The Ancients - Rise of the Assyrians

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

At its pinnacle, the kingdom of Assyria stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, a feat few could compare with in 660BCE. With Assyria's conquests documented by contemporary Greek historians, and even in the Hebrew Bible, nearly two millennia of studies have revealed a rich picture of the Assyrian world. With it's size and power undisputed, is it fair to call it the first empire the world had ever seen?In this episode, Tristan is joined by Yale Professor Eckart Frahm to learn why he believes Assyria marked the first real empire of human history, and why this civilisation is essential to understanding the ancient world. With Assyria’s legacy enduring from the Babylonian and Persian empires to Rome and beyond, what can we learn about this remarkable civilisation?For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - enter promo code ANCIENTS for a free trial, plus 50% off your first three months' subscription. To download, go to Android > or Apple store >

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode I'm doing this intro from a hotel room up in Preston because a couple of days every year I always make sure to head up to northern England to the only dedicated curling rink in this country in England that is at Preston because yes one of the weird and wacky sports that I absolutely love is curling but it also means

that I am currently off however the ancient machine never stops so before I leave and grab my broom and my shoes and head off to the rink, I want to tell you about the episode that we got today in this quick introduction. We are going back to the ancient Near East. We've talked about the Persians and the Sumerians in the past, and in today's episode we're talking about the Assyrians. We're focusing in on the rise of the Assyrians in the early first millennium BC and why some professors, including our guest today, call this rise by the Assyrians the creation of the first empire that the world had ever seen. To explain all about this, I was delighted to interview Professor

Eckhart Fram from Yale University. Eckhart has recently written a book all about the rise and fall of the Assyrian Empire, and he was an absolute pleasure to interview, so I really do hope you enjoy. So without further ado, to talk all about the rise of the Assyrians, here's Eckhart. Eckhart, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. It's a pleasure. It's mine. Thank you for inviting me. You're more than welcome. I love it when we go to the ancient Near East and Mesopotamia. And this is an incredible topic for your new book, too, on the Assyrians,

The Rise and Fall, focusing on the rise of the Assyrians today. I'm quite interested in this one because I've got in my notes here the story of the first empire. Yeah, that is a claim I'm making in the book. And of course, it is debatable. It hinges upon what you would define as an empire. Obviously, you have people who would call any somewhat sizable kingdom that made some sort of conquest in the course of its history an empire. I think it makes sense to distinguish such kingdoms from larger geopolitical entities like the Assyrian empire. And what I would consider sort of as criteria to apply to an actual empire would be, of course, indeed, that it's a state that is a

certain size that rules a significant amount of territories outside its original core areas, where you have a pretty pronounced discrepancy between the center and the periphery, with the center in a way of gobbling up a lot of the wealth of that periphery, where you have a great deal of diversity, ethnic, religious, linguistic, and so on, and where you find on one, some direct forms of rule, but also indirect forms of rule, especially, again, in the periphery. And this, of course, has to take a while to last. And I do believe that the Assyrian Empire, as it emerges fairly late in the history of Assyria, in the mid-8th century, lives up to these criteria. And that

is why I think Assyria really is the world's first empire. Well, Eckhart, mid-eighth century BC, and I've got great news for you. Being on this podcast today, you're going to be able to explain your arguments in full. You have the floor. But let's start it all off, as we normally do on Ancients podcast episodes, with the background. No such thing as a silly question. You mentioned the Assyrians, but who exactly were the Assyrians? Yeah, and of course, it's important to know that Assyria is in fact a much older polity. And the first evidence for it is actually from the third millennium BCE. It's a Greek term. So Assyria is the way the Greeks refer to an area in what is now northeastern Iraq, marked, I would say,

by a triangle of cities formed by the cities of Ashura in the south, some 100 kilometers or so south of modern Mosul, the city of Nineveh, more famous still, opposite of Mosul on the other side of the Tigris River, and the city of Arbela, modern Erbil, further to the east. So this is the core area of Assyria. And later, of course, then Assyria expands in all directions, especially into the west. And so the earliest evidence comes of the third millennium. This is when we learn that the Assyrians apparently speak a submitting language. And it all starts in the city of Ashur. And that is where Assyria gets its name from. So, Assyria is this fairly small, but from early on significant commercial hub, as I said, roughly 100 kilometers south of Mosul, where Assyrian civilization starts.

