THE ASSYRIANS (C.700- 612 BC)

THE ASSYRIANS (C.700- 612 BC)

History of Palestine

The Assyrians struck terror into everyone's hearts. They cruelly tortured their war prisoners and deported en masse the inhabitants of towns they occupied; replacing them with people from different regions. Nineveh, their capital in northern Iraq, is mentioned more than thirty times in the Old Testament. It was the 'Wicked and Lustful City', and the Book of Isaiah laments that when its inhabitants approach, they bring 'death, darkness and sorrow like a whirlwind'. Nineveh was fortified by 1500 watchtowers and its walls were so thick that three chariots could easily ride abreast on them. Their army was unmatched in power. They had powerful iron chariots; large numbers of archers, engineering corps to built bridges, and battering rams to destroy city walls. Byron's stirring lines, reminiscent of school-day oratory, ring in the memory:

The Assyrians came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

In 868 BC, the Assyrians extracted tribute from the kings of Tyre and Sidon, as well as other Canaanite cities. In 700 BC, they stormed the Phoenician coastline, forcing Luli, the king of Sidon, to take refuge in Cyprus. Tyre, however, held out and even boldly defeated an Assyrian armada in a bloody sea battle.

Assyria's incessant harassment of Tyre seriously eroded her colonial powers. In the Greek islands the Phoenicians were being displaced by the advancing tide of Dorian colonization; and as Tyre declined in power, more and more of its colonies turned to Carthage as their natural parent and protector.

The Assyrians also overran Philistia, reaching as far south as the Egyptian border. Worried about Assyria's growing might, Egypt encouraged the Philistine City of Ashdod to revolt, but the Assyrian ruthlessly crushed the uprising.

In 722 BC the Assyrian king, Sargon II, overran and destroyed Samaria, and the kingdom of Israel disintegrated. In typical Assyrian style, the inhabitants of Israel were removed to the Median Mountains and replaced with colonists from Kutha in Iraq. The deported Israelites became known as the 'Lost Ten Tribes of Israel', and the new colonists became known as 'Samaritans'. The district of Israel now became known as 'Samaria'. Judah was also ravaged, but it managed to survive as a vassal state. Philistine mercenaries were brought in by the Assyrians to garrison Hebrew towns, and Judah's kings sent their tributes to Nineveh.