ASHURBANIPAL (Aššur-bāni-aplu "Assur Creates an Heir"). - Assyrian king from 669 to 626 B.C., son and successor of Esarhaddon (v.).
He brought the campaign against Egypt to completion, defeating Tirhakah (Taharqu) in 667 at Karbanit in the Delta. Having occupied Memphis, he advanced up the Nile as far as Thebes, which was sacked. On this occasion the native kings, at whose head was Necho, rebelled against Assyria, but they fell into the hands of A., who led them as prisoners to Nineveh. Subsequently, however, Necho regained sovereignty over Sais.
Tirhakah's successor, Tanutamon, attempted to shake off the Assyrian yoke, and at first conquered Thebes and Memphis and killed Necho. But A. in 663 reconquered and destroyed Thebes and forced the pharaoh to take refuge in Ethiopia. To govern Egypt, in the position that Necho had previously held, Necho's son Psammetichus was appointed; but the latter, around 656, definitively withdrew Egypt from Assyria. Returning to Assyria, A. took Tyre and punished the faithless king Baal, who obtained pardon in exchange for the surrender of hostages, and he also compelled the kings of Syria and Palestine, among them Manasseh (Minat) king of Judah, and furnished them with aid.
Long and terrible was the war, which exhausted the whole of Mesopotamia, waged by A. against his brother Shamash-shum-ukin, installed by Esarhaddon as king of Babylon; he had rebelled, forming an alliance with Elam, with Akkad and with "the land of the sea," with the Arabs (Kedar), with Gyges king of Lydia, with Psammetichus of Egypt, with the Arameans of Bit-Amukanni and of Bit-Dakuri, with the Gutians, with the kings of Syria and Palestine. A. faced the powerful enemy coalition (652), besieged Babylon for two years and captured it (648); Shamash-shum-ukin set fire to his palace and perished in the flames. A. rebuilt Babylon, which he repopulated with people from Kuta and Sippar, but he avoided proclaiming himself its king.
He then led four expeditions against the Elamites who had taken part in the conspiracy of Shamash-shum-ukin; in 646 he conquered and destroyed their capital Susa, and around 640 the Elamite empire was annihilated. He then defeated the Arabs, whose prince Ushite I was deported to Nineveh. It was probably A. who deported Manasseh king of Judah to Babylon (II Par., 33, 11), perhaps because he had joined the insurrection of Shamash-shum-ukin. Eid. 4, 10 ascribes to A. (Atenappar) the sending to Samaria of colonists from many peoples.
A. was not of a warlike disposition, but entrusted war to his generals. Of lofty mind, he considered himself the inaugurator of an era of prosperity and salvation. Under A., Assyria reached the summit of power and culture. His figure has been falsified by Greek tradition (A. "Sardanapalus"). He dedicated the last years of his reign to building temples (of Ishtar at Nineveh), splendid palaces and libraries. To A.'s library at Nineveh, discovered by H. Rassam in 1852 (today in the British Museum), we owe the majority of the documents of Assyro-Babylonian literature and culture.
With the death of A. (626), the collapse of Assyria began at once. His successors were unable to stem the pressure of the Medes, led by Cyaxares (v.), all the more so since from the south Nabopolassar of Babylon was also threatening: in 612 Nineveh fell and the kingdom of Assyria ceased to exist.
Bibliography3 works
Giustino Boson-Antonino Romeo