Shamash-shum-ukin

Confirmation by Shamash-shum-ukin of a grant originally made by Ashur-nadin-shumi. 670–650 BC. Exhibited in the British Museum.

After Esarhaddon's death in late 669 BC, Ashurbanipal became the Assyrian king as per Esarhaddon's succession plans. In the spring of the next year, Shamash-shum-ukin was inaugurated as the king of Babylon and returned the Statue of Marduk, Babylon's chief deity, to the city, stolen by his grandfather King Sennacherib twenty years prior.[16] The return of the statue was particularly important as it in the eyes of the Babylonians cemented Marduk's approval of the new king's rule.[17] Though Samash-shum-ukin, an Assyrian prince, being installed as the king of Babylon was in a way an embodiment of Assyrian hegemony, Shamash-shum-ukin's coronation ceremony (parallelling that of Ashurbanipal) and the return of the Statue of Marduk were efforts made to portray him as an independent king of Babylon.[18] Samash-shum-ukin was the only member of the Assyrian royal family to accede to the Babylonian throne and intentionally never to the Assyrian one. The only other Sargonid prince who ruled Babylon and not Assyria was Shamash-shum-ukin's uncle Ashur-nadin-shumi, though he had been the crown prince of Sennacherib and the intended successor in Assyria as well.[14] Though Ashurbanipal, as king of Assyria, was more powerful, Shamash-shum-ukin's kingship of Babylon, important to the Assyrians for military, political, religious and ideological reasons, was prestigious in its own right.[19]

Shamash-shum-ukin would rule at Babylon for sixteen years, apparently mostly peacefully in regards to his younger brother, but there would be repeated disagreements on the exact extent of his control.[16] Although Esarhaddon's inscriptions suggest that Shamash-shum-ukin should have been granted the entirety of Babylonia to rule, contemporary records only definitely prove that Shamash-shum-ukin held Babylon itself and its vicinity. The governors of some Babylonian cities, such as Nippur, Uruk and Ur, and the rulers in the Sea Land, all ignored the existence of a king in Babylon and saw Ashurbanipal as their monarch.[20]

Shamash-shum-ukin is recorded as having participated in several traditional Babylonian royal activities. He rebuilt the walls of the city Sippar and is known to have participated in the Babylonian New Year's festival,[20] which had been suspended during the time that the god's statue was absent from the city.[17] He gave considerable attention to the temples of his domain, confirming offerings in several temples in his inscriptions and increasing the land of the Ishtar temple in Uruk.[21] Shamash-shum-ukin was ethnically and culturally Assyrian, but appears to have assimilated well into Babylonia. His royal inscriptions are far more "quintessentially Babylonian" than those of other Assyrian rulers of southern Mesopotamia, using Babylonian imagery and rhetoric to an unprecedented extent,[14] almost as if overriding his actual cultural and ethnic origin as an Assyrian.[22] Though he was in Assyria at some points, such as when he returned the Marduk statue and on one occasion when he was feeling sick, Shamash-shum-ukin was presumably the first of the rulers of the Sargonid dynasty to live in the city full-time.[23] Throughout his Babylonian reign, Shamash-shum-ukin partook in several building projects, an important aspect of Babylonian kingship to the same degree as military campaigns were important in Assyrian kingship.[24] He is recorded as restoring shrines in several cities and as rebuilding the city wall of Sippar.[17]

Despite his kingship having been designated by Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal refers to himself in his inscriptions as the man who granted Shamash-shum-ukin rule over Babylon. This is possibly due to Shamash-shum-ukin only being formally crowned as king a few months after Ashurbanipal had become the Assyrian monarch and that it would have been within Ashurbanipal's power to stop his coronation.[25]

Locations of some major Mesopotamian cities.

The exact reasons for Samash-shum-ukin's revolt against Ashurbanipal are unknown, but there are several possibilities. Perhaps the most commonly believed reason is that although Esarhaddon had designated Shamash-shum-ukin to inherit control of all of Babylonia, this had not been respected by Ashurbanipal once Esarhaddon was dead. Although business documents from Shamash-shum-ukin are known throughout Babylonia (suggesting that most of the region saw him as their king), similar documents dated to the reign of Ashurbanipal are also known from Babylonia, which suggests that Ashurbanipal had assumed the authority of a Babylonian monarch despite there already being a king in Babylon.[26]

The cities Babylon, Dilbat, Borsippa and Sippar all lack business documents from Ashurbanipal, suggesting that these cities were firmly under Shamash-shum-ukin's rule, but Ashurbanipal had agents throughout the south that reported directly to him (not to Shamash-shum-ukin) and inscriptions suggest that any orders Shamash-shum-ukin gave to his subjects first had to be verified and approved by Ashurbanipal before they could be carried out.[27] Ashurbanipal had a permanent garrison of troops and officials stationed at Borsippa, a city which would have been deep inside Shamash-shum-ukin's domain.[28] There are also preserved petitions sent by officials in Babylon directly to Ashurbanipal. Had Shamash-shum-ukin been the universally respected sovereign of Babylon, he would probably have been the receiver of such letters.[29]

Royal records from Babylonia during the time of peaceful coexistence between Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin mention the names of both monarchs, but contemporary documents from Assyria only mention Ashurbanipal, reinforcing that the two kings were not equal in status. Kudurru, who was the governor of Uruk, addressed Ashurbanipal in his letters with the title "king of the Lands", despite Uruk being located in Babylonia, indicating that Kudurru saw Ashurbanipal, and not Shamash-shum-ukin, as his overlord.[30] Shamash-shum-ukin himself seems to have seen himself as Ashurbanipal's equal, simply addressing him as "my brother" in his letters (unlike how he addressed his father Esarhaddon, "the king, my father"). Although there are several letters preserved from Shamash-shum-ukin to Ashurbanipal, there are no known replies preserved. It is possible that Ashurbanipal, on account of his network of informers, did not feel a need to write to his brother.[25]

Babylonian prisoners under Assyrian guard, reign of Ashurbanipal 668-630 BC, Nineveh. Exhibited in the British Museum.

