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The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BCE, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of the South Caucasus, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean throughout much of the 9th to 7th centuries BCE, becoming the largest empire in history up to that point. Because of its geopolitical dominance and ideology based in world domination, the Neo-Assyrian Empire has been described as the first world empire in history. It influenced other empires of the ancient world culturally, administratively, and militarily, including the Neo-Babylonians, the Achaemenids, and the Seleucids. At its height, the empire was the strongest military power in the world and ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as parts of Anatolia, Arabia and what is now Iran and Armenia.
The early Neo-Assyrian kings were chiefly concerned with restoring Assyrian control over much of northern Mesopotamia, eastern Anatolia and Levant, since significant portions of the preceding Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BCE) had been lost during the late 11th century BCE. Under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BCE), Assyria once more became the dominant power of the Near East, ruling the north undisputed. Ashurnasirpal's campaigns reached as far as the Mediterranean, and he oversaw the transfer of the imperial capital from the traditional city of Assur to the more centrally-located Kalḫu (later known as Calah in the Hebrew Bible, and Nimrud to the Arabs) The empire grew even more under Ashurnasirpal's successor Shalmaneser III (r. 859–824 BCE), though it entered a period of stagnation after his death, referred to as the "age of the magnates". During this time, the chief wielders of political power were prominent generals and officials, and central control was unusually weak. This age came to an end with the rule of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745–727 BCE), who reasserted Assyrian royal power and more than doubled the size of the empire through wide-ranging conquests. His most notable conquests were Babylonia in the south and large parts of the Levant. Under the Sargonid dynasty, which ruled from 722 BCE to the fall of the empire, Assyria reached its apex. Under Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BCE), the capital was transferred to Nineveh, and under Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BCE) the empire reached its largest extent through the conquest of Egypt. Despite being at the peak of its power, the empire experienced a swift and violent fall in the late 7th century BCE, destroyed by a Babylonian uprising and an invasion by the Medes. The causes behind how Assyria could be destroyed so quickly continue to be debated among scholars.
The unprecedented success of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was not only due to its ability to expand but also, and perhaps more importantly, its ability to efficiently incorporate conquered lands into its administrative system. As the first of its scale, the empire saw various military, civic and administrative innovations. In the military, important innovations included the large-scale use of cavalry and new siege warfare techniques. Techniques first adopted by the Neo-Assyrian army would be used in later warfare for millennia. To solve the issue of communicating over vast distances, the empire developed a sophisticated state communication system, using relay stations and well-maintained roads. The communication speed of official messages in the empire was not surpassed in the Middle East until the 19th century. The empire also made use of a resettlement policy, wherein some portions of the populations from conquered lands were resettled in the Assyrian heartland and in underdeveloped provinces. This policy served to both disintegrate local identities and to introduce Assyrian-developed agricultural techniques to all parts of the empire. A consequence was the dilution of the cultural diversity of the Near East, forever changing the ethnolinguistic composition of the region and facilitating the rise of Aramaic as the regional lingua franca, a position the language retained until the 14th century.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire left a legacy of great cultural significance. The political structures established by the empire became the model for later empires, and the ideology of universal rule promulgated by the Neo-Assyrian kings inspired—through the concept of translatio imperii—similar ideas of rights to world domination as late as the early modern period. The empire became an important part of later folklore and literary traditions in northern Mesopotamia through the subsequent post-imperial period and beyond. Judaism—and in turn Christianity and Islam—was profoundly affected by the period of Neo-Assyrian rule; numerous Biblical stories appear to draw on earlier Assyrian mythology and history, and the Assyrian impact on early Jewish theology was immense. Although the empire is prominently remembered today for the supposed excessive brutality of its army, the Assyrians were not excessively brutal when compared to other civilizations throughout history.
Imperialism and the ambition of establishing a universal, all-encompassing empire was a long-established aspect of royal ideology in the ancient Near East prior to the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia (c. 2900 – c. 2350 BCE), the Sumerian rulers of the various city-states in the region often fought with each other in order to establish small hegemonic empires and to gain a superior position relative to the other city-states. Eventually, these small conflicts evolved into a general ambition to achieve universal rule. Reaching a position of world domination was not seen as a wholly impossible task in this time since Mesopotamia was believed to correspond to the entire world. One of the earliest Mesopotamian "world conquerors" was Lugalzaggesi, king of Uruk, who conquered all of Lower Mesopotamia in the 24th century BCE. The succeeding Akkadian Empire is generally regarded as the first known empire.
