“One
day, while [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch,
his
sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped
to the land
of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place”.
2 Kings 19:37
Tobit 1:21 collaborates this, but without naming the two regicidal sons:
“… two
of Sennacherib's sons assassinated him and then escaped to the mountains of
Ararat. Another son, Esarhaddon, became emperor and put Ahikar, my brother
Anael's son, in charge of all the financial affairs of the empire”.
Tobit 1:21
As far as I (Damien Mackey) am
aware, “Sharezer” has not yet been positively identified.
Emil G. Kraeling thinks that: “Sharezer
was probably not a son” (“The
Death of Sennacherib”, Jstor 53, No.
4, December, 1933, cf. note 32).
Thanks to professor Simo Parpola,
“Adrammelech” has been identified as one of Sennacherib’s known sons: http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/introduction/murderersennacherib.htm
THE MURDERER OF
SENNACHERIB
The
news of the murder of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, on 20 Tebet, 681, was
received with mixed feelings but certainly with strong emotion alI over the
ancient Near East. In Israel and Babylonia, it was hailed as godsent
punishment for the "godless" deeds of a hated despot; in Assyria,
the reaction must have been overwhelmingly horror and resentment. Not
surprisingly, then, the event is relatively well reported or referred to in
contemporary and later sources, both cuneiform and non-cuneiform, and has
been the subject of considerable scholar]y debate as well. In spite of all
this attention, however, the most central thing about the whole affair has
remained an open question: the identity of the murderer.
While alI our sources agree that he was one of the king's own sons, his name js not known from any cunciform text, and the names offered by the Bible and Berossus, alI of them evidently textually corrupt, have not been satisfactorily explained and are accordingly looked at with understandable suspicion. A theory favored in the early days of Assyriology, according to which these names should be viewed as corruptions of Ardior Arad-Ninlil. a son of Scnnacherib known from a contemporary legal document, has gradually had to give way to an entirely different interpretatjon, according to which the murderer (or at least the mastermind behind the murder) was none but Sennacherib's heir-designate and successor to throne himself, Esarhaddon, who would have been forced to engineer the assassination in order to avoid being replaced by one of his brothers. The weakness of this theory is that it is in disagreement not only with Esarhaddon's own account of the course of events, which puts the blame on his brothers, but also with the traditions of the Bible and Berossus; it also involves a lot of reading between the lines. For these reasons, it has not been universally accepted either, and the case is largely viewed as unsolved for lack of clear-cut, conclusive evidence.
In this
paper I hope to show that the available evidence is not at alI so elusive as
is commonly thought, and actually suffices for determining the identity of
the assassin with reasonable certainty. There is a Neo-Babylonian letter,
published decades ago, which explicitly states the name of the murderer, and
this name is not only known to have been borne by a son of Sennacherib but it
also virtuaIIy agrees with the name forms found in the Bible and at Berossus.
The text in question, R. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters (=ABL) XI
no.1091 (Chicago 1911), has escaped attention because it was completely
misunderstood and mistranslated by its editor, Leroy Waterman; the name has
remained unidentified because its actual pronunciation has been obscured by
its misleading logographic speIIing. In what foIIows, I shaII analyse both
the letter and the name in detail and finaIIy integrate tile new evidence
with the previously known facts in a brief reassessment of the murder and its
prehistory.
The
beginning of ABL 1091 is lost. The first three extant lines are fragmentary,
but sufficiently much of them remains to suggest that they referred to
certain "Babylonian brothers'. of the writer (or writers).lu From line
4' on the text can be foIIowed better. The persons just mentioned gain knowledge
of a "treaty of rebeIIion", and subsequently one of them requests
an audience with the king. The expression for this is "to say the king's
word" which, as shown by J. N. Postgate years ago.l It implies that the
person in question applied to the king as the supreme judge and should
consequently have been sent directly to the Palace.
This, however, is not what happens in the present case. Two Assyrian officials appear and question the man. Having found whom his appeal concerns, they cover his face and take him away. This, in itself. is perhaps not significant, for ordinary people were not permitted to look at the king face to face. But what foIIows is startling. The man is not taken to the king but to Arad-Ninlil, the very person he wanted to talk about, and (his face stiII covered) is ordered to speak out. Clearly under the i]lusion that he is speaking to the king, he subsequently dec]ares: "Your son AradNinlil is going to kiII you. " Things now take a drastic course.
The
face of the man is uncovered: he is interrogated by Arad-Ninlil: and after
that he is put to death along with his comrades mentioned in the beginning of
the letter. The remaining seven lines are too fragmentary to be properly
understood.
To
bring home the significance of this letter, let me put together some basic
facts. The first is that it was clearly the "treaty of rebellion"
mentioned at the beginning of the text that induced the unfortunate man to
appeal to the king; second, that his information concerned Arad-Ninlil; and
third, that because of this information, he and alI his comrades knowing
about the "treaty of rebellion " instantly got killed. Accordingly,
we may conclude that the assertion "Your son Arad-Ninlil will kill
you" was something Arad-Ninlil did not want to become publicly known;
and since this statement was meant for the ears of the king, it is evident
(1) that the person Arad-Ninlil intended to kill was the king himself and (2)
that Arad-Ninlil himself was the king's own son. It follows that AradNinlil
was involved in a conspiracy aiming at the murder of the king, and quite
obviously was the leading figure in it.
Nowhere in the letter is the name Arad-Ninlil preserved completely; the last sign LÍL is broken away or damaged in alI instances. But no other Sargonid prince with a name beginning with the sign ARAD is known, so the restoration of the final element can be regarded as certain. Since Arad-Ninlil is only attested as a son of Sennacherib, the king referred to in the text can only be Sennacherib.
