THE CAMPAIGNS OF ADAD-NīRĀRI I

The reign of Adad-nīrāri I (1307-1275), the son of Arik-dēn-ili, inaugurated a period of rapid expansion. Under his able leadership and that of his immediate successors, Shalmaneser I (1274-1245) and Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244-1208), Assyria in the course of some eighty years greatly extended its territories and eventually emerged as one of the most powerful states of the Near East. Its success must in large part be attributed to its growing economic and military strength, to its political stability, and to the vigorous personalities of its kings, but it was also favoured by the international situation, for the Hittite Empire, faced by more urgent problems, both internal and external, was not in a position to offer a sustained resistance to Assyrian expansion in upper Mesopotamia. The conquests of Assyria, however, outran its capacity to hold and govern all that had been gained and its political decline was as meteoric as its rise. Nevertheless, the empire of the thirteenth century, although ephemeral, laid the foundations of future Assyrian greatness, not only in the political sphere but also in literature and in art.

In the introduction to a number of building inscriptions, Adadnīrāri boasts that he smote the armies of the Kassites, Quti, Lullume and Shubari, smashed all enemies above and below and harried (lit. ‘threshed’) their lands from the towns of Lubdu and Rapiqu in northern Babylonia to Elukhat in upper Mesopotamia.