Numerous imperialist states rose and fell in Mesopotamia and the rest of the Near East after the time of the Akkadian Empire. Most early empires and kingdoms were limited to some core territories, with most of their subjects only nominally recognizing the authority of the central government. Still, the general desire for universal rule dominated the royal ideologies of Mesopotamian kings for thousands of years, bolstered by the memory of the Akkadian Empire and exemplified in titles such as "king of the Universe" or "king of the Four Corners of the World". This desire was also manifested in the kings of Assyria, who ruled in what had been the northern part of the Akkadian Empire. Assyria experienced its first period of ascendancy with the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BCE, previously only having been a city-state centered around the city of Assur. From the time of Adad-nirari I (r. c. 1305–1274 BCE) onwards, Assyria became one of the great powers of the ancient Near East. Under Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243–1207 BCE) the empire reached its greatest extent and became the dominant force in Mesopotamia, for a time even subjugating Babylonia in the south. After Tukulti-Ninurta's assassination, the Middle Assyrian Empire went into a long period of decline, becoming increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland. Though this period of decline was broken up by Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114–1076 BCE), who once more expanded Assyrian power, his conquests overstretched Assyria and could not be maintained by his successors. The trend of decline was substantially reversed in the reign of the last Middle Assyrian king, Ashur-dan II (r. 934–912 BCE) who campaigned in the northeast and northwest.
The early Neo-Assyrian kings initially set out to reverse the long decline of Assyria, retake its former lands, and reestablish the position it held at the height of its power. These two empires were not as distinct as their portrayal sometimes suggests, with Neo-Assyrian rulers part of the same continuous dynasty as their earlier counterparts. The outward reexpansion by these new kings was cast as war to liberate those Assyrians cut off from Assyrian territory and forced to live under foreign rulers. This held at least some truth, with material evidence from sites lost and then reconquered by the empire demonstrating an endurance of Assyrian culture in the interim. Early efforts at reconquest were mostly focused on the region up to the Khabur in the west.
One of the first conquests of Ashur-dan II had been Katmuḫu in this region, which he made a vassal state rather than annexing it outright; this suggests that the resources available to the early Neo-Assyrian rulers were very limited and that the imperial reconquest had to begin nearly from scratch. In this context, the successful expansion conducted under early rulers was an extraordinary achievement. The initial phase of the Assyrian reconquista was slow, beginning under Ashur-dan II near the end of the Middle Assyrian period and covering the reigns of the first two Neo-Assyrian rulers, Adad-nirari II (r. 911–891 BCE) and Tukulti-Ninurta II (r. 890–884 BCE). Ashur-dan's efforts mostly worked to pave the way for the more sustained work under Adad-nirari and Tukulti-Ninurta.
Among the conquests of Adad-nirari, the most strategically important campaigns were the wars directed to the southeast, beyond the Little Zab. These lands had previously been under Babylonian rule. One of Adad-nirari's wars brought the Neo-Assyrian army as far south as Der, close to the border of the southwestern kingdom of Elam. Though Adad-nirari did not manage to incorporate territories so far from the Assyrian heartland into the empire, he secured Arrapha (now Kirkuk), which later served as the launching point for numerous Assyrian campaigns into eastern lands. Adad-nirari managed to secure a border agreement with the Babylonian king Nabu-shuma-ukin I, sealed by both kings marrying the other's daughter. Adad-nirari continued Ashur-dan's efforts in the west; in his wars, he defeated numerous small western kingdoms. Several small states, such as Guzana, were made vassals, and others, such as Nisibis, were placed under pro-Assyrian puppet kings. After his successful wars in the region, Adad-nirari was able to undertake a long march along the Khabur and the Euphrates, collecting tribute from all the local rulers without military opposition. He also conducted important building projects; Apku, located between Nineveh and Sinjar and destroyed c. 1000 BCE, was rebuilt and became an important administrative center.
Though he reigned only briefly, Adad-nirari's son, Tukulti-Ninurta, continued his father's policies. In 885 BCE, Tukulti-Ninurta repeated his father's march along the Euphrates and Khabur, though he went in the opposite direction, beginning in the south at Dur-Kurigalzu and then collecting tribute while he travelled north. Some of the southern cities that sent tribute to Tukulti-Ninurta during this march were historically more closely aligned with Babylon. Tukulti-Ninurta fought small states in the east to strengthen Assyrian control in that direction. Among the lands he defeated were Kirruri, Ḫubuškia and Gilzan. In later times, Gilzan often supplied Assyria with horses.