On the
other hand. it is clear that the letter itself cannot have been addressed to
Sennacherib. Had the writer wanted to warn the king of a threatening
assassination, he would have expressed himself differently. Hence, one must
conclude that the letter was written after the murder had already taken
place, and therefore probably was addressed to Esarhaddon. As this king must.
from the beginning, have been reasonably well informed about his father's
murder, it would be absurd to assume that the purpose of the writer was
simply to inform the king about the identity of the murderer. His aim was
certainly different. If we consider the text more closely. it is easy to see
that the writer took the leading role of Arad-Ninlil in the conspiracy as
generally known: but what he is trying to make clear is that the two
officials mentioned in the letter were responsible for the death of the
informer and therefore by implication also involved in the conspiracy.Both
men. Nabu-sum-iskun and Sillâ. are w.ell known as officials of Sennacherib
who continued in their offices through the early years of Esarhaddon: the
Kuyunjik letter archiye contains many denunciations against the latter. The
present letter clearly is in the same category. and by using as an argument
against Sillâ his role in silencing the informer, it actually implies that
the prediction "your son Arad-Ninlil will kill you" had become a
fact meanwhile.
Thus,
the letter just discussed powerfully supports the position of the scholars
who have seen in Arad-Ninlil the likeliest candidate for the murderer of
Sennacherib. and in fact makes it a matter of yirtual certainty. We may hence
pass on to a serious reconsideration of the problem of how to satisfactorily
relate the name Arad-Ninlil to the names of the murderer (Adrammelech/Adramelos/Ardumuzan)
given in the Bible and the BerossuS excerpts.
Actually,
there is hardly any problem here at all. We are now in a position to show
that the traditional reading of the (logographically spelled) Assyrian name,
on which the earlier comparisons were based (and which has also been used
here for convenience) is incorrect and should be abolished. In particular,
the theophoric element at the end of the name (d-NIN.LÍL) has to be read
[Mulissu] or [Mullêsu], not *Ninlil. This reading, first tentatively
suggested by E. Reiner twelve years ago and since then increasingly well
documented, represents the Neo-Assyrian form of the Akkadian name of the
goddess Ninlil, attested as Mulliltum in an Old-Babylonian god list. It
appears to have been very wide-spread in the first millennium, and is
actually attested in syllabic spellings of the very name under consideration.
On the other hand, the reading of the first element (ARAD) can be determined
as [ arda] or [ ardi] on the basis of occasional syllabic spellings in
contemporary and earlier Assyrian texts. And once the reading Arda-Mulissi
has been established, the names of the murderer found in the non-cuneiform
sources become relatively easy to explain. The Biblical Adrammelech differs
from the Assyrian name only in two respects: the metathesis or r and d, and
the replacement of shin at the end of the name by kaph.
The
former point is negligible since r and d were virtually homographic and
therefore easy to confuse in early Hebrew and Aramaic script;26 the second
can be explained as a scribal error. It is not difficult to imagine a scribe
correcting a seemingly nonsensical "meles" to "melek", a
frequent final element in North-West Semitic personal names. The Berossian
name forms show an even better match. The form Adramelos found in the
Abydenos excerpt is virtually identical with Arda-Mulissi save for the
already discussed metathesis of r and d (which may have been influenced by
the familiarity of Eusebius with the Biblical form). The name Ardumuzan agrees
with Arda-Mulissi up to its last syllable which can only be due to textual
corruption. It is important to note that in this name, the metathesis of r
and d does not take place.
In sum,
it can be stated that all three names can be relatively easily traced back to
Arda-Mulissi; and "then one comes to think about it. it would be very
hard if not impossible to find another Assyrian name "which could
provide as satisfactory an explanation for them as this one does. The
identification of Arad-Ninliu Arda-Mulissi as the murderer of Sennacherib can
thus be considered doubly assured. But "what were his motives, and how
did he end up doing what he did? My reconstruction of the course of events is
as follows:
In 694, Sennacherib eldest son and heir-designate Assur-nãdin-sumi is captured by Babylonians and carried off to Elam; he is no more heard of. The second-eldest son, Arda-Mulissi, now has every reason to expect to be the next crown prince; however, he is outmaneuvered from this position in favor of Esarhaddon, another son of Sennacherib. This one is younger than Arda-Mulissi but becomes the favorite son of Sennacherib thanks to his mother Naqia, who is not the mother of ArdaMulissi. Eventually, Esarhaddon is officially proclaimed crown prince, and all Assyria is made to swear allegiance to him. However, ArdaMulissi enjoys considerable popularity among certain circles who would like to see him as their future king rather than sickly Esarhaddon. As years pass, the opposition to Esarhaddon grows, while at the same time Arda-Mulissi and his brother(s) gain in popularity. This political development leads to a turn of events, but not to the one hoped for by ArdaMulissi and his supporters. Foreseeing trouble, Sennacherib sends Esarhaddon away from the capital to the western provinces; yet he does not revise the order of succession. In this situation, Arda-Mulissi and his borther(s) soon find themselves in a stalemate. On the one hand, they are at their political zenith while their rival brother has to languish in exile; on the other hand, the latter remains the crown prince, and there is nothing his brothers can do about it since the position of Sennacherib remains unchanged and Esarhaddon himself is out of reach in the provinces. Supposing he were able to score military victories, his popularity would undoubtedly rise while that of his brothers might easily start to sink. The only way for them to make good of the situation, it seems, is to act swiftly and take over the kingship by force. A "treaty of rebellion" is concluded; and probably not much later, Sennacherib is stabbed to death by Arda-Mulissi or, perhaps, crushed alive under a winged bull colossus guarding the temple where he had been praying at the time of the murder. This reconstruction closely follows Esarhaddon's own account of the events. and similar interpretations have been presented earlier by others. |
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