And it starts as a city-state, and it stays a city-state for a long time. And interestingly enough, and we can see that especially from the early second millennium onwards, as a city-state sort of ruled well with what one could call a mixed constitution with certain semi-democratic structures. So there is an assembly where all three men come together to discuss legal matters. There is a somewhat aristocratic eponym who is in charge of taxation for years. So there are also rulers. So there's also somewhat more monarchic segment in this whole political setup. But they aren't even allowed to call themselves king. They don't have the same privileges that kings elsewhere in Mesopotamia have. They are allowed to build

temples. There's even sort of a hereditary structure there. But this is all very different from the much more autocratic state of later times. And this early Assyria, this city-state, then morphs in the second half of the second millennium into a larger kingdom, which is then actually ruled by kings. And eventually, after going through a number of crises, some of which we might perhaps briefly talk about later, metamorphosis into this empire. So this is the long-term story of Assyria, and it shows you that these ideas about the eternally despotic East and so on, of course, don't really work when you look at Mesopotamia and Assyria. I mean, in the end,

to some extent, lives up to the stereotype, but certainly for hundreds and hundreds of years didn't. It's such a fascinating story. And Eckhart, is it kind of like, maybe sometimes Joe Brogg's looking at the Assyrians from the outside will think of one civilization, but then when you examine them deeper, and as you highlight how they are in existence for several millennia, it almost feels like with the Egyptians, you have the old kingdom, then you have the middle kingdom, you have the New Kingdom, then you have the Nubians, and so on and so forth. There are so many different time periods where you see the Assyrians being very different to how they looked several centuries beforehand. Absolutely, yes. And that's one of the reasons why they are so fascinating. So there are these changes, but they're also very good in keeping some key elements

of their identity. Among them, their language, the Assyrian language, of course, changes. You mentioned Egyptian changes as well, but still essentially the same language, the god Ashur. So that is a deity only worshipped in the city of Ashur. There are never any temples for Ashur anywhere else. And that remains essentially unchanged. But as the Assyrian political system changes, the god Ashur acquires new qualities. So he becomes an embodiment of his city, in fact somewhat of an imperial war god. long-distance trade acquiring wealth with aggressive military way of acquiring stuff through plunder and eventually when they annex foreign areas through taxation but there are also certain continuities i would say that are kind of interesting i mean you have this commercial network early on and of course it's characterized by a broad geographic horizon on one hand and a certain

degree of acquisitiveness on the other. That is, after all, what merchants do. And of course, that is something that stays in place as well. So the Assyrians continue to have this broad outlook, only now they send armies away into other areas rather than merchants. And they still are very keen on acquiring stuff, only now through force rather than by exchanging goods. So you have these major changes going on, but at the same time, you can also see how some elements of Assyrian civilization actually remain the same. That's so, so interesting. Well, we're definitely going to get to the rise of this empire, this aforementioned Assyrian empire. But I have to ask one more question.

We seem to know so much, but how do we know so much about the Assyrians, Eckhart? What sorts of sources do we have available when looking at this ancient civilization? Yeah, of course, our great privilege is that in ancient Mesopotamia, that applies to Syria, but also to Babylonia and earlier places like Uruk and Babylon and so on, people wrote on clay, not exclusively so, but they really wrote a lot of stuff on clay. Essentially everything from royal inscriptions to their literary texts to tax documents to medical texts, state correspondence, private correspondence. And clay essentially is indestructible. So once put away, it may break. And in fact, we find many of those tablets broken in small pieces, which have to be

rejoined, which is a major challenge for our small tribe of osteologists at what we do in our daily lives, among other things. But it's all there. So from Mesopotamia, we have roughly 1 million documents, and quite a significant portion of those comes from Assyria. Now, unfortunately, we could say not in the same numbers from all periods. So we have certain periods that are very well documented. For example, the Old As from all periods. So we have certain periods that are very well documented. For example, the older Syrian period, when you have these merchants. So there we have some 25,000 tablets from a Syrian merchant colony called Karnash in Anatolia. And they provide us a lot of information on what these merchants do, their commercial activities and all that.

