THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

At the height of its power (700 BC) Assyria possessed the most powerful army yet seen in the ancient world and would go on to dominate the middle east for the next three hundred years.

Expansion began in the reign of King Ashurnasirpal II (883 – 859) BC whose military campaigns conquered the peoples of Asia Minor, Syria including the powerful Aramaens and Hittite tribes along the length of the Euphrates Rivers. 

Ashurnasirpal would captured five cities in a single campaign when other warlords of the time would have regarded the capture of one as a successful conclusion to hostilities.

Ashurnasirpal II died  while on campaign and was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser III (859 - 824) BC. The new king also adopted a policy of conquest and rapid expansion . Shalamaneser’s armies defeated an alliance of northern city states at the battle of Lutibu in 858, extending his frontiers into eastern Anatolia.

Shalameneser soon followed this up with a stunning victory over the combined tribes of Israel, Damascus, Lebanon and Egypt at the battle of Qarqar in 853, expanded the empire to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, northern Egypt and the occupation of the strategic city of Petra along with the Sinai peninsula.

Following Shalameneser's death in 824 BC, multiple rebellions, civil wars and no central government lasting for an extended period of no less than seventy nine years tore the empire apart leaving only the Assyrian heartlands intact.

Assyrian Imperial fortunes were restored only when in a military coup installed King Tiglath Pileser III to the throne in 745 BC. He immediately set about restoring the former glories of Assyria by launching a five year campaign in which Syria, Asia Minor and Babylon were incorporated into his new empire.

For the next forty years an era of Assyrian supremacy within the middle east followed until Tiglath Pilesers death in 705 BC. King Sennacherib ascended the throne and violently put down a revolt by the kingdom of Babylon, he quickly followed up this success by asserting Assyrian rule into Egypt.

King Sennacherib died in 681 and the empire was immediately thrust into another sixty nine years of civil disobedience and unrest. Civil wars and a host of inept leaders all bidding for the throne destabilized the empire and weakened the Assyrian military to a point where it was no longer considered a viable fighting force.   

It wasn't until 612 BC, that a powerful coalition of states including Asia Minor, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Babylon, broke away from the empire capturing the Assyrian capital of Nineveh itself, deposing the last Assyrian King Ashur Uballit II, which effectively brought the Assyrian empire to an end.