considered unlikely. He later replaced him with a younger son, Esarhaddon, in 684BC, for unknown reasons. Although Sennacherib was one of the most powerful and wide-ranging Assyrian kings, he faced considerable difficulty in controlling Babylonia, which formed the southern portion of his empire. [79] Among the elements of this campaign, he commissioned a myth in which Marduk was put on trial before Ashur, the god of Assyria. The ancient Aramaic story of Ahikar portrays Sennacherib as a benevolent patron of the titular character Ahikar, with Esarhaddon portrayed more negatively. [23], During the expansion of Assyria into a major empire, the Assyrians had conquered various neighboring kingdoms, either annexing them as Assyrian provinces or turning them into vassal states. Sennacherib is presented as akin to a ruthless predator, attacking Judah as a "wolf on the fold" in the famous 1815 poem The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron:[112]. [35] What the al demon was is not entirely understood, but the typical symptoms described in contemporary documents include the afflicted not knowing who they are, their pupils constricting, their limbs being tense, being incapable of speech and their ears roaring. [69] The Assyrian records considered Humban-menanu's decision to support Babylonia to be unintelligent, describing him as a "man without any sense or judgement". Other events of his reign include his destruction of the city of Babylon in 689 BC and his renovation and expansion of the last great Assyrian capital, Nineveh . According to Elayi, Sennacherib was "certainly intelligent, skillful, with an ability of adaptation", but "his sense of piety was contradictory, as, on the one hand, he impiously destroyed the statues of gods and temples of Babylon while, on the other hand, he used to consult the gods before acting and prayed to them". From the sources, it appears that bad news easily enraged Sennacherib and that he developed serious psychological problems. The Assyrian campaign (described as an act of aggression rather than as a response to Hezekiah's rebellious activities) is seen as doomed to fail from the start. Sennacherib. Many of Sennacherib's reliefs are exhibited today at the Vorderasiatisches Museum, the British Museum, the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris. [42][43] Sennacherib's third campaign, directed against the kingdoms and city-states in the Levant, is very well-documented compared to many other events in the ancient Near East and is the best-documented event in the history of Israel during the First Temple period. As an Assyrian king of Babylon, Ashur-nadin-shumi's position was politically important and highly delicate and would have granted him valuable experience as the intended heir to the entire Neo-Assyrian Empire. Every servant involved with the security of the royal palace at Nineveh was executed. He is primarily remembered for his military campaigns in Babylon and Jerusalem. [31] Frahm characterized Sennacherib's reaction as "one of almost complete denial", writing that Sennacherib "apparently felt unable to acknowledge and mentally deal with what had happened to Sargon". [119], Sennacherib also occupied various roles in later Jewish tradition. He may have been compensating for the way he treated his father's memory. [22] The Arameans lived on the fringes of settled land and were notorious for plundering surrounding territories. Panels 14-16 [92] Esarhaddon's influential mother, Naqi'a, may have played a role in convincing Sennacherib to choose Esarhaddon as heir. As his name implies Sennacherib was not the eldest son of Sargon II, but was chosen as crown prince and made military governor of the troublesome northern frontier. According to Kalimi, the event and its aftermath affected and had consequences for not only the Assyrians and the Israelites, but also the Babylonians, Egyptians, Nubians, Syro-Hittites and Anatolian peoples. [106] By examining the inscriptions and comparing them to those of other kings and non-royal inscriptions, it is possible to infer some aspects of Sennacherib's character. [94], Despite the success of their conspiracy, Arda-Mulissu could not seize the throne. [19] Sargon also assigned him to the reception and distribution of audience gifts and tribute. (Wikimedia Commons)As for Hezekiah, the Jew, who did not submit my yoke, 46 of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small cities in the neighborhood, which were without number, by leveling with battering rams and by bringing up siege engines, by attacking and storming on foot, by mines, tunnels and breaches, I besieged and took (those cities). These inscriptions were not written by the king, but by his royal scribes. Sennacherib (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: Sn-ahh-erba[3] or Sn-a-erba,[4] meaning "Sn has replaced the brothers")[5][6][a] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father SargonII in 705BC to his own death in 681BC. The Assyrian king Sennacherib trained eagles for warfare. Whether both held the position of queen is uncertain, but contemporary sources suggest that though the king's family included multiple women, only one at a time would be recognized as queen and primary consort. Though Sargon's reliefs usually show the king as close to other members of the Assyrian aristocracy, Sennacherib's art usually depicts the king towering above everyone else in his vicinity due to being mounted in a chariot. The Bible reveals that during the reign of the Jewish king Hezekiah, Sennacherib came to conquer Jerusalem and the Angel of the LORD (The Lord Himself) slew 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. [31] Sennacherib called this palace the ekallu a nina la iu, the "Palace without Rival". This was not necessarily because of personal pride; his subjects would have viewed a failed campaign as a sign that the gods no longer favored his rule. Tashmetu-sharrat is likely to have been the mother of at least some of them. Sennacherib described Bel-ibni as "a native of Babylon who grew up in my palace like a young puppy". [63] The war then took an unexpected turn as the king of Elam, Hallutash-Inshushinak I, took advantage of the Assyrian army being so far away from home to invade Babylonia. [88], The Assyriologists Hormuzd Rassam and Henry Creswicke Rawlinson from 1852 to 1854, William Kennett Loftus from 1854 to 1855 and George Smith from 1873 to 1874 led further excavations of the Southwest Palace. In the stories, Sennacherib's armies are destroyed when Hezekiah recites Hallel psalms on the eve of Passover. According to the biblical account, the Assyrian envoys to Hezekiah returned to Sennacherib to find him engaged in a struggle with the city of Libnah. Through some unknown means, Sennacherib had managed to slip by the Babylonian and Elamite forces undetected some months prior and was not present at the final battle, instead probably being on his way from Assyria with additional troops. [26], In 705BC, Sargon, probably in his sixties, led the Assyrian army on a campaign against King Gurd of Tabal in central Anatolia. Mirroring the increased standing of the women of the royal family, during Sennacherib's time female deities were depicted more frequently. I razed the brick and earthenwork of the outer and inner wall of the city, of the temples, and of the ziggurat; and I dumped these into the Aratu canal. [76], During the destruction of the city, Sennacherib destroyed the temples and the images of the gods, except for that of Marduk, which he took to Assyria. Throughout the history of the Assyrian Empire, Babylon had caused problems and had even been destroyed by the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I in c. 1225 BCE. Both the blockade of Jerusalem and the siege of Lachish probably prevented further Egyptian aid from reaching Hezekiah, and intimidated the kings of other smaller states in the region. In the Levantine War, the states in the southern Levant, especially the Kingdom of Judah under King Hezekiah, were not subdued as easily as those in the north. [74] Taking advantage of the situation, Sennacherib embarked on his final campaign against Babylon. The Assyrians often represented men with eagles heads, and frequently portrayed an eagle-headed figure overcoming a lion, or bull, which, as Mr. Layard suggests, "may denote the superiority of intellect over the lower faculties." to 681 B.C. Sennacherib , (died January 681 bc), King of Assyria (r. 705/704-681 bc), son and successor of Sargon II.Between 703 and 689 he undertook six campaigns against Elam (southwestern Iran), which was stirring up Chaldean and Aramaean tribes in Babylonia; Babylon was sacked during the last campaign. [118] The legend of the 4th-century Saints Behnam and Sarah casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib, as their royal father. 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