Chronology of Assyria

The chronology of the Assyrian kingdom long exercised, and divided, the judgments of the learned. On the one hand, Ctesias and his numerous followers - including, among the ancients, Cephalion, Castor, Diodorus Siculus, Nicolas of Damascus, Trogus Pompeius, Velleius Paterculus, Josephus, Eusebius, and Moses of Chorine'; among the moderns, Freret, Rollin, and Clinton - gave the kingdom a duration of between thirteen and fourteen hundred years, and carried back its antiquity to a time almost coeval with the founding of Babylon; on the other, Herodotus, Volney, Heeren, B.G. Niebuhr, Brandis, and many others, preferred a chronology which limited the duration of the kingdom to about six centuries and a half, and places the commencement in the thirteenth century BC, when a flourishing Empire had already existed in Chaldaea, or Babylonia, for a thousand years, or more.

The duration of a single unbroken empire continuously for 1306 (or 1360) years, which is the time assigned to the Assyrian Monarchy by Ctesias, must be admitted to be a thing hard of belief, if not actually incredible. The Roman State, with all its elements of strength, had (we are told), as kingdom, commonwealth, and empire, a duration of no more than twelve centuries." The Chaldaian Monarchy lasted about a thousand years, from the time of the Elamite conquest. The duration of the Parthian was about five centuries; of the first Persian, less than two and a half;8 of the Median, at the utmost, one and a half; of the later Babylonian, less than one. There can be no doubt that a monarchy lasting about six centuries and a half, and ruled by at least two or three different dynasties, is per se a thing far more probable than one ruled by one and the same dynasty for more than thirteen centuries. The chronology of Herodotus, which is on all accounts to be preferred, assigns the commencement of the Assyrian Empire to about BC 1250, or a little earlier, and gives the monarchy a duration of nearly 650 years from that time.

The chronology of Assyria is carried back to a period nearly a century and a half anterior to BC 1300, the approximate date, according to Herodotus and Berosus, of the establishment of the "Empire." It might have been concluded, from the mere statement of Herodotus, that Assyria existed before the time of which he spoke, since ail empire can only be formed by a people already flourishing. Assyria as an independent kingdom is the natural antecedent of Assyria as an Imperial power; and this earlier phase of her existence might reasonably have been presumed from the later. The monuments furnish distinct evidence of the time in question in the fourth, fifth, and sixth kings of the above list, who reigned while the Chaldaean empire was still flourishing in Lower Mesopotamia. Chronological and other considerations induce a belief that the four kings who follow likewise belonged to it; and that the "Empire" commenced with Tiglathi-Nin L, who is the first great conqueror.

In Assyria the practice of dating documents according to the regnal years of the reigning monarchs was seldom used, by far the greater number of inscriptions being dated by the names of certain officers called by the Assyrians limmu-a word which, by general consent, is translated 'eponym.' The Assyrian limmu or eponyms were appointed according to a general rotation; and each one in succession held office for a year and gave name to that year, the usage of the Assyrians in this respect being similar to the archons at Athens and the consuls at Rome. Originally the majority of the Assyrian eponyms were governors of the principal towns and districts, and this leads to the inference that the eponyms were an institution dating from the time when Assyria consisted of a confederacy of small states, before the rise of the Assyrian Empire. This would make the eponyms very ancient, their foundation probably being as early as 2000 B. c." There were altogether about thirty functionaries, officers and governors, who held the right of being eponyms; and it is probable that when all had served their terms, the king took a second eponymy and started the series afresh.

The history of Assyria provides a nearer approach to exactness than in most others of the same antiquity, owing to the existence of two chronological documents of first-rate importance. One of these is the famous Canon of Ptolemy, which, though it is directly a Babylonian record, has important bearings on the chronology of Assyria. The other is an Assyrian Canon, discovered and edited by Sir H. Rawlinson in 1862, which gives the succession of the kings for 251 years, commencing (as in thought) BC 911 and terminating BC 660, eight years after the accession of the son and successor of Esarhaddon. These two documents, which harmonise admirably, carry up an exact Assyrian chronology almost from the close of the Empire to the tenth century BC. For the period anterior to this there are, in the Assyrian records, one or two isolated dates, dates fixed in later times with more or less of exactness; and these harmonise remarkably with the statements of Berosus and Herodotus, which place the commencement of the Empire about BC 1300, or a little later. There are, further, certain lists of kings, forming continuous lines of descent from father to son, which may fill up the blanks that would otherwise remain in a chronological scheme with approximate dates calculated from an estimate of generations.

The chronology of Berosus was, apparently, not very different from that of Herodotus. There can be no reasonable doubt that his sixth Babylonian dynasty represents the line of kings which ruled in Babylon during the period known as that of the Old Empire in Assyria. Now this line, which was Semitic, appears to have been placed upon the throne by the Assyrians, and to have been among the first results of that conquering energy which the Assyrians at this time began to develop. Its commencement should therefore synchronise with the foundation of an Assyrian Empire. The views of Berosus on this latter subject may be gathered from what he says of the former. Now the scheme of Berosus gave as the date of the establishment of this dynasty about the year BC 1300 ; and as Berosus undoubtedly placed the fall of the Assyrian Empire in BC 625, it may be concluded, and with a near approach to certainty, that he would have assigned the Empire a duration of about 675 years, making it commence with the beginning of the thirteenth century BC, and terminate midway in the latter half of the seventh.