Not so much on the Syrian politics, actually. We have a very different, but again, very rich set of sources from the first millennium and also from the second half of the second millennium. We continue to have letters and so on, but now we also have large numbers of royal inscriptions written by the Syrian kings in addition to other aristographic documents. And those describe their political

and especially their military activities in great detail. One of the later Syrian kings, for example, Ashurbanipal, his inscriptions are some 1,000 lines long. And I mean, there are really literally thousands of them. So we get to know a great deal of stuff about those very kings. But there is a certain imbalance again. So we know a lot about those kings in later times, but not that much then about these, let's say,

private initiatives in Neo-Syrian times as we do, for example, for the Old Assyrian period. And in between, we have periods where we actually have very few sources. So the transition from the city-state to a kingdom in the mid-2nd millennium is hard to trace because for some 300 years, between 1700 and 1400 BCE, we have very few sources. sources. Altogether, though, the evidence is very rich, remarkably rich, and especially these state archives from the late Assyrian, from the imperial period, plus those royal inscriptions, give us a chance to have an enormously detailed glimpses into the political world of this time. Well, it's so, so interesting how Assyria evolves almost from city-state into a kingdom, and then ultimately into an empire, what you would call the first empire that the world knew. So come on, let's now delve into this. When do you argue that this first

empire, the Assyrian empire, began, started to emerge? Yeah, so I would argue, and I'm not essentially the first to say this is a really major departure point, even though my emphasis on empire is perhaps a bit unusual. I would say this happens under the rule of a king named Tiglapiles III, who rules from 745 to 727 BCE, who comes to the throne under circumstances that are actually rather problematic. This previous period is characterized, surprisingly enough, by a number of very substantial crises. And we can perhaps talk about this a little bit more in a moment but he manages to turn this all around and within just 18 or 19 years of his reign essentially more than doubled the size of the

assyrian kingdom and also really changes political structure so prior to that the assyrian core area ruled by kings until then was between the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in modern Syria and the western part of the Zagros Mountains in the east, which would be in eastern Iraq, western Iran. Now, Tiglapilesa expands this territory massively, and he not only sends troops to plunder, but he enacts parts of those areas where his troops operate and a large number of new provinces is created and so you do eventually have this great linguistic religious ethnic diversity within assyria at the same time there are still of course also indirect forms of rule that continues to employ. But the whole thing becomes so large that I think from then on, one can really call this whole geopolitical entity an empire. And it's also interesting, I mean, you can debate whether my personal sort of definition works or not. But one thing is clear, the Hebrew Bible considers this time as

a major turning point. This is the first time that you can read about actual history in the Bible. This is when, of course, Israel and later on Judah are confronted with the onslaught by the Assyrian kings. And Greek historians likewise consider Assyria the first empire. They don't particularly focus on Tiglapilesa. Their knowledge of Assyrian history when it comes to detail was more limited. But it is clearly Assyria, which in the Greek tradition is first ruled by a legendary king named Ninus, that is based on the name of the Assyrian city of Nineveh. Such a king never actually existed. But they do claim it's Assyria that forms the first empire. And this tradition remains in place in the Western world, essentially until early modernity. So we can read it in Dante and so on and so forth. And it's so interesting to hear how you're able to also kind of focus in

on this particular monarch Tiglath-Pileser III. And as you've hinted at, as you mentioned that earlier, we're going to focus in more on this figure now. And let's start with almost the background of his reign. It almost sounds as if the period before he ascends the throne, is this a time of turmoil, a time of crisis for the Assyrian kingdom? Yes. So I would say sort of up to roughly 820, things were going pretty well for the Assyrians. There were a variety of kings who expanded Assyrian power and King Somaneser III sent his armies very far west. Everything was looking good. The Assyrian crown was very strong, unquestioned and all that. And then sort of between this, the time between 820 and the rise of Tiglapilesa in 745,

there were two things that happened. On one hand, Assyrian officials, mostly military officials, generals and so on, but also a number of administrators became very influential. We can see that from the fact that they suddenly start to write very elaborate inscriptions, really like kings, which they hadn't been allowed to do. They rule over significant portions of the Assyrian kingdom. The actual Assyrian kings seem to stay in office during this time, but there's very little we know about them. They have little reason to write anything or so. It seems really that these great men, these magnates, as they're sometimes called in astrology, that it's them who call the

