ABSTRACT
In 745, the seizure of the throne by a usurper Tiglath-pileser III (745-727) marked the beginning of a vigorous new stage in the kingdom’s development. One of the main features of Tiglath-pileser’s reign was his programme of territorial absorption, which imposed direct Assyrian rule over many of the tributary states in the regions where he campaigned. e former semi-autonomous cities and states were incorporated within the Assyrian provincial administration and placed under the authority of Assyrian governors. Oen, their populations were deported and resettled in distant parts of the Assyrian realm, to be replaced by settlers brought from other parts of it. Tiglath-pileser’s policies were vigorously pursued by the king’s second successor Sargon II (721-705), who incorporated Figure 42.1 Tiglath-pileser III, from Nimrud. Picture from
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Lake Urmia
Lake Van
Salt Lake
Euphrates
Tigris
Orontes
Nile
Kızıl Irmak
Jerusalem
Thebes
Qarqar
Carchemish
Kalhu Nineveh
Ashur
Babylon
0 300 600 km
Lake Urmia
Lake Van
Salt Lake
Euphrates
Tigris
Orontes
Nile
Kızıl Irmak
Jerusalem
Thebes
Qarqar
Carchemish
Kalhu Nineveh
Ashur
Babylon
0 300 600 km
the remaining western tributaries into the provincial system. Other features of Sargon’s career include his decisive victory over the Urartian king Rusa I during his invasion of Urartian territory in 714, and his unexpected peace accord with another of his archenemies, the Phrygian king Mita (Greek Midas). Sargon’s son and successor Sennacherib (704-681) also campaigned widely throughout the Near Eastern lands, particularly in the Zagros mountain region and other parts of Iran, in Syria and Palestine in the west, and in Babylonia in the south. His own son and successor Esarhaddon (680-669) added further to the lands subject to the Assyrian crown by extending Assyrian sovereignty to Egypt. But it was under Esarhaddon’s son Ashurbanipal (668-630/27) that the Neo-Assyrian empire reached its greatest territorial limits. It now extended from Elam in the east to central-southern Anatolia in the west, and from the upper Euphrates in the north to Egypt in the south-west.
