SOURCES

The sources for this period are neither rich nor of a consistent value. Of contemporary literary sources we have first the evidence of the Homeric poems, then some very scanty passages in Hesiod, a few fragments of lyric poets such as Archilochus and Alcaeus, to which may be added some data, fragmentary and imprecise, in the logographers, especially Hecataeus. The historians Herodotus and Thucydides provide valuable, if limited, information. In later Greek and Latin literature can be found statements directly bearing on our period, for example in Aristotle or Strabo, or in the scholia of Homer or of Apollonius Rhodius. There are in addition indirect literary references; they are concerned with later events, but show a process of evolution from earlier times. To this first category of sources should be added the material evidence provided by archaeologists, which is, however, in itself not very rich.

A GEOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY

After the migradons during the second half of the second millennium and the first centuries of the first millennium, the Thracians were settled in an extensive area stretching from the Euxine (Black) Sea to the neighbourhood of the Axius (Vardar), and from the Aegean Sea to the Transdanubian lands (below, Section IV). They straddled the Propontis (the Sea of Marmora), and had a foothold also in the Troad and in Bithynia.

HEZEKIAH'S LATER YEARS

Sennacherib failed to take Jerusalem in 701 B.C., and Judah remained an independent state, but the kingdom had been weakened, Sennacherib having laid waste, as he put it in monumental inscriptions on a bull colossus and a stone slab, ‘the wide district of Judah’. Pudu-ilu of Ammon, Kammusu-nadbi of Moab and Aiarammu of Edom had all escaped such devastation by paying tribute to Sennacherib without delay, and it seems likely that they now saw an opportunity to take advantage of the weakness of Judah. Levels II at Beersheba and VIII at Arad were destroyed at about this time, and though this might have been part of Sennacherib's operation, both cities lie rather far south of the area in which the Assyrians seem mainly to have conducted their campaign. It might well be that they mark an incursion of the Edomites, who indeed seem to have suffered an encroachment on the part of Judah earlier in Hezekiah's reign (I Chron. 4:41–3). That the Edomites were a threat in this area at about this time is suggested by a letter found in level VIII at Arad. This appears to have been sent by two officers, Gemariah and Nehemiah, in a military outpost to their superior Malkiah, presumably in Arad, and it states that the king should know that, thanks to trouble from the Edomites, they have been unable to send something (the text at that point is damaged). If the destruction of level VIII was the result of Edomite action this could have been a presage of the coming threat to the weakened state.

With the establishment of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom there starts a rich flow of documentary sources. The period of less than ninety years between the reign of Nabopolassar and the occupation of Mesopotamia by the Persians is documented by tens of thousands of texts concerning household and administrative economy and private law, over ten thousand of which have been published so far. Their content is varied: promissory notes, contracts for the sale, lease or gift of land, houses or other property, for the hiring of slaves and freemen, documents connected with international and internal trade, records of lawsuits, correspondence concerning official business, letters with family news, and so on. All these texts come from temple and private archives. We have no state archives of Neo-Babylonian times at our disposal apart from a few stray texts. The rich material in the Neo-Babylonian sources has unfortunately still been insufficiently investigated. It is therefore impossible as yet to give a complete description of Neo-Babylonian society.

THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF NEO-BABYLONIAN SOCIETY

At the time when the Neo-Babylonian state came into being the inhabitants of some large Babylonian cities enjoyed special privileges. Only the fear of losing their civic privileges can explain why citizens of some cities (such as Nippur) remained faithful, in spite of great suffering and privation, to the Assyrian rulers under whom they had won these privileges, and fought the armies of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. As we have seen, the citizens of Babylonian cities were exempt from military conscription and corvée.

PROLEGOMENA

In the first half of the first millennium B.C., new and powerful nomadic groups emerged on the Eurasian steppes to pose a military threat to more southerly urban and literate states and empires. By the sixth century B.C. a complex ‘core–periphery’ system had developed, in which true nomadism was only one element. The economic structure of steppe life changed and large-scale trade developed between the Greek Black Sea colonies and the vast new fortified centres of Scythian power.

The nomads can be traced at first archaeologically; later some names are attached to them in ancient texts. The most famous of these groups was known to the Greeks as the Scythians, against whom, Herodotus tells us, Darius the Great of Persia launched a massive and unsuccessful punitive expedition (CAH IV, 235ff). This chapter concerns the Scythians' rise to fame rather than their disappearance. By 500 B.C. they constituted one of the most powerful military forces in the known world.

