ASSURBANIPAL (Aššur-bān-aplu, “Assur creates an heir”). — Assyrian king from 669 to 626 B.C., Asarhaddon (v.).
He completed the campaign against Egypt, defeating in 667 Tarhaca (Taharqu) at Karbanit in the Delta. After occupying Memphis, he ascended the Nile as far as Thebes, which was sacked. On this occasion the native kings, led by Nechao, rebelled against Assyria, but fell into the hands of A., who led them captive to Nineveh. Later, however, Nechao recovered sovereignty over Sais.
The successor of Tarhaca, Tandamani, attempted to shake off the Assyrian yoke and at first conquered Thebes, Memphis, and killed Nechao. But in 663 A. reconquered and destroyed Thebes and forced the pharaoh to take refuge in Ethiopia. To govern Egypt in the place formerly held by Nechao, A. installed the latter’s son Psammetico; but the latter, around 656, definitively wrested Egypt from Assyrian control.
Returning to Assyria, A. took Tyre and punished the treacherous king Bal, who obtained pardon in exchange for hostages, and also forced the kings of Syria and Palestine, among them Manasse (Minsē) king of Judah, to provide him with aid.
A long and terrible war, which devastated all of Mesopotamia, was waged by A. against his brother Šamaš-Šum-Ūkin, installed by Asarhaddon as king of Babylon; the latter had rebelled, forming an alliance with Elam, Akkad and “the land of the sea,” with the Arabs (Kedar), with Gyges king of Lydia, with Psammetico of Egypt, with the Arameans of Bit-Armakanni and Bit-Dakuri, with the Guteans, and with the kings of Syria and Palestine. A. confronted the powerful enemy coalition (652), besieged Babylon for two years and captured it (648); Šamaš-Šum-Ūkin set fire to his palace and perished in the flames. A. rebuilt Babylon, repopulating it with people from Kuta and Sippar, but avoided proclaiming himself king.
He then directed four expeditions against the Elamites, who had taken part in the conspiracy of Šamaš-Šum-Ūkin; in 646 he conquered and destroyed their capital Susa, and around 640 the Elamite empire was annihilated. He then defeated the Arabs, whose prince Uaite I was deported to Nineveh. It was probably A. who deported Manasse king of Judah to Babylon (2 Chron 33:11). Perhaps because Manasse had adhered to the rebellion of Šamaš-Šum-Ūkin. Ezra 4:10 ascribes to A. (Asenap-pa) the sending of colonists from many peoples to Samaria.
A. was not warlike by nature, but entrusted warfare to his generals. Of elevated mind, he inaugurated an era of prosperity and salvation. Under A., Assyria reached the pinnacle of power and culture. His figure was distorted by Greek tradition (A. = Sardana-pallus). He devoted the last years of his reign to building temples (of Ishtar in Nineveh), splendid palaces, and libraries. To the library of A. in Nineveh, discovered by H. Rassam in 1852 (now in the British Museum), we owe the majority of the documents of Assyrian-Babylonian literature and culture.
Upon A.’s death (626), Assyria immediately began to collapse. His successors could not stem the pressure of the Medes, led by Cyaxares (v.), especially since Nabopolassar of Babylon was also threatening from the south; in 612 Nineveh fell and the Assyrian kingdom ceased to exist.
Giustino Boson-Antonino Romeo