shots. Now, whether that necessarily is a sign of a crisis has been debated and has also been argued that the independent agency of these magnates has led, for example, to the development of land in certain territories of Assyria. And I do think on the whole, probably this is correct. This was not, the magnates did not, for example, create an economic crisis. On the whole, probably this is correct. This was not, the magnets did not, for example, create an economic crisis. On the contrary, they might indeed have contributed to the economic development of Assyria. But what we can definitely see is that between the year 765 and 745, there was a crisis. We see that primarily from a document called the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle, which gives us very sort of concise,

but accurate and un-ideological information on main events of a given year. And what we see during these 20 years in the mid-8th century is that, on one hand, what happens in Assyria is that there are several outbreaks of plague, first in 765 and then again in 759. And it seems likely that these were connected, that there were probably a plague an epidemic that lasted over years if not decades and again probably linked to those epidemics i would argue a number of insurgencies so the eponym chronicle unlike these oil inscriptions actually just simply mentions also these crises and it refers to several events that were insurgencies in a variety of cities, including the religious capital of Assyria, Ashura, which must certainly have been

very bad. And it's also clear that during many of these 20 years, the Assyrian army would not go on any campaign. So the Assyrian eponym Karmannik would simply say, the king and the army stayed in the land. And that was not what usually Assyrian kings were doing. They were expected, the god Asherah sort of commanded them to do this. They were expected to go on campaigns. They didn't, they couldn't because of this crisis. So it's all the more surprising that when then suddenly in 745 Tiglapilesa comes to the throne in the course of another rebellion, this time political capital of Assyria at the time, the city of Kalach, of another rebellion, this time political capital of Assyria at the time, the city of Kalach,

it's all the more surprising that then suddenly within just 18 years, this king manages to expand Assyria so massively. And I would argue that actually the crisis is exactly the reason why he does it. This is his reaction that the expansion of Assyria and various reforms that he puts into place are a reaction to the crisis. The loss of life that this pandemic must have caused, the loss of wealth, is compensated by him by sending his troops into territories elsewhere, which might have been affected, we are not totally sure about this, by this epidemic as well, of course. It might have been weakened too, which would have enabled him to do this. At any rate, he does it. And, of course, then he funnels wealth and do this. At any rate, he does it. And of course, then he funnels wealth and he also funnels lots of people back into Assyria. So one thing

that he does, and we can talk about it in more detail perhaps later, is that he deports hundreds of thousands of people from these conquest territories and brings them either to Assyria to work on construction sites and so on, or to other provinces in the periphery where they are supposed to enhance agricultural production and so on and so forth. So in the periphery where they are supposed to enhance agricultural production, and so on, and so forth. So that's what he does. And I think he does it in reaction to this crisis. So this is somewhat counterintuitive and paradoxical reason why this empire actually

comes into being. This is, of course, a hypothesis. And you could say, well, there may not actually be a causal relationship between these two phenomena. But I think that's kind of unlikely. I do believe there must be some causal relationship between these two phenomena, but I think that's kind of unlikely. I do believe there must be some causal relationship here. Hi there, I'm Don Wildman, host of the new podcast American History Hit. Twice a week, I'll be exploring stories from America's past to help us understand the United States of today.

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It sounds, therefore, that this kingdom, with all these crises in Assyria itself, someone coming to the throne, unclear circumstances, probably via a violent nature, and then starting to turn things around, it seems very similar to in my opinion to that of alexander the great's father philip the second of macedon so it's fascinating you see these examples again and again in this example of tiglath palazzo the third i mean well let's therefore delve into how tiglath palazzo starts turning it all around because correct me if i wrong, and maybe we don't know the

information, but it sounds as if he does come to the throne at a time of crisis, if he is on the winning side of one of these revolts, uprisings, rebellions, potentially, then surely at the start of his reign, his rule must be quite tenuous, quite unstable. Surely one of the first things that he must have done is consolidation of his rule. Do we have any idea about that, how he tries to consolidate? Yeah, so we know very little actually about his background in a few inscriptions, but very few only. He claims to have been the son of a previous king, Adad-Nirari III, but the Assyrian king list, the chronographic text from Assyria, claims he was the son of his predecessor, Ashton-Nirari V. This is a complicated question, I won't get into it,

