The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6). Duncker Max

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Egypt, they shall be sorely pained at the report of Tyre."181

      Isaiah directs his most severe warning to those of his own race, the kingdom of Israel. "Woe to the proud crown of the drunken Ephraim, the faded flower on the head of the fat valley of those possessed by wine," he cries. "Priests and prophets have erred through strong drink, and are overcome with wine. Jehovah will speak to this people with an alien tongue, to whom he said: Give ye rest to the weary; this is the way of salvation. But they would not listen. To whom shall he teach knowledge? whom shall he make to understand doctrine? – them that are weaned from the milk, and removed from the mother's breast? Behold, a stronger and mightier shall come from the Lord, as a tempest of hail, and a destroying storm; as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, he shall cast them with violence to the earth. He will trample it under foot, the proud crown of the drunken Ephraim; the faded flower on the head of the fat valley will disappear like early fruit before the gathering."182

      "Shalmanesar the king of Assyria," so the Books of Kings tell us, "discovered a conspiracy in Hoshea, that he had sent messengers to Seveh (So), the king of Egypt, and brought him no more a present as before. He went up against Hoshea, seized him, and put him in chains in prison, and marched over the whole land, and against Samaria, and besieged the city three years." Josephus tells us: "It was told Shalmanesar that Hoshea had secretly invited Egypt to a combined struggle. In his anger he marched out against Samaria, besieged the city for three years, and took Hoshea prisoner." "But the king of Assyria fought against the whole of Syria and Phœnicia. He marched against Tyre while Elulæus reigned there. Menander, who has drawn up the annals and translated the archives of the Tyrians into the Greek language, vouches for this when he says: Elulaeus reigned 36 years; when the Citians revolted, he sailed thither and again reduced them to subjection. The king of Assyria sent an expedition against these, overran all Phœnicia with war, made peace with them all, and returned. Sidon, and Acco, and old Tyre, and many other cities revolted from the Tyrians; but as the Tyrians themselves did not submit, the king turned again upon them, and the Phenicians manned 60 ships for him, and placed upon them 8000 rowers.183 Against these the Tyrians set sail with 12 ships; destroyed the vessels of the enemy, and made about 500 prisoners. But the king of Assyria placed guards on the river, and on the conduits, to prevent the Tyrians from drawing water, and returned home. The Tyrians endured this for five years, during which they drank water from wells that they had dug. This is what is stated in the records of the Tyrians about Shalmanesar, the king of the Assyrians."184

      According to these indications and statements we may assume the course of affairs to have been something of the following kind. The cities of the Phenicians, and of the Philistines, and the kingdom of Israel hope for the assistance of the king of Meroe and Egypt, of Sabakon, whom the Hebrews call Seveh, and the inscriptions of the Assyrians, Sabhi. Shalmanesar overruns Syria, before the assistance from Egypt has arrived there (726 B.C.).185 Hoshea is either taken by surprise and overcome, or in his terror attempts to appease the king of Asshur by submission. He is carried away to prison, and Shalmanesar turns towards the coast. The cities of the Phenicians submit; only the island city of Tyre resists (II. 265). The cities, which had submitted, were now compelled to furnish ships to Shalmanesar for the conquest of Cyprus, and the blockade of the island city, which was carried on from the mainland also, since old Tyre was garrisoned there, and the inhabitants of the island city were prevented from drawing water on the coast. It is remarkable that the Tyrians are said to have met the 60 ships of the blockade with 12 ships only. Yet this is no doubt no more than a mere sally of the besieged. The ships of the inhabitants of the mainland may not have taken a vigorous part in the fighting; and the blockade may not have been carried on very strictly. Tyre may very well have been able to endure a somewhat lax investment for five years. The resistance of the Tyrians appears to have inspired courage in the Israelites and the metropolis of Israel, so that they defied the arms of the Assyrians even after the carrying away of Hoshea. In the year 724 B.C. Shalmanesar turned from the coast, against Samaria. The Israelites defended their city most stubbornly. Damascus had resisted Tiglath Pilesar two years; Samaria, like Arpad, held out for three years. "The king of Assyria took Samaria," so we are briefly told in the Books of Kings, "and carried Israel to Assyria, and gave them dwellings in Chalah and Chabor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."

      The monuments of Assyria inform us that Shalmanesar IV. did not live to see the fall of Samaria. He died in the course of the last year of the siege (722 B.C.). Sargon, his successor, boasts of this achievement of his arms. "In the beginning of my reign," so we are told in the annals of Sargon, "I besieged the city of Samaria (Samarina), and took it with the help of the god Samas, who gives me victory over my enemies. I took 27,280 prisoners. I took 50 chariots as my royal portion. I brought them to Assyria, and in their place I put people whom my hand had reduced. I placed my officers and viceroys over them, and imposed tribute upon them as on the Assyrians."186 This statement is repeated in the inscription which gives the more important acts of Sargon (the so called fasti), with this difference at the close: "My officers I placed over them; I imposed on them the tribute of the previous kings."187 The inscription of the bulls says quite briefly: "He (Sargon) overthrew Samaria, and all the house of Omri."188 The inscription on the cylinder says: "I have subjugated the great land of Bit Omri."189 The annals recapitulate: "I have laid waste the region of Samaria, and the land of Bit Omri." After informing us that the king of Israel was carried away to the East, the Books of Kings tell us, like the annals of Sargon, that other inhabitants were settled in Israel: "He caused people to come from Babel and from Kutha, from Sepharvaim, Ava, and Hamath," and placed them in the cities of Samaria in the room of the children of Israel.190 Sargon's own account confirms this statement; his inscriptions show us further to what stock these settlers belonged. In the year 721 B.C., very soon after the capture of Samaria, he transplanted people from Babylonia to the land of the Chatti, i. e. to Syria.191 We are also told that people were removed from the four districts of Armenia to Syria, to the coast;192 and finally, that people of Arabian descent, "of Thammud, Marsiman, Chayapa, and the land of Bari," were settled in the city of Samaria. The strengthening of the alien element in Samaria was caused by the fact that the Israelites, in spite of the severe punishment which they had undergone, had nevertheless attempted to rebel once more against Assyria.193

      The carrying away of the inhabitants of Naphtali and Gilead, which Tiglath Pilesar had executed, the removal into a new environment, which Sargon now carried out twelve years after the former deportation, were blows from which the ten tribes could not again recover. Not that the existence of the people was annihilated; many, no doubt, perished in the conquest of the land and metropolis, yet it was by no means the whole remnant that was carried away. It was only a part of the population on whom that severe lot descended. Isaiah tells us Jehovah punished the people by measure, and allowed a remnant to remain.194 The number of those who remained was sufficient to gain the preponderance in a population so strongly mixed with foreign settlers.195 Yet this admixture sapped the national vigour at the core. In the inscriptions of the Assyrians we hear no more of the land of Omri, but only of Samaria; from them we see that kings remained at the head of the land; they mention a second Menahem and an Abibaal as kings of Samaria. The community over which the descendants of David ruled was, in the first place, only anxious for the preservation of the national life and faith. Judah remained obedient to Assyria. Hezekiah of Judah looked on at the long siege of Samaria, the death-struggle of Israel, and the carrying away of his kindred without moving. He must have paid his tribute regularly. An inscription of Sargon, belonging to the first years of his reign, enumerates the "distant Judah" among the subject lands.196

      The

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