'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎156r] (316/862)

SUMERIAN AND BABYLONIAN PERIOD
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the Assyrian Empire. What distinguished them from their pre
decessors was the extreme barbarity and cruelty with which all
conquered peoples were treated. But apart from the conduct of war
there was no general barbarization of the Babylonian civilization
under their rule (p. 221). Assyrian military power was built up on
the extensive use of iron for weapons and upon superior organiza
tion; stronger fortresses with battlemented walls were built, and
warfare included battering rams, scaling ladders, and other heavy
weapons of siege. In the open, Assyrian supremacy was won by
military skill and endurance, and particularly by the accuracy of
their infantry bowmen, supported by cavalry armed with bow or
javelin. Until the Medes made cavalry the main arm no state could
stand against the Assyrian infantry. Their forces now consisted
of a small standing army, which approximated to an age-class,
strengthened in the larger wars by a levy of the whole population;
the resources of the Assyrian Empire consisted in the man-power
of Assyria and the wealth of Babylonia, and the empire collapsed
when the former was exhausted (photos. 101-104).
Ashur-Nasirpal III in a series of great campaigns restored and
made permanent the conquests of Tiglath-Pileser: Naharin and
Phoenicia in Syria, the upper Euphrates region of Commagene,
and the upper Tigris valley. To Shalmaneser was left a stubborn and
inconclusive struggle with the kings of southern Syria, Benhadad of
Damascus and Ahab of Israel, and their heirs. He was more success
ful in the north-west, where the Cilician plain (Kue) was conquered,
and in the south, where he made Babylonia a vassal state, aided by
the merchant class who found that their trade benefited by the firm
Assyrian control of neighbouring lands. Later kings riveted this
control more firmly upon the subject peoples and extended it to
Israel and Damascus (803 b.c.). The consolidation of the Assyrian
Empire was achieved by the first king of a new dynasty, Tiglath-
Pileser IV (745-727). He overawed and destroyed the rebellious
princes of Syria and Palestine, carried the empire to the frontier of
Egypt, and once more united Mesopotamia by ‘taking the hands
of Bel’ and ruling Babylonia as king of Sumer and Akkad. Tiglath-
Pileser IV gave the empire a skeleton organization by establish
ing residents or kipi at the courts of subject princes, and military
governors (shuparshako) or district lords (bel pikhati) in the annexed
regions, which included the Cilician plain and most of Syria except
Palestine. A second device of empire was the transplantation of
conquered peoples: this weakened the native population, while the