The second phase of the reconquista was initiated in the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta's son and successor Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BCE). Under his rule, Assyria rose to become the dominant political power in the Near East. In terms of personality, Ashurnasirpal was a complex figure; he was a relentless warrior and one of the most brutal kings in Assyrian history, but he also cared about the people, working to increase the prosperity and comfort of his subjects, establishing extensive water reserves and food depots in times of crisis. As a result of the successful campaigns of his predecessors, Ashurnasirpal inherited an impressive amount of resources with which he could work to re-establish Assyrian dominance. Ashurnasirpal's first campaign in 883 BCE was against the revolting cities of Suru and Tela along the northern portion of the Tigris river. At Tela he brutally repressed the citizens, among other punishments cutting off noses, ears, fingers and limbs, gouging out eyes and overseeing impalements and decapitations.
Ashurnasirpal's later campaigns included three wars against the kingdom of Zamua in the eastern Zagros Mountains, repeated campaigns against Nairi and Urartu in the north, and, most prominently, near continuous conflict with Aramean and Neo-Hittite kingdoms in the west. The Arameans and Neo-Hittites had evolved into well-organized kingdoms, possibly in response to pressure from Assyria. One of Ashurnasirpal's most persistent enemies was the Aramean king Ahuni, who ruled Bit Adini. Ahuni's forces broke through across the Khabur and Euphrates several times, and it was only after years of war that he at last accepted Ashurnasirpal as his suzerain. Ahuni's defeat was highly important as it marked the first time since Ashur-bel-kala two centuries prior that Assyrian forces campaigned further west than the Euphrates. Ashurnasirpal made use of this opportunity. In his ninth campaign, he marched to Lebanon and then to the Mediterranean coast. Though few of them became formally incorporated into the empire at this point, many kingdoms on the way paid tribute to Ashurnasirpal to avoid being attacked, including Carchemish and Patina, as well as Phoenician cities such as Sidon, Byblos, Tyre and Arwad. Ashurnasirpal's royal inscriptions proudly proclaim that he and his army symbolically cleaned their weapons in the water of the Mediterranean.
Ashurnasirpal financed several large-scale building projects at cities like Assur, Nineveh and Balawat. The most impressive and important project conducted was the restoration of the ruined town of Nimrud, located on the eastern bank of the Tigris in the Assyrian heartland. In 879 BCE, Ashurnasirpal made Nimrud the capital of the empire and employed thousands of workers to construct fortifications, palaces and temples in the city. Assur became a ceremonial city, although it was still the empire's religious center.
Ashurnasirpal's aggressive military politics were continued under his son Shalmaneser III (r. 859–824 BCEE), whose reign saw a considerable expansion of Assyrian territory. The lands along the Khabur and Euphrates rivers in the west were consolidated under Assyrian control. Ahuni of Bit Adini resisted for several years, but he surrendered to Shalmaneser in the winter of 857/856 BCE. When Shalmaneser visited the city in the summer of the next year, he renamed it Kar-Salmanu‐ašared ("fortress of Shalmaneser"), settled a substantial number of Assyrians there, and made it the administrative center of a new province, placed under the turtanu (commander in chief). Shalmaneser also placed other powerful officials, so-called "magnates", in charge of other vulnerable provinces and regions of the empire.
The most powerful and threatening enemy of Assyria at this point was Urartu in the north; the Urartian administration, culture, writing system, and religion closely followed those of Assyria. The Urartian kings were autocrats similar to the Assyrian kings. The Assyrians also took some inspiration from Urartu. For instance, Assyrian irrigation technology and cavalry units, introduced by Shalmaneser, may have been derived from encounters with Urartu. The imperialist expansion undertaken by the kings of both Urartu and Assyria led to frequent military clashes between the two, despite their separation by the Taurus Mountains. In 856 BCE, Shalmaneser conducted an ambitious military campaign, marching through mountainous territory to the source of the Euphrates and then attacking Urartu from the west. King Arame was forced to flee as Shalmaneser's forces sacked the Urartian capital of Arzashkun, devastated the Urartian heartland, and then marched into what today is western Iran before returning to Arbela in Assyria.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Neo-Assyrian Empire”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.