THE DEFEAT OF EGYPT

The so-called ‘Chaldaean’ dynasty of Babylon inaugurated by Nabopolassar has also been designated the dynasty of Bit-Yakin or the Third Dynasty of the Sealand. It was not, however, the first occasion the southern tribes had dominated the whole of southern Iraq, for Nebuchadrezzar I, Eriba-Marduk, and Marduk-apla-iddina II had each, for a time, united the leading families against their more powerful northern neighbours. Nabopolassar, aware of the dangers of any lack of central control, followed up the unity shown against their former enemy Assyria with a new alliance with the Medes before taking his army further afield. The treaty arrangements were perhaps intended also to guard the eastern frontier of Babylonia, and were sealed by the marriage of Nabopolassar's eldest son to Amytis of Media. At an early stage Nabopolassar began renovation work on the palace, ziggurat, and walls of Babylon to make the city of Babylon the capital of the newly independent state. His son Nabu-kudurri-usur (Nebuchadrezzar, Biblical Nebuchadnezzar, classical Nabuchodonosor, ‘O Nabu, protect my lineage’) was present at the foundation ceremonies and soon thereafter was proclaimed ‘the chief son, the crown prince’. Since there was no principle of dynastic succession in Babylonia, the king by this means indicated his wish and brought the crown prince into public affairs. They were together in operations near Harran before the king departed from the field, more from the need to have a responsible member of the ruling family in Babylon than necessarily because of the king's ill-health or old age, as Berossus later surmised.

In no domain has the influence of ancient Mesopotamia on Western civilization been more profound and decisive than in theoretical astronomy and, principally through it, mathematics. Indeed, in the course of the last few decades it has become increasingly clear that all Western efforts in the exact sciences are descendants in direct line from the work of the Late Babylonian astronomers.

The anonymous creators of Babylonian theoretical astronomy – probably of the fourth or fifth century B.C. – drew their essential ingredients from several branches of learning and literature, chief among them mathematics and, for observations, the astronomical diaries, closely linked to the celestial omen texts.

BABYLONIAN MATHEMATICS

Babylonian mathematical texts are plentiful and well edited. In respect of time they fall in two distinct groups: one Old Babylonian from the centuries about 1600 B.C., the other mainly Seleucid from the last three or four centuries B.C. In respect of content there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Thus Babylonian mathematics remained constant, in character and content, for nearly two millennia. Its nascent phase escapes us entirely.

The backbone of Babylonian mathematics is the sexagesimal number system. It is a place-value system, like our decimal system, but of base 60 rather than 10. It was used to write both whole numbers and certain fractions (the equivalents of our decimal fractions) and was without doubt the most efficient way of writing numbers in antiquity. It alone reduced the standard four operations of arithmetic to matters of mere routine, particularly with the aid of the multiplication and reciprocal tables that we find in great numbers.

PALESTINE DURING THE EXILE

When Nebuchadrezzar returned to Babylon in the autumn of 586 B.C., he took with him a substantial part of the remaining population of Jerusalem, including the skilled craftsmen, who may well at that time have been concentrated in the city. Gedaliah ben Ahikam ben Shaphan (II Ki. 25:22), the puppet ruler left in command by Nebuchadrezzar, was not, as the previous nominee, Zedekiah, had been, in the royal Davidic succession, but he did come from a line of distinguished state officials, his grandfather having played a part in the promulgation of the Book of the Law in Josiah's time, and his father having on one occasion intervened with Jehoiakim to preserve the life of the prophet Jeremiah. A clay seal impression from Lachish suggests that he himself may well at an earlier date have held the position of royal chamberlain. This impression, which is probably to be dated to the latter part in the seventh century, reads ‘Belonging to Gedaliah the chamberlain’, and if it does indeed come from his own seal it shows that he held this office in the time of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, or Zedekiah, probably the last, since his father was still active in the time of Jehoiachin and he would not have reached years of seniority until later. It is possible, though by no means certain, that another clay seal impression of unknown provenance, but palaeo-graphically of the early sixth century B.C., inscribed ‘Belonging to Hananiah ben Gedaliah’, might refer to an otherwise unknown son.

BACKGROUND AND GENERAL TRENDS

Babylonia in the early centuries of the first millennium B.C. reached a nadir in its history. Political power was effectively fragmented between a weak central government, semi-independent cities, and vigorous tribes who controlled substantial portions of the hinterland. The older settled population had declined significantly in size as well as influence, although the cities continued as religious and intellectual centres. Long stretches of watercourses, the lifelines of irrigation agriculture, were abandoned or had fallen into disuse. Recorded economic life had all but ceased, and there is no evidence for significant foreign trade being carried on by the settled population. Because of her political and economic debility, Babylonia's international horizons during this period were considerably narrowed; almost all known contacts were with her immediate neighbours to the north and east: Assyria, Luristan, and Elam.

In the six score years between 747 and 626 B.C., Babylonia underwent a substantial but gradual transformation from political and economic weakness to reinvigorated national strength on the threshold of territorial expansion. The Late Assyrian empire dominated most of south-west Asia during these decades. For Babylonia, Assyrian military and political oppression served in effect as a catalyst: it stimulated the people of the land to develop new social institutions, to heal political fragmentation, and to transcend military backwardness. The stabilization of the Babylonian monarchy under Assyrian occupation enhanced the economic environment and prepared the way for revitalization of urban structures. It is the purpose of this chapter to chart the career of Babylonia over these crucial decades and to probe the reasons behind the transformation.

