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The ] collapsed under the invasion of Iranian peoples in the late 7th century BC, culminating in the Battle of Nineveh (612 BC). Between 612 and 559 BC, Assyria was divided between the Median Empire to the east and the Neo-Babylonian Empire to the west. Both parts were subsumed into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC, as the satrapies of Media and Athura respectively, in Herodotus' account corresponding to the Ninth District.
Assyrians were allowed to govern themselves throughout Persian rule, and the Assyrian language was used diplomatically by the Persians.
Despite a few rebellions, Athura along with the other Mesopotamian provinces functioned as an important part of the Persian Empire. After the conquest of Mesopotamia, the Euphrates river soils would provide the Persians with a new source of agriculture. Following the loss of the Province to the Greeks under Alexander the Great the lands around the province (effectively Mesopotamia) served as the new heartland of the Seleucid Empire, although a de-centralized government and a Parthian resurgence allowed the Persians to reclaim the land.
Following this, the Parthians made Ctesiphon their new capital. Despite several Military incursions by Rome, some of which lasting many years and numerous sackings of the city the Persian capital remained in Ctesiphon. Thus, Assyria would in time form the heartland of Persia with Ctesiphon superseding Persepolis as the major city of the Persian Empire. Persian rule in Mesopotamia would continue even after the conquest by the Arabs culminating in the Abbasid Caliphate and the Empire of the Seljuk Turks.
History
The Assyrians, like all other tributary peoples of the Persian Empire, were obliged to pay taxes to the King of Persia and, whenever the King campaigned, supply troops as well. Although the effectiveness of the Assyrian army was shown to be poor in its collapse, the soldiers of Assyria continued to be brave and fierce warriors. Most soldiers at the time would not wear heavy armor, but rather than act as melee troops, would serve as skirmishers. The Assyrian troops were different however, since they fought as archers, cavalry and heavy infantry and were useful as front line troops. Herodotus remarks that Assyrian soldiers were employed in Xerxes' expedition to Greece.
Fall of Assyria
Between the 9th and 7th centuries BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the Middle East militarily and politically and, at one point, the Persians and their neighbours the Medes were vassals of Assyria and paid tribute. In the late 7th century BC, however, the Assyrians suffered a number of calamities that led to the sacking the old capital Assur by the Medes, who then combined forces with Babylon and sacked the new capital Nineveh in 612 BC. The Assyrians continued to fight on, with the aid of Egypt who feared the rise of the Babylonians. Harran, the new Assyrian capital, was eventually taken in 608 BC. Despite this, the Egyptians later sent another force to assist the Assyrians in 605 BC.
A costly but victorious battle at Megiddo against the forces of Judah allowed the Egyptians to advance to the rescue, only to be defeated by the Babylonian-Median alliance. Assyria was conquered by Babylonia.
Babylonian rule was unpopular, but did not last long. When the Babylonian King Nabonidus made war with Persia, he was defeated by an outnumbered Cyrus the Great at the Battle of Sardis in 546 BC. Cyrus's armies took Babylon and made it, along with Assyria, into provinces of the Persian Empire.
After the fall of Assyria, the most common assumption as to what happened to the Assyrian people is that a massive massacre of Assyrians occurred, with the result that the remaining few Assyrians were scattered and incorporated into other peoples. Sidney Smith, an Assyriologist in 1925 remarked:
The disappearance of the Assyrian people will always remain a unique and striking phenomenon in ancient history. Other, similar kingdoms and empires have indeed passed away but the people have lived on... No other land seems to have been sacked and pillaged so completely as was Assyria.
Such claims, whilst strongly denied by modern-day Assyrians, and disputed by an increasing yet small number of Assyriologists, were founded on the accounts of the historian Xenophon. His travels into Mesopotamia reveal the two cities of Assyria, Ninevah and Assur, in ruins and with no information available from the local villagers. The lack of a visible Assyrian presence in the region is clarified by the later client Kingdom of Osroene, which though Assyrian, was located in western Mesopotamia, with its capital at Edessa, far from the locations of the older capitals.
