• DOI:10.2307/601858
• Corpus ID: 154963686

Through a Glass Darkly Esarhaddon's Retrospects on the Downfall of Babylon

@article{Brinkman1983ThroughAG,
  title={Through a Glass Darkly Esarhaddon's Retrospects on the Downfall of Babylon},
  author={John A. Brinkman},
  journal={Journal of the American Oriental Society},
  year={1983},
  volume={103},
  pages={35}
}

• J. Brinkman
• Published 1983
• History
• Journal of the American Oriental Society

THE READER OF ESARHADDON's BABYLON INSCRIPTIONS is inevitably struck by a curious omission: the downfall of the city is recounted without reference to its harsh destruction by the Assyrian army ten years earlier. (This is roughly comparable to an historical account of the final days of World War II in the Pacific neglecting to mention use of atomic weaponry.) Esarhaddon's texts deal in detail with the disastrous fate of the old capital; but they lay the blame on a natural cataclysm, a severe flood. This blatant revisionism for recent history seems singularly futile: after the passage of only ten years very few adult inhabitants of Mesopotamia were likely to have forgotten the ruthless decimation of Babylon by Esarhaddon's father. Yet these texts were found mostly at Babylon (where memories would be sharpest) in connection with Esarhaddon's repair of his father's ravages. What purpose would such drastic rewriting be expected to serve? To appreciate the ideological background implied by this question, we should try to understand the concrete historical circumstances and the issues of policy involved. Esarhaddon came to the throne at the end of 681, in a time of turmoil following his father's assassination.' Sennacherib, for the greater part of his reign, had been preoccupied by Babylonia and the political problems it posed.2 He had conducted several lengthy and costly campaigns against Babylonia and its Elamite allies,3 had lost his eldest son to BabylonianElamite machinations, and had finally captured and destroyed Babylon after a protracted siege. Though de facto monarch of Babylonia for ten of his twenty-four years on the Assyrian throne, he seems never to have formally acknowledged this role: in contrast to his predecessor and his two successors he did not authorize the use of Babylonian royal titles in his titulary.4 He not only distanced himself ideologically from the southern kingdom, but he eventually allowed the land around Babylon itself to become derelict and depopu-