The history of Assyria during the reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon is slightly different in character from that of the reigns of Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II in that military achievements, although still of major significance, do not totally dominate the scene. Indeed, apart from the invasion of Egypt under Esarhaddon, there are no further extensive conquests to be recorded. Rather the emphasis gradually shifts to cultural enterprises, especially great building projects, and this development is illustrated by the fact that for Esarhaddon there are virtually no annalistic records preserved, although there is a vast number of display texts in which construction and religion have the centre stage. One must not make too much of this transformation, however, for it is gradual and subtle; both kings, but particularly Sennacherib, still sent out their vast armies to maintain and occasionally expand the frontiers of the empire.

SENNACHERIB (704–681 B.C.)

Of the two monarchs, Sennacherib was certainly the more warlike and therefore a son of whom Sargon could be proud. Among the deeds of Sennacherib, the most creditable is his work at Nineveh, which he transformed into the great metropolis to be known by posterity as the Assyrian capital. Paradoxically, the other event of his time which would long be remembered in Mesopotamia was the destruction of the sister capital, Babylon.

Sources and chronology

Sources for the reign of Sennacherib are both abundant and informative. Of the large number of royal inscriptions a substantial proportion are annalistic and the information they provide is further elucidated by chronographic texts, particularly the Babylonian Chronicle and the Eponym Chronicle.

This period includes the final years of the reign of Ashurbanipal, and those of his three successors in Assyria, his sons Ashur-etel-ilani and Sin-sharra-ishkun, and Ashur-uballit II for whose affiliation we have no evidence. Ashurbanipal is perhaps the best known of Late Assyrian kings, and his reign is in some respects the best documented. Yet of his final years we know little beyond the fact that he continued to be recognized at Nippur until his thirty-eighth year (631). Even the length of his reign remains in dispute, although one later inscription attributes to him a total of forty-two years, i.e. until 627. His sons are even more shadowy figures, of whose reigns in Assyria we are certain of neither their length nor their date, while the last king of the once great empire is attested solely in the Babylonian Chronicle recording his defeat (609). Indeed the extant evidence for the chronology of the final years of the Assyrian empire is so sparse and problematic that attempts to resolve the difficulties have included the suggestion of Ashurbanipal's (perhaps forced) abdication or retirement to Harran sometime before 627, for which there is no direct evidence, and the hypothesis, now clearly unacceptable, that Sin-sharra-ishkun and Ashur-etel-ilani were one and the same person. These chronological problems are discussed in more detail below (pp. 166ff).

The first part of this volume deals with the rivalries and triumphs of the Assyrians and the Babylonians in the period of their greatest achievements and fame. Babylonia slowly recovered from a long economic decline and under the leadership of Chaldaean tribal chieftains began the attempt to assert its independence from the overshadowing power of Assyria, but while Assyria's energy remained, the struggle was an unequal one.

Assyria appeared to move from strength to strength. The old enemy in the north, Urartu, was defeated by Sargon in a spectacular campaign. Expansion in the west led to the capture of Samaria and the elimination of Israel by Sargon in the eighth century, and to the invasion of Egypt by Ashurbanipal in the seventh century. In the east, Elam was crushed. The great palaces built by Tiglath-pileser III at Calah (Nimrud), by Sargon at Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad), and by Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Kouyunjik) are public monuments to Assyrian success, and the libraries, sculptures and ornament found in them are the epitome of Mesopotamian culture. In contrast, the internecine struggle between Ashurbanipal and his brother Shamash-shuma-ukin, appointed as King of Babylon, proved to be the beginning of a fatal weakness. The sudden arrival on the international scene of the Medes and the Scythians and their alliance with the Babylonians led to the unexpected defeat and collapse of Assyria in 612 B.C., and its almost total disappearance from the historical record.

Western Anatolia in the pre-Persian era was basically a land of native peoples, survivors from the Bronze Age or acclimatized intruders of the Early Iron Age. Along the west coast, Greek contacts and settlements existed as they did in the Late Bronze Age (CAH III, I, ch. 18a; III.3, ch.39a). The western plateau and the river valleys beyond the estuaries were free of Greek intrusions. We can identify the native peoples and tribes chiefly with the aid of Greek sources and a tenacious nomenclature which in Roman times still aided in establishing provincial entities and boundaries. The peoples emerge classicized as Phrygians, Lydians, Carians, Lycians, also Mysians, Bithynians, Paphlagonians, Pisidians, Isaurians, Lycaonians, to name the most prominent groups. The Pamphylians by their name indicate their Greek and conglomerate origin.

To the east, the neighbours of the West Anatolians were the conquerors and survivors of the Hittite empire and the founders of neo-Hittite kingdoms, their variety reflected in the large number of royal centres. The boundaries of the individual realms are being reconstructed with the aid of Luwian historical inscriptions (CAH III.I, ch. 9). The neo-Hittite kingdoms experienced the advantage and the menace of being neighbours to the north Mesopotamians, who in the past had often forcefully encroached upon Anatolia through economic and military undertakings. In the Iron Age, proximity to Assyria led to vassalage and ultimate annexation. The west of Anatolia was spared this fate, being traditionally outside the Mesopotamian orbit, but this salvation means a loss of information to the historian – the conflicts and subjugation are recorded in Assyrian annals with names, dates, and selective detail about the victims.