but he isn't particularly keen on emphasizing his descendants from any previous king. He comes to the throne, and it is indeed really striking how quickly he turns things around, given how bad things actually seem to be. And one thing he does is he makes sure that the power of these magnates decrease, so that they no longer hold these large provinces or several of them over extended periods of time. Several of the leading magnates from the previous decades lose their offices. Of course, he also keeps some in place. And obviously, you can't build an empire without excellent generals and good administrators. And he clearly must have had a sense he needed them too. And how exactly he did this, of course, we don't know. How he managed also simply to prevail is unclear. In these cases, historians, Fautemur, usually come

up with the idea of charisma or something like that. But to be true, we simply have no idea what it was that made people sort of to accept a new vision. But I think that he had a vision must have been evident to them and that he had a grand strategy different from everything preceding his reign must also have been clear. And I think this is probably a reason why everyone in Assyria went along. And this grand strategy then was that apart from the changes at home and the administrative structure and so on, that he would really expand Assyria and create these many, many new provinces, especially in the West, but also, for example, in the East. these many, many new provinces, especially in the West, but also, for example, in the East. The first thing he does in 744 is that he creates a new province in the Zagros Mountains, which is called Parsual. Clearly, the Persians somehow involved here. And that continues then. And this is a strategy that just turns out to be very, probably also very lucrative for the

Assyrian elite. So they go along. And the Assyrian army seems still to be in pretty good shape. So the pandemic can't have been absolutely devastating. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been possible for him to undertake what he did. And so he then follows this plan that he must have had from the very beginning to expand his land and to create really what is a new political entity, I would say. Well, therefore, Eckhart, if we're moving away from the administrative reforms, and as you say, he's looking outwards, Tiglath-Pileser III, to start forming this empire. To form an empire, it means violence, it means you need an army. Do we have any idea, therefore, how should we envisage Tiglath-Pileser III's army at this time? What sorts of units would have been at the center of this Assyrian army?

So the Assyrian army was obviously a very powerful machine, the most powerful army in Western Asia at that time, without question. It comprised a number of different units, if you wish. So the chariot units, essentially the tanks of the ancient world, used to sort of crash into enemy lines. There was cavalry. And it was during the 8th century that the Syrian learned,

the Syrian horse riders learned to shoot arrows without some other guys riding next to them, holding their horses. They became much more adept at doing this. And this was of course a way of moving around very quickly, and therefore very important in warfare. There were spearmen

for infantry activities, there were spearmen for infantry activities. There were bowmen for long-range attacks, essentially the artillery of the ancient world. These were all very efficient. And the Assyrians were very good at incorporating units from other places if they realized that soldiers in those areas were very good at what they were doing. For example, a good portion of the Assyrian chariot units were formed by Samarians, that is people from Israel, who this is slightly towards the end of Tiglapiles of Spain only, but after they had started to conquer parts of the kingdom of Israel in the

West. But it's a good example for these other peoples being incorporated into the army. There were police units formed by Iturians, an Aramaic tribe who were much feared. Whenever there was a rebellion, these Iturians would be sent against the rebels. So this was something the Assyrians would be doing. Usually, it was actually enough for the Assyrian army simply to turn up because everyone knew they wouldn't really have much of a chance to prevail. Occasionally, the Assyrians had to engage in siege warfare. The cities would try to withstand a siege, and then the Assyrians would try to conquer the city with the help of siege towers and tunnels and siege machines of various types

and so on and so forth. This is illustrated not only by the text that we have but also by an unusual number of stone reliefs with scenes of warfare that were lining the palaces, not only of Tiglabilizer III, but also of later Assyrian kings. And that gives us a lot of information on the realities of the Assyrian military. So all in all, it was, I mean, then there were, I mean, the Assyrian military was accompanied by priests who provided some moral support. There were scouts who would spy on enemy movements and all that. There was a very good communication system in place. The king would know where enemy armies would move to. This all, of course, contributed as well to

the great success of these Assyrian armies. And so talk to me about Tiglath-Pileser III's military campaigns. To where does he and his army go and against whom does he campaign against? I know you've mentioned a few of them, but let's just kind of highlight the grand extent of the campaigns of conquest that he does. The first campaign goes against Babylonia, which is not yet so decisive. The second then against the east, and there he creates these first new provinces, Parsua being one of them. But perhaps then more important is what he does in the West. So he starts from 743 onwards to engage his troops in the West, that is, in what would be northern Syria initially. And there he fights first against a fairly powerful kingdom in the north, the kingdom of Waratu, and defeats the king of Waratu, who had previously, just a few years earlier, defeated the Assyrians. So this was an important victory because it meant the Oathians from now on were no longer really able to interfere in the Syrian attempts to be predominant in the West.

