ASSYRIANS

The Assyrians were a Semitic people living in the north of Mesopotamia. Their chief was Assur. They were merchants and soldiers. First they threw off Sumerian rule and then between 1726-1694 B.C., they conquered neighboring tribes and built up an empire. But it was short lived. Assyria became a subject state of Babylonia after 1679 B.C. and did not begin to expand again for many centuries.

Under the Tiglath-Pileser 1, the Assyrians began to conquer other tribes again and in 1097 B.C. they sacked Babylon. Tiglath-Pileser's successors, in spite of many revolts by the people they conquered, pushed the frontiers of the Assyrian empire as far as Egypt. In 673 B.C. King Esarhaddon launched a successful attack on Egypt and brought it under his control. During the reign of his son Ashurbanipal (669-626 B.C.) Assyrian empire reached it greatest extent. Then it collapsed even more swiftly as it has risen. The Babylonians first broke away from Assyrian rule in 626 B.C. and in 612 B.C., in alliance with the Chaldeans, they captured Nineveh. In 610 B.C. an Egyptian army arrived too late to save Haran, the last Assyrian city to be subdued.

The Assyrian empire was above all a military one. They were a nation of warriors and the king's main task was to lead the army. The officers were Assyrians, but the ordinary soldiers were mercenaries (men who were paid to fight) drawn from the various tribes. They fought in war chariots and on foot and they had skilled engineers to conduct sieges. The ruins of the splendid temples and palaces which the Kings of Assyria built are covered with sculptures and bas reliefs (raised pictures cut in stones) showing incidents from their battles. Ashur banipal's library has also been preserved, so providing written records of the empire.

Two great weaknesses that seem to have helped to bring down the empire were its failures to make Assyrian rule popular with the conquered peoples and the extravagant sums spent on buildings.