Rise of Aramaic
The Assyrian Empire resorted to a policy of deporting conquered peoples into the lands of Mesopotamia and, in turn, settling Assyrian colonists in newly conquered lands. In this way it was hoped that a multi-cultural society would form. While this allowed some integration, it may have also led to the various rebellions within the Empire in the 7th century. By the 6th century, the many peoples in Mesopotamia spoke many languages, most of which were a derivative of Aramaic. Consequently, during the Persian rule of Assyria, Aramaic gradually became the main language spoken by the Assyrians. Even before the Empire fell, many could speak Aramaic, and the ruling elite of Assyria would have needed to have been bilingual, capable of speaking both Akkadian and Aramaic. The conquest of Assyria and the violent destruction of the cities meant that these bilingual skilled individuals died with their language and the Aramaic script was incorporated into the Assyrian culture by around the late 6th century BC.
Revolt of Assyria, 520 BC
In 520 BC the two Assyrian Provinces of Mada and Athura revolted against the Persian Empire. Though the revolt was quickly suppressed it illustrated that the two regions acted in unison, suggesting perhaps a cultural link. Having said this a rebellion could occur in several different parts of an Empire for geographical reasons an it may have been that the whole of the Mesopotamia region became swept with rebellion.
Construction of the Palace at Susa, 500 - 490 BC
The Assyrians continued to serve the Persians under King Darius who was at his time considered the greatest ruler, often styling himself as "King of Kings." He ruled as a King over many other powerful subordinates and, as such, it was believed that a great Palace should be built at the Persian city of Susa. The Assyrians were employed in the construction of this building, albeit with many other tributary peoples as well as Persians themselves. The Western Assyrians of Athura were closer to Mount Lebanon, where fine trees could be found and timber processed for Darius' grand Palace. The Eastern Assyrians of Mada were charged with excavating gold.
Persian Wars
See also: Persian WarsThe Persian wars refer to the attempted conquest of Greece by the Persian Empire. A massive army was assembled by Xerxes in c early 5th century BC. Contemporary estimates place the numbers between 100,000 to over a million. What ever the number, it was enormous and the Persians summouned troops from all across their realm.
Greco-Roman era
In the late 4th century BC Alexander the Great led his Greco-Macedonian army to conquer the Persian Empire. Whilst Greek rule beyond the Euphrates was subject to constant and eventually successful Persian incursions, Assyria was forced to take the role of a frontier province in the later Persian dynasties against the expansions of the Selucids and later on the Romans.
Campaigns of Alexander the Great, 334 BC - 323 BC
The Persian Empire's vast territory and numerous tributary peoples ensured that rebellion would be a constant problem. In the early 5th century BC, the Greek city states in Asia Minor, in particular along the Aegean Coast, rebelled against their Persian masters. The revolt led to the Greco-Persian Wars and eventually the Campaigns of Alexander the Great who overthrew Persian rule and replaced it with Greek rule.
When Alexander the Great died, the Greek successor state of the Seleucid Empire retained control of much of the Persian Empire. This new Greek Empire relied upon the administrative system put in place by the Persians to govern these new lands; consequently, the Assyrian lands of Athura and Mada were administrated as such by their own Satraps.
Assyria under the Seleucids
Mesopotamia became the Heartland of the Seleucid Empire with a new capital, Seleucia on the Tigris founded. As a result, much culture and knowledge was exchanged between the Greeks and the Assyrians. The invasions of Alexander the Great consisted not only of soldiers but scientists and Historians.
Assyria under Parthian rule 2nd century BC
Greek rule in the East did not last long even though the cultural impacts did - by the mid-3rd Century BC the Satraps, administrators of the various provinces in the Seleucid Empire began revolting against the Seleucid Empire in Persia and Bactria establishing their own domains. A temporary revival of Seleucid Power re-esetablished Imperial authority in these regions in the late 3rd and early 2nd Century BC but after which the Parthians soon came to incorporate the lands known as Assyria once again by the mid-2nd Century BC.
