Part 10 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, CANAAN as Divided among THE TRIBES]
REIGN OF SOLOMON, ABOUT 955-925 B.C.
The reign of Solomon, the son and successor of David, was the most splendid period in Hebrew history. His kingdom stretched from the Red Sea and the peninsula of Sinai northward to the Lebanon Mountains and the Euphrates. With the surrounding peoples Solomon was on terms of friends.h.i.+p and alliance. He married an Egyptian princess, a daughter of the reigning Pharaoh. He joined with Hiram, king of Tyre, in trading expeditions on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The same Phoenician monarch supplied him with the ”cedars of Lebanon,” with which he erected at Jerusalem a famous temple for the wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah. A great builder, a wise administrator and governor, Solomon takes his place as a typical Oriental despot, the most powerful monarch of the age.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A PHOENICIAN WAR GALLEY From a slab found at Nineveh in the palace of the a.s.syrian king, Sennacherib. The vessel shown is a bireme with two decks. On the upper deck are soldiers with their s.h.i.+elds hanging over the side. The oarsmen sit on the lower deck, eight at each side. The crab catching the fish is a humorous touch.]
SECESSION OF THE TEN TRIBES, ABOUT 925 B.C.
But the political greatness of the Hebrews was not destined to endure. The people were not ready to bear the burdens of empire. They objected to the standing army, to the forced labor on public buildings, and especially to the heavy taxes. The ten northern tribes seceded shortly after Solomon's death and established the independent kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Samaria. The two southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin, formed the kingdom of Judea, and remained loyal to the successors of Solomon.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, SOLOMON'S KINGDOM]
DECLINE OF THE HEBREW POWER
The two small Hebrew kingdoms could not resist their powerful neighbors.
About two centuries after the secession of the Ten Tribes, the a.s.syrians overran Israel. Judea was subsequently conquered by the Babylonians. Both countries in the end became a part of the Persian Empire.
11. THE a.s.sYRIANS
GREATNESS OF a.s.sYRIA, 745-626 B.C.
a.s.syria, lying east of the Tigris River, was colonized at an early date by emigrants from Babylonia. After the a.s.syrians freed themselves from Babylonian control, they entered upon a series of sweeping conquests.
Every Asiatic state felt their heavy hand. The a.s.syrian kings created a huge empire stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean, and the Nile. For the first time in Oriental history Mesopotamia and Egypt, with the intervening territory, were brought under one government.
CHARACTER OF a.s.sYRIAN RULE
This unification of the Orient was accomplished only at a fearful cost.
The records of a.s.syria are full of terrible deeds--of towns and cities without number given to the flames, of the devastation of fertile fields and orchards, of the slaughter of men, women, and children, of the enslavement of entire nations. a.s.syrian monarchs, in numerous inscriptions, boast of the wreck and ruin they brought to many flouris.h.i.+ng lands.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN a.s.sYRIAN From a Nineveh bas-relief. The original is colored.]
SARGON II, 722-705 B.C.
The treatment of conquered peoples by the a.s.syrian rulers is well ill.u.s.trated by their dealings with the Hebrews. One of the mightiest monarchs was an usurper, who ascended the throne as Sargon II. Shortly after his succession he turned his attention to the kingdom of Israel, which had revolted. Sargon in punishment took its capital city of Samaria (722 B.C.) and led away many thousands of the leading citizens into a lifelong captivity in distant a.s.syria. The Ten Tribes mingled with the population of that region and henceforth disappeared from history.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ANCIENT ORIENTAL EMPIRES Map, THE a.s.sYRIAN EMPIRE about 660 B.C.
Map, LYDIA, MEDIA, BABYLONIA and EGYPT about 550 B.C.]
SENNACHERIB, 705-681 B.C.
Sargon's son, Sennacherib, though not the greatest, is the best known of a.s.syrian kings. His name is familiar from the many references to him in Old Testament writings. An inscription by Sennacherib describes an expedition against Hezekiah, king of Judea, who was shut up ”like a caged bird in his royal city of Jerusalem.” Sennacherib, however, did not capture the place. His troops were swept away by a pestilence. The ancient Hebrew writer conceives it as the visitation of a destroying angel: ”It came to pa.s.s that night that the angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the a.s.syrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.” [11]
So Sennacherib departed, and returned with a shattered army to Nineveh, his capital.
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