He then puts to siege the Syrian city of Arpat. It takes three years to conquer it. And when that happens, there's almost a chain reaction. Lots of cities further west essentially submit to Tigray-Pereza and his troops over the next years march as far southwest as the modern city of Gaza on the eastern Mediterranean. A number of new provinces are implemented along the Mediterranean and well places like Judah for example Moab, Edom known from the Bible would send in tribute. Eventually there would be a major war with the kingdom of Israel. This is the time of the divided monarchy so there is Israel on one hand and Judah on the other Israel. This is the time of the divided monarchy. So there's Israel

on one hand and Judah on the other hand. There is a war between Tiglapilesa, Israel and Damascus, Israel and Damascus on the same side, Judah supporting Tiglapilesa, which was strategically very smart because in the end Tiglapilesa prevails and he essentially annexes Damascus and a rum state of Israel is left in place, but the larger portion is being turned into the provinces as well, and that is almost the end of the independent kingdom of Israel, whereas Judah continues, and the Bible doesn't like the Judean king Achaz for his collaboration with Tiglapiles and criticizes him for it

and for taking over some Syrian customs and so on, but politically speaking, this was probably a very good move on his part. Then, after having essentially secured the East, he wins, if you wish, for him probably his greatest prize, and that is Babylonia. Babylonia is always key for Assyria. Babylonia is sort of the front and head of civilization for the Assyrians. This is very much like Greece for Rome. So the religion, the literature that the Assyrians adopt comes from Babylonia to

a significant extent. Of course, the exception religiously would be the god Asher, who is generally Assyrian. So, they have a very ambivalent relationship to Babylonia. They admire it, they are willing to provide Babylonian cities with great privileges, but they still want to rule it. And Tiglabilisa actually in 729 manages to conquer Babylon, and he is crowned in the city of Babylon. And it's interesting, it's called the personal union. So elsewhere he creates these new provinces, which means essentially these are then all entities of the Assyrian state

where a provincial governor on behalf of the king rules. In Babylonia he does it differently. He's crowned Babylonian king, so Babylonian kingship is not abolished. it's just that now he holds it in addition to being king of assyria and he also provides as i said i mean the babylonian cities with additional tax privileges and so on he participates twice in the great new year festival in babylon during the last year's office reign which again shows the great respect he feels for Babylon. And when he dies, Babylon and Babylonia are pretty firmly in the Syrian hands. That changes again over the next decades, and the Syrian kings following Tiglapilesa

will have to fight a number of particularly charged battles against Babylonia, which eventually, of course, at the end of the Syrian Empire in 612, is one of the two major forces, along with the Medes, that actually bring the Syrian Empire to an end. They are the ones to conquer Ninerian Empire in 612 is one of the two major forces along with the Medes that actually bring the Assyrian Empire to an end. So they are the ones to conquer Nineveh in 612. But this is perhaps then the greatest triumph for Tiglapilesa when he dies. Assyria wooed much of the west up to the eastern Mediterranean and also all of Babylonia. It is so interesting how far he manages to spread this new empire. We'll get into the definition of empire very, very soon. I mean, one other thing I'd love to ask about,

because there are so many striking parallels, I think, with King Philip II of Macedon. You mentioned Urartu there, how the Assyrians had suffered a defeat not long before Tiglath-Pileser III comes to the throne. Philip's predecessor suffers a defeat in which he's killed against the Illyrians. And then one of Philip's first big triumphs is to then defeat the Illyrians and then was like payback to kind of stop them being a major power so many similarities here Assyrians having a great admiration of Babylon quite similar to the Macedonians having a great admiration of places further south like Athens and Olympia and so on

and so forth I love those similarities and I could talk about them all day but we're not going to because we've got limited time we want to get that in there but keeping on you Eckhart it's going back to you now alongside these military conquests these campaigns to gain the alliance maybe to secure borders in particular areas rather than military conquests military campaigns do we hear from the sources of Tyclath Palaeus III, marriage alliances, or anything like that to secure his borders. Yes, he does that too. And this is where it's a bit dangerous to focus too much on the Syrian royal inscriptions, because they are really very much focused on military activities. But Tiglath-Pileser's reign is also the first period in Neo-Syrian times where we

have a sizable number of political letters, these cuneiform letters written by officials, spies, political letters, these cuneiform letters written by officials, spies, others, often from the periphery to the Assyrian king informing him about what's going on in these areas. And from those letters, from some of them, we learn that, of course, the Assyrians also tried occasionally to win hearts and minds, that they compromised, that they were smart, that they knew where they better not annex a place, but rather collaborate with someone. And a good example would be what the Australians are doing with a number of Phoenician cities. So Tiglapilesa is sending his armies to the eastern Mediterranean. He could probably have tried to conquer Tyre or Sidon, these particularly powerful and rich Phoenician cities located there.

But he doesn't really do that. He puts up a high threat level and then he sends officials to the kings of tyre especially and they come up with some sort of an arrangement where for example when the phoenicians cut timber in on mount lebanon that they will be taxed by the syrians but they can then still continue trading the timber the syrians also do not interfere with the western trade of the phoenicians knowing full well that Assyrians are never really seafaring people. So they actually profit from the trade of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians can pay them more tribute and more taxes if they can actually engage in this trade.

And the Assyrians, as being merchants, as merchants in their own right, of course, have a good understanding of that. And we have a number of letters in which certain Kodi Ashur, who might have been a provincial governor in the eastern Mediterranean area, it's not entirely certain, writes about his encounters with the people in Tyre and in Ceylon. And he says, for example, that people in Tyre are obliging, doing what I want, whereas in Ceylon they don't. And then he's sending these Iturians. And when they arrive on the scene, then the people in Ceylon actually submit and pay taxes. So this is all happening, of course, at the same time.

And it's especially these political letters, which are a really fascinating source for reconstruction of political history of the time that provide us with information on this. We know from later Serbian kings that they were sending their daughters, for example, to particularly important allies in countries far away that they weren't able to conquer. Sometimes this leads to long-time alliances, sometimes it also fails, while at the same time those allies or vessels or client kings, I want to call them that, would send their own daughters to Assyria, where they would be incorporated into the Assyrian harem. So we can assume this also happened under Tigra Beleza. We

don't have that much information on that. Tigla Beleza himself was married, interestingly enough, to a woman with the name of Yaba. Isn't that much really known about her background? It has speculated by, I think, one of your previous guests, Stephanie Daly, a very, very interesting and important article that she might have been a Judean princess that isn't universally accepted. But what is clear is that this name Yabba is not an Assyrian name. So the Assyrian kings would not marry women from the Assyrian elite at this time anymore. Whether Yabba was from the West or maybe even from Arabia remains somewhat unclear, but she isn't an Assyrian woman. And so Tiglabilis himself indeed also had family relations far beyond of the Assyrian core areas. And in general, yes, I mean, again, especially in later times, you can see that

marriage politics is something like in earlier periods and later on, of course, that's very important. It's a fascinating tool used by empire builders throughout ancient history, as is, as you mentioned earlier, taking certain populations to faraway places to get them out of a particular area. I'm not sure we might have enough time to really delve into that today, sadly. However, I need to ask you some of the bigger questions as we start to wrap up. Tiglath-Pileser III, he's created this massive empire stretching from Babylonia to the eastern Mediterranean seaboard. But it begs the question once and for all, kind of wrapping up, why should we call this the first empire? And the reason I ask that now is basically to quell my mind as a Joe Bloggs, why we shouldn't call something like

the Akkadians beforehand in their forming of a large kingdom, why we shouldn't call that an empire, but we should call this multi-ethnic, multi-language empire of Tiglath-Pileser III an empire. Yeah and again I mean I talked about a little bit already when we started our chat I mean I'm not expecting that there will be universal agreement about my claim the Syrians are the first and you mentioned the old Akkadian empire my Yale colleague Ben Foster wrote a book a few years ago where he essentially claims the old Akkadian kingdom of the time between roughly 2350 and 2200 BC is in fact the first empire. And it is true that the old Akkadian kings ruled over almost all of Mesopotamia plus Elan. They were in charge of cities like Mari and so on, and they sent the armies to the Mediterranean Sea. I would still say that when I look at what they actually ruled in terms of provinces and when I look at the ethno-linguistic diversity in that state,

that it isn't quite up to the dimensions of Syria. But here, of course, really this is a matter of taste. I mean, where does quantity turn into quality? So to ask this question that Hegel asks. And I think we will not be able to come to full consensus. Egyptologists may claim that Egypt during the time of the New Kingdom, especially in the 18th dynasty, should have been considered an empire. And again, I don't expect that my claiming the Assyrians under Tiglabilis over the first will be universally accepted.

What I would still say again is that the later perception is it was the Assyrians, and I mentioned the Greeks, especially the Greek and Roman historians, who would actually have that opinion. We have later in Middle Ages, you have this translatio imperi, this idea that the idea of empire

is handed down from one to the next. And in these sequences, Assyria is often first. And here again, I would say the institutions the Assyrians create were in fact then emulated, adopted, adapted by later empires. First, the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Syria comes to an end. The Assyrian Empire collapses in dramatic ways between 616 and 609 CE. But empire is a shape-shifting phenomenon. So, the next empire

is just waiting to take over, and that's the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which then in turn, in 539, collapses. And what follows is the Persian Empire, with Cyrus the Great, the first king who conquers Babylon. And this lasts until 333 or 331, if you wish, when Alexander the Great, very well known to you, of course, sort of comes to the Middle East and all these different states. And then you have the Hellenistic kingdoms and so on. These states draw on the institutions the Assyrians have created, especially the idea of provincial rule. But also, for example, when you look at the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the state bureaucracy

is really modeled upon the Assyrian state bureaucracy. When you look at the Persian Empire, it's interesting that Persian art, after sort of beginning under Cyrus, where they tried to emulate Babylonian art, much more interested in following the Assyrian model again, even though the Assyrian cities must have been in pretty bad shape at the time when the Persians came to power. But the art that you find in Persepolis or Pasagardia, the great capitals of the Persian Empire, with these wall reliefs, stone wall reliefs, is much more Assyrian in spirit than Babylonian. So this spirit, this imperial spirit of Assyria lives on. And I think that is another really important point to be made. So there's a legacy of this empire that is more significant than that of others. So that's one thing I think one can say is not for debate. That's a lovely way to, as we really, really wrap up now, Eckhart, how the imperial framework of the Assyrian empire endures for so many centuries afterwards. Very, very quickly, I think this has

to be a very brief answer, but I think this is a good one to kind of nearly end off with, which is Tiglath-Pileser III. Do we know what ultimately happens to him? Does he have a nice end? Or normally they don't have very nice ends. Do we know what happened to him at the end of his reign? He dies of old age. Ah, okay, there we go. And he's followed by his son, Amaneser III,

that is his throne name. His actual name is Ululayu. And we know a little bit about the interactions between these two, which were quite harmonious. So Shamaneser III, as Crown Prince, writes about, for example, transporting ice on rafts made of inflated skins to Syrian capitals or on receiving tribute from delegations and so on. So the two are on good terms. And in this case, the succession to the next king actually seems to have worked quite without a problem. This changes

with later reigns again. And one reason for the eventual collapse of Assyria is probably the question of succession was never really fully resolved in a way. But Tiglapilesa III, happily for him, didn't have to cope with that problem. Well, Eckhart, you explain all of this in your new book, which is called, Eckhart? Assyria, the Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. Fantastic. Well, Eckhart, it's been a pleasure and it just goes me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. It was a great pleasure for me. Thank you for having me. Well, there you go. There was

Professor Eckhart Fram talking you through the rise of the Assyrians with key figures such as Tiglath-Pileser III. I hope you enjoyed the episode today. Last things for me, you know what I'm going to say, but if you've been enjoying the ancients and you want to help us out, well you know what you can do. You can leave us a lovely rating on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts from. It greatly helps us as we continue to grow the podcast to even greater heights, to share these amazing stories from our distant past with you and with as many people as possible, and also to give professors such as Eckhart, who've dedicated so many years of their lives to researching these particular areas of our

distant past, well we can give them the spotlight that their years of research, that their amazing work really does deserve. But that's enough from me. I'm Off Curling, and I'll see you in the next episode.