Parthian rule aimed to emulate that of their Persian predecessors, the Achaemenids with a similar system of administration involving Satraps and smaller provinces. Indeed the main rebel behind the rise of Parthia from Seleucia was a Satrap himself. On top of this the Parthian Empire was more decentralized and power was shared amongst clan leaders., hinting at the possibility of the retention of the provinces.
Roman-Persian Wars
Beginning in the 1st century BC, the Romans began expanding their Empire at the cost of the Parthians. Initially the Nomadic military tactic of circling and shooting worked to deadly effect against the slow heavy moving infantry of the Romans. In time however, superior technology and strategy drove the Parthians out of the Mediterranean and most of Asia Minor. The Parthians continued to resist Roman rule, invading and in turn being invaded by the Romans many times, with their capital Ctesiphon being sacked three times. The consequence of these bloody and inconclusive wars meant that the Assyrian provinces bore the brunt of the fighting, with Assyrian troops fighting for one side and then, at the change of the governing of the lands of Mada and Athura, fighting for the other side. Naturally such events served to undermine the Assyrians.
By the 2nd Century AD under the Emperor Trajan, the Romans began to achieve the upper hand against the Parthians and established the Roman Province of Assyria along the Euphrates and Tigris.
The lands of Mesopotamia would continue to be fought over between the Persians and the Romans, with a detrimental effect on the local population and the lands.
The exact boundaries of the province would have been fluid at this point due to the nature of the fighting. The Persians would continue to covet Assyria until they achieved greater success between the 4th to early 7th centuries AD. In 628 the Romans defeated the Persians in their last conflict at Nineveh. Assyria remained in Persian hands but also came under Roman influence. Assyria ceased to exist in any form (as a province, vassal or sovereign empire) when the Arabs defeated a combined Persian, Ghassanid and Roman army and occupied Mesopotamia. There on, Assyrians would enter an era of persecution despite the Islamic Prohpet Muhammad's Fatwa.
Cultural continuity
History of the Assyrian people
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It is during the time of Persian rule in Assyria that a "600 year gap" in Assyrian history between 612 BC and later in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD is believed by some Historians to have occurred, leading to theories that the modern day Assyrians/Syriacs and the population of the Neo-Assyrian Empire are "not related". Significant historical accounts re-emerge when the Roman Emperor Trajan extended Imperial authority into Mesopotamia and made Osroene into a Roman province. Cultural continuity is attested today by some Assyriologists.
Early historians used to hypothesize that the ancient Assyrians and the present Assyrian people are not biologically linked, citing differences in languages and religion (Akkadian was the official language yet Aramaic is the language of modern-day Assyrians, and the Assyro-Babylonian religion being replaced by Syriac Christianity). However, a number of Assyriologists and scholars have through recent studies discovered that the ancient Assyrians became bilingual in both Aramaic and Akkadian as the Neo-Assyrian Empire expanded westwards, and that Aramaic became the Assyrian empire's second official language in the 8th century BC. Nonetheless it must be noted that language changes have historically occurred in many nations and the Assyrian policy of deporting thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of people who spoke Aramiac initiated the change in the spoken language. Since most the population could not read or write then the spoken language of the Empire would have evolved into Aramaic so determining the modern day Assyrian identity by language is a two-sided issue.
The Assyrian Empire's initial success came from its vast population, which enabled it to utilize large amounts of manpower. Wars would wear down this resource but the population remained high nonetheless, since the Babylonian conquerors continued to field many men from Mesopotamia. Therefore it is unlikely that so many people were killed, despite the violent sackings of the Assyrian Capitals ensuring that at least some of the Assyrian population may have survived though the end of the elite meant the end of writing - the only way in which Akkadian survived after the Aramaic take over in the 7th century.
With regards to names the situation is no clearer - though Assyrian names have been found in Persian and Babylonian records, these may have occurred as a result of adoption rather than as cultural inheritance. Archives discovered in the region show Assyrians living first under Babylonian then Persian / Median rule. Assyrian names have been found in at least a hundred historical personalities, some of which gained considerable power. The Persians were not so concerned with having Pan-Ashur-lumur (a name derived from the Assyrian deity Assur) as secretary of the Crown Prince Cambyses whilst Cyrus the Great ruled Persia.
