Tiglath-pileser III

Neo-Assyrian emperor (r. 745-727 b.c.e.)

• Born: Early eighth century b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Kahlu(?), Assyria (now Nimrud, Iraq)
• Died: 727 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Babylonia (now in Iraq)

Tiglath-pileser III was the founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. His achievements as both a warrior and an administrator reversed a forty-year decline experienced by Assyria and established that nation’s control over a region spanning from beyond Babylonia to the border of Egypt.

Early Life

Nothing is known of the early life of Tiglath-pileser III (TIHG-lath-pihl-ay-sehr). Certainly, he benefited from a revolt that erupted in 745 b.c.e. in the Assyrian royal residential city of Kahlu (now Nimrud). The revolt was doubtless stimulated by popular dissatisfaction with the previous regime and the failure of its kings to reassert Assyrian hegemony over those western territories that had lately fallen under the control of the kingdom of Urartu. The Assyrian problem with Urartu had grown increasingly dire: Except for a brief resurgence of Assyrian power under Adad-nirari III (809-783 b.c.e.)—who was not able to hold the West—the fortunes of the empire had waned through the successive reigns of that monarch’s three sons. By 745, the year of the revolt that brought Tiglath-pileser to power, Assyrian influence had so eroded that the nation verged on losing its autonomy to Sarduri III, king of Urartu. Where Tiglath-pileser’s predecessors had failed, however, he was soon to succeed.

Although the new king seems likely to have been a usurper, his lineage remains mysterious. On one hand, the Assyrian king list implies he was not royal, because the list stops with the reign of Adad-nirari III’s third ruling son, Ashur-nirari V (755-745 b.c.e.), even though the document itself dates from 738 b.c.e., long after Tiglath-pileser III began to rule. On the other hand, the possibility that Tiglath-pileser came from royal blood is suggested by a later copy of that same document that names Tiglath-pileser as the son of his predecessor. Whatever his paternity, after 745 Tiglath-pileser held power over the troubled kingdom of Assyria. Indeed, and contrary to Assyrian royal tradition, he claimed his predecessor’s last regnal year as the first year of his own regime.

The Assyrian spelling of the name Tiglath-pileser was Tulkulti-Apil-Esharra, but the biblical writers knew the Assyrian monarch as Tiglath-pileser (Hebrew tiglat pil’eser; 2 Kings 15:29; 16:7, 10) or as Tiglath-pilneser (Hebrew tiglat pilne’eser; 1 Chronicles 5:6, 26; 2 Chronicles 28:20), Hebraized versions of the Assyrian name. Tiglath-pileser III is also remembered in the Hebrew scriptures as Pul (2 Kings 15:19; 1 Chronicles 5:26) which, in turn, reflects his Babylonian throne name, Pulu. The latter may be an abbreviation for the element apil in his name, or it may simply be his nickname. In any case, the name Pul serves as an appropriate referent for the relentless empire-builder, for Pul (Assyrian pulu/pilu) means “limestone block.”

Life’s Work

On seizing the throne, Tiglath-pileser III marched the Assyrian army southeast as far as the Karkheh River in order to relieve the beleaguered Babylonian king Nabu-nasir (best known as Nabonassar). His purpose, evidently, was to support this vassal king and thus secure his own eastern borders. In so doing, however, he campaigned extensively in territories nominally controlled by Babylonia, even implying suzerainty over Babylonia by assuming the ancient titles of King of Sumer and King of Arad. Nevertheless, Tiglath-pileser did not interfere with the governance of Babylonia until after the death of Nabu-nasir in 734 and the subsequent murder of that monarch’s son and heir.

His eastern front secure, Tiglath-pileser turned his attention to the west. In 743 he attacked Mati’-ilu, who was, simultaneously, the king of Arpad, the leader of a league of Neo-Hittite and Aramaean princes, and a vassal of the king of Urartu. The latter monarch, Sarduri III, came to assist Mati’-ilu against the Assyrians but was crushingly defeated and forced to flee the vicinity by night on the back of a mare. Nevertheless, the fortified city of Arpad managed to resist siege for three years before finally falling in 741. Arpad immediately became the capital of a newly created Assyrian province.

The details of the next several years are difficult to reconstruct owing to the fragmentary and sometimes contradictory nature of the inscriptions. Evidently, while the siege of Arpad was still under way, Tiglath-pileser pushed farther west and accepted the surrender of a number of smaller kingdoms, thus bringing northwestern Syria and probably Phoenicia under Assyrian hegemony. Several petty monarchs of the region brought Tiglath-pileser tribute in 740, including Ethbaal of Tyre, Rasunu (Rezin) of Damascus, and Menahem of Samaria (2 Kings 15:19-20).

In 739 Tiglath-pileser directed the Assyrian army against Ullubu, located on the upper Tigris River. That campaign was followed by the 738 defeat of the neo-Hittite state of Unqi. The resulting new Assyrian province Kullana (biblical Calneh) took its name from the fallen Unqi capital city.

In 738 Tiglath-pileser was still in the west, combating a coalition of smaller kingdoms led by one Azriyau, king of Yaudi. The identity of Azriyau and his nation remain controverted. The early suggestion that Azriyau was the king of Samal gave way to an identification of Azriyau with Uzziah, king of Judah. Others regard the circumstances whereby the aged Judaean king could have been involved in an affair in central Syria at this time as improbable, averring instead that Azriyau was an otherwise unattested king of either Hamath or Hadrach. Whatever the solution to this puzzle may be, it is certain that Azriyau was not successful in withstanding Assyrian might, and the western kings once again offered tribute to the Assyrian emperor.

Turning his attention toward the east once more in 737 and 736, Tiglath-pileser brought most of the region of the central Zagros mountains into Assyrian control and even launched an expedition that penetrated Mede territory as far south as Mount Bikni (best known as Mount Demavend) and to the so-called salt desert located southwest of Teheran. It was probably in 735 that he attacked Urartu’s capital, Tushpa, apparently without success.

The order of the campaigns of 734-732 remains difficult to determine. Apparently, in 734 Tiglath-pileser returned his armies to the Mediterranean coast, where he found Tyre and Sidon rankled under Assyrian-imposed restrictions on timber exports while the Philistine rulers of Gaza and Ashkelon led a growing anti-Assyrian coalition. Resistance by these rebellious states proved futile. Tiglath-pileser had no difficulty in killing the prince of Ashkelon while “the man of Gaza” escaped to Egypt. Continuing his southern push, Tiglath-pileser stopped only on reaching the Wadi al-’Arīsh, which formed the Egyptian border, where he erected a monument. During this same campaign, most of the western kingdoms surrendered to Assyria. Kings of Amen, Edom, Moab, and Judah, as well as Shamshi, queen of the Arabs, signaled their subjugation through tribute and gifts.

The fidelity of the western vassal states was short-lived. Soon after the Assyrians returned to their homeland in 734, a new anti-Assyrian coalition emerged. This alliance included Rezin of Aram, Pekah of Israel, Hanun of Gaza, Hiram of Tyre, and Shamshi, queen of the Arabs. Rezin and Pekah attacked Ahaz and Jerusalem (the so-called Syro-Ephramitic War), probably