By the 650s BC, the hostility between Shamash-shum-ukin and Ashurbanipal had grown. A letter from Zakir, a courtier at Shamash-shum-ukin's court, to Ashurbanipal described how visitors from the Sea Land had publicly criticized Ashurbanipal in front of Shamash-shum-ukin, using the phrase "this is not the word of a king!". Zakir reported that though Shamash-shum-ukin was angered, he and his governor of Babylon, Ubaru, chose to not take action against the visitors.[31] Perhaps the most important factors behind Shamash-shum-ukin's revolt was his dissatisfaction with his position relative to that of his brother, the constant resentment of Assyria in general by the Babylonians and the constant willingness of the ruler of Elam to join anyone who waged war against Assyria.[32]

Shamash-shum-ukin rebelled against Ashurbanipal in 652 BC.[33] This civil war would last for three years.[16] The rebellion was not an attempt to claim the Assyrian throne, but rather an attempt at securing the independence of Babylonia.[22] Inscription evidence suggests that Shamash-shum-ukin addressed the citizens of Babylon to join him in his revolt. In Ashurbanipal's inscriptions, Shamash-shum-ukin is quoted to have said "Ashurbanipal will cover with shame the name of the Babylonians", which Ashurbanipal refers to as "wind" and "lies". Soon after Shamash-shum-ukin began his revolt, the rest of southern Mesopotamia rose up against Ashurbanipal alongside him.[34] Early in the war, Ashurbanipal tried to get various local governors in the south to join his side instead, writing to them in hopes that some of them might be interested in de-escalating the war. In these letters, Ashurbanipal never refers to Shamash-shum-ukin by name, instead calling him lā aḫu ("no-brother"). In many inscriptions, Shamash-shum-ukin is simply identified as the "unfaithful brother", "enemy brother" or just "the enemy".[35] In some of the letters Ashurbanipal referred to him as "this man whom Marduk hates" in an effort to undermine his legitimacy as a Babylonian king.[17]

According to the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal, Shamash-shum-ukin was very successful in finding allies against the Assyrians. Ashurbanipal identifies three groups which aided his brother, first and foremost there were the Chaldeans, Arameans and the other peoples of Babylonia, then there were the Elamites and lastly the kings of Gutium, Amurru and Meluhha. This last group of kings might refer to the Medes (as Gutium, Amurru and Meluhha no longer existed at this point) but this is uncertain. Meluhha might have referred to Egypt, which did not aid Shamash-shum-ukin in the war. Shamash-shum-ukin's ambassadors to the Elamites had offered gifts (called "bribes" by Ashurbanipal) and their king sent an army under the command of an Elamite prince to aid in the conflict.[36]

Despite the coalition of Assyrian enemies he had assembled, Shamash-shum-ukin's revolt would be unsuccessful. The Elamites, his primary ally, were defeated near Der and ceased to play a role in the conflict.[37] By 650 BC Shamash-shum-ukin's situation looked grim, with Ashubanipal's forces having besieged Sippar, Borsippa, Kutha and Babylon itself. Having endured starvation and disease over the course of the siege, Babylon finally fell in 648 BC and was plundered by Ashurbanipal.[38] One of Shamash-shum-ukin's recorded prayers records his despair in the final stages of the war:

I moan like a dove night and day; I bemoan myself, I weep bitterly; Tears are forced from my eyes.[39]

Shamash-shum-ukin is traditionally believed by historians to have committed suicide by setting himself on fire in his palace,[38] but contemporary texts only say that he "met a cruel death" and that the gods "consigned him to a fire and destroyed his life". In addition to suicide though self-immolation or other means, it is possible that he was executed, died accidentally or was killed in some other way.[40] Most of the accounts of his death state that it involved fire in some capacity, but do not give more elaborate details.[41] The gods are typically identified as playing a part (perhaps burning him away with fire themselves) due to Shamash-shum-ukin's war against Ashurbanipal also being framed by Ashurbanipal as impious.[42] If Shamash-shum-ukin was executed, it would be logical for the Assyrian scribes to leave this out of historical records since fratricide (killing a brother) was illegal and even if a soldier (and not Ashurbanipal) had carried it out, it would still constitute a murder of a member of the Assyrian royal family.[43] Had a soldier killed Shamash-shum-ukin, he might very well have been executed himself.[42] After Shamash-shum-ukin's death, Ashubanipal placed one of his officials, Kandalanu, on the Babylonian throne as his vassal.[38]

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• Radner, Karen (2003). "The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC". ISIMU: Revista sobre Oriente Próximo y Egipto en la antigüedad. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. 6: 165–183.
• Teppo, Saana (2007). "Agency and the Neo-Assyrian Women of the Palace". Studia Orientalia Electronica. 101: 381–420.
• Zaia, Shana (2019). "My Brother's Keeper: Assurbanipal versus Šamaš-šuma-ukīn" (PDF). Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History. 6 (1): 19–52. doi:10.1515/janeh-2018-2001. S2CID 165318561.
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• "Ashurbanipal". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 November 2019.