Economy
Like much of the rest of the world at the time, the economy of Mesopotamia relied heavily upon the produce of the farms and the rivers, including fish and what fruit and meat could be raised in the Euphrates' fertile soils.
Agriculture
The basic needs of humans include primarily food and water. When productive lands such as those of Mesopotamia produce so much produce, civilization begins to develop. The down-time resulting from farming and the seasons allows men and women to master other skills in life such as the arts, philosophy and leisure. Without the fertile soils of the Euphrates river valley, civilization would not have come to be.
As with many other countries, the primary occupation was farming. Agriculture originated in the region since 9000 BC. The extraordinary output of Mesopotamian farms resulted in highly populated civilizations. The chief crop that fueled the ever-growng civilizations in the region was the grain barley and enumer wheat though sesame seeds also provoded a source of nourishment.
The agricultural year would begin with sowing after Summer. Flooding posed a serious risk to farmers whilst rodents were supposedly driven off by prayers to the rodent god. To ensure that such prayers were answered, tall silos were built to house the grain and keep out the mice.
Trees were grown for their fruit. To prevent the hot winds of the region from destroying the crops, tall palm trees would be planted around the smaller trees, thus breaking the wind and shading the plants from the heat of the sun, the intensity of which provided plenty for the plants, even when shaded. Following the Persian conquest, peaches were added to the original Assyrian mix of apples, cherries, figs, pears, plums and pomegranates. Tree growing was an art mastered with tree-cutting and even "artificial mating" in order to have the Palm trees yield fruit. In the northern parts of Mesopotamia (covering primarily Athura) rainfall met the demands of farming but in the more southerly parts (covering Mada) Shadufs were used to assist in irrigation.
Oxen, donkeys, cattle and sheep were raised, the latter for their milk (which could be turned into butter) and the former as draught animals. Pigs, ducks, geese and chickens were all raised for their meat. Hunting supplemented the food supply with birds and fish.
References
- ^ Parpola, Simo (2004). "National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. Vol. 18 (No. 2). JAAS.
{{cite journal}}:|issue=has extra text (help);|volume=has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters:|laysource=,|laydate=,|month=,|laysummary=, and|quotes=(help) - Parpola, Simo (2004). "National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. Vol. 18 (No. 2). JAAS: pp. 18.
With the fall of Nineveh, the Empire was split in two, the western half falling in the hands of a Chaldean dynasty, the eastern one in the hands of Median kings. In 539 BC, both became incorporated in the Achaemenid Empire, the western one as the megasatrapy of Assyria (Aθūra), the eastern one as the satrapy of Media (Māda).
{{cite journal}}:|issue=has extra text (help);|pages=has extra text (help);|volume=has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters:|laysource=,|laydate=,|month=,|laysummary=, and|quotes=(help) - The Ramessides, Medes, and Persians By Emmet John Sweeney. Page 174-75.
- ^ Parpola, Simo (1999-09-04). "Assyrians after Assyria" (HTML). University of Helsinki.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Healy, Mark. The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey, 1991. (various pages) ISBN 1855321637
- ^ Grant, R.G. (2005). "Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat". London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 19.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Parker, Geoffrey. Compact History of the World. 4th ed. London: Times Books, 2005 pg 33 ISBN 0760725756
- ^ Bentley, Jerry H. Traditions & Encounters a Global Prespective on the Past. Vol. 1. New York: McGraw-Hill.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|aocauthors=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|years=ignored (help). - Iraq's Church Bombers vs. Muhammad | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction
- Akkadian language - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. pp. Various pages.
- ^ Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. pp. p. 244.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. pp. p. 245.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. pp. p. 264.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. pp. p. 265.
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See also
- Babylonia (Persian province)
- Media (Persian province)
- Assyria (Roman province)
- Mesopotamia (Roman province)
- Asuristan (Sassanid province)
- History of Mesopotamia
- History of the Assyrian people
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