Sargon II

721–705 b.c.e.

Assyrian king

Sources

Usurper. In 722 b.c.e. Sargon, whose Akkadian name (Sharrukin) means “the king is legitimate,” overthrew the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V (726-722 b.c.e.), who may have been his brother, at the moment the king’s troops were besieging Samaria, the capital of ancient Israel. Although in his later years, Sargon claimed that on taking the throne, he completed the conquest of Samaria and the deportation of its population; the Hebrew Bible, which is probably correct, mentions only Shalmaneser in this regard. In reality, after staging his coup, Sargon faced rebellion and belligerent adversaries on virtually all the borders of Assyria. Sargon spent practically his entire reign in military campaigns suppressing rebellions and attempting to complete the strategy of expansion and consolidation initiated during the reign of Shalmaneser’s father, Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 b.c.e.). Yet, Sargon also managed to have built a magnificent new capital city named after himself, Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad). Sargon’s artisans adorned the walls of his palace with large carved blocks of stone, many of them vividly depicting his military victories.

Rebellions in the South. Immediately after Sargon’s coup, Marduk-apla-iddina II (the biblical Merodoch-baladan), the leader of Bit-Yakin, a local Chaldaean tribe, seized the throne in Babylon, which had previously been occupied by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V. The defeat of the Assyrian army by the Elamites of Iran, allies of the Babylonians, during an otherwise unsuccessful Elamite attack on the city of Der, forced Sargon to concentrate his efforts in areas other than Babylonia for a full ten years. He returned to Babylonia in 710 b.c.e. and managed to isolate the Babylonians from their erstwhile Elamite allies, driving Merodoch-baladan to flee for his life.

Rebellions in the West. Following the initial stalemate in the south, Sargon immediately turned his attention to the west. Among the rebellious former vassal states was Hamath on the Orontes in Syria. The king of Hamath, Yau-bidi, led a coalition of neighboring states in revolt. In an inscription, Sargon called Yau-bidi “a hupshu (a Hurrian loanword that originally designated a member of one of the lower classes and later became a term of abuse) without claim to the throne, a cursed Hittite.” Sargon fitted out an army and besieged Yau-bidi in the city of Qarqar. The city was captured and burned; Yaubidi was captured and flayed alive. Sargon then continued south, retaking Gaza and defeating an Egyptian force at Raphia on the Egyptian border. Later, an Assyrian garrison was posted at the border, and the Egyptian king sent diplomatic gifts to Sargon. In 712 b.c.e., Sargon successfully pacified the Philistine city-states. Sargon’s power was felt as far west as the island of Cyprus, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) off the north Syrian coast. An Assyrian royal inscription excavated on Cyprus records the gifts of seven local kings sent to Sargon.

Enemies to the North. Two major powers on Assyria’s northern and northwestern frontiers presented Sargon with further difficulties: Phrygia and Urartu, in central and eastern Anatolia respectively, attempted together and individually to pressure border states into allying themselves with either of them. In the annals of his Eighth Campaign (714 b.c.e.), Sargon vividly described the difficult march into the highlands, where he defeated the Urartians and their allies. With the movement of the nomadic Cimmerians across the Caucasus Mountains into Anatolia, and the general threat they posed to all, the Phrygian king Mita (Midas) sought to bring hostilities with Assyria to a close; eventually the two states exchanged ambassadors. In 705 b.c.e. troubles in the border state of Tabal took Sargon into the northwest on one last campaign, in which he was killed in battle.

Sources

Pauline Albenda, The Palace of Sargon of Assyria: Monumental Wall Reliefs at Dur-Sharrukin, from Original Drawings Made at the Time of Their Discovery in 1843–1844 by Botta and Flandin, Synthèse, no. 22 (Paris: E?ditions Recherche sur les Civilizations, 1986).

J. A. Brinkman, Prelude to Empire: Babylonian Society and Politics, 747—626 B.C., Occasional Publications of the Babylonian Fund, 7 (Philadelphia: Babylonian Fund, University Museum, 1984).

A. Kirk Grayson, “Assyria: Tiglath-pileser III to Sargon II (744–705 B.C.),” in The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States to the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries B.C., edited by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, and E. Sollberger, volume 3, part 2 of The Cambridge Ancient History, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 71–102.