Merodach-Baladan (v.), deposing the usurper, once again established themselves in Babylon; but in the campaign of 703, owing to a strategic error by Merodach-Baladan, they lost the double battle of Kutha and Kish. S. entered Babylon in triumph, welcomed as a friend, and his valiant soldiers plundered only the palace of Merodach-Baladan. S. conquered (703–702) the strongholds of the Chaldean tribes, while Merodach-Baladan hid in the marshes at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris. When S. returned home, Bel-ibni, the palace servant appointed by S. as king of Babylon, proved unequal to the delicate task, and another Chaldean chief, Marduk-ušezib, held sway around Babylon. S. therefore returned again in 700 (probably after the campaign in Judea) and defeated and deported many of the Bit-Jakin, but the two Chaldean leaders escaped by ship to Nagitu-Raqqe, beyond the gulf, in Elamite territory. S. then installed his son Aššur-nadin-šumi as king of Babylon, bringing the inept Bel-ibni back to the palace at Nineveh. There could be no peace as long as the exiled Chaldeans, led by Merodach-Baladan and his sons after his death, did not escape from Nagitu-Raqqe. S. summoned sailors and shipbuilders from the Syro-Phoenician coast, and at Nineveh shipyards were opened for a fleet capable of transporting a large army; a level road was also built between Opis and the Euphrates to transport the ships overland. The advance, begun in 694, initially met with great success, although the Chaldeans flooded the land by cutting the dikes; but once the great army reached the delta, Hallušu, king of Elam, burst into Babylon, took Sippar and Babylon, aided by “fifth columnists,” captured Aššur-nadin-šumi, led him to Elam, and killed him. The anti-Assyrian faction then carried out large-scale purges; they installed Nergal-ušezib as king, who could only hold out in the cities of Babylon, Sippar, and Borsippa. S.’s army, though cut off from its homeland and without supplies, won the battle near Nippur, captured Nergal-ušezib alive, and executed him at Nineveh. But another Chaldean prince, Mušezib-Marduk, was made king of Babylon; more hated by S. than any other, called by the Assyrians Šušub (“the fugitive”), he immediately allied himself with Umanu-Menanu of Elam. In the bloodiest battle of Halule (693), which S. described in the finest battle account in the ancient East, the Šušub did not succumb. But when later Umanu-Menanu was struck by a nervous paralysis, he was left alone against S., who, following in his father’s footsteps, even mobilized the Arab tribes. This was followed in 690 by the Assyrian invasion, which ended with the capture, sack, and destruction of the wondrous city of Babylon; more than fire, it was water that contributed to its ruin, for after the soldiers had blocked the canals, especially the Arahtu, the city was flooded and rendered marshy and uninhabitable. Even the gods had to emigrate to Nineveh, where the Šušub was executed. Only eleven years later did Naqia, the queen and regent of Babylon under her son Ashurbanipal (v.), begin to drain and then rebuild that metropolis of the nations.
In the vast semicircle stretching from Elam to Cilicia, Sargon II (v.) in Urartu (which was already beginning to recover), there was calm during the reign of S. Apart from rather alpine expeditions, e.g., that on Mount Judhî Dâgh, the famous Nippur of the Assyrians, where according to ancient traditions the ark of Utnapishtim had rested amid the waters of the flood, mention should be made of that of 702 in the land of Elippi, south of Kirmanshah, where S. adjusted the frontier in his favor against Elam, founding a town Kar-d-Sin-ahbê-erbâ (“Sennacherib’s fortress”). At the Cilician Gates, S.’s generals clashed in 706–705 with Kirua of Illubru, probably a Greek who, taken prisoner to Nineveh, was flayed alive as punishment, and the pirates belonging to that people were also punished. Further north, Til-Garimmu was conquered, but much of Commagene and Melitene was lost.
Of greater interest is S.’s third expedition (701–700) against a coalition led in the north by Luli, king of Sidon, and in the south by Hezekiah (v.), king of Judah, on which three biblical accounts remain, differing in literary genre and in several details, and, selecting the most reliable, two complete records in cuneiform inscriptions (the Taylor Prism and that of the Oriental Institute of Chicago). These five accounts reflect the genre and particular intentions of each. The three biblical ones, with H. Haag, can be reduced to a single source preserved in its purest form in 2 Chr 32:1–23.
The pericope 2 Kgs 18:13–19:36 aims to highlight the piety of Hezekiah and the prophetic gift of Isaiah; it unites within itself different versions of the events, as shown by the addition 18:14–16: the formal submission of Hezekiah to S. and the imposition and payment of the heavy tribute, which is not mentioned in Isa 36–37, where a magnificent drama unfolds in several episodes intended to exalt the man of God who saved Israel: the two embassies from the Great King, the speeches in Hebrew by the Rabshakeh (v.) who the second time reads a proclamation of S., the fear and prayer of Hezekiah, the message he receives from Isaiah, his triumphant song with which little Judah, protected by Yahweh, defies Assyria at its zenith, the intervention of the Angel, and the precipitate flight of the Assyrians. As for the cuneiform records, their authority must be admitted with H. Haag (against G. Ricciotti, who, proceeding unhistorically, presents the Assyrians according to a cliché of a proud, deceitful, and above all cruel people). But these documents do not strictly follow chronological order; they summarize several distinct operations into a single account centered on a single city.
From these sources, S.’s third expedition can be reconstructed as follows. He first conquered the cities belonging to the Sidonians and the people of Tyre, including mainland Tyre. Luli fled to Cyprus, where S.’s loyal vassals killed him. The coast as far as Acco had then fallen into S.’s hands, and he placed Ethbaal, his vassal, on the throne of Sidon. The provinces of Duru and Samerina, which had remained loyal to S., were joined in submission by Ammon, Moab, and Edom; only the Philistine coast and Hezekiah resisted S. In the south, Hezekiah, allied with Pharaoh Shabaka, dominated the coalition: indeed, at that time he conquered the Philistine city of Gaza, and when the anti-Assyrian subjects of Ekron deposed their Assyrianophile king Padi, they delivered him in chains to Hezekiah in Jerusalem. And the coalition held firm: upon S.’s arrival, only Mitinti, king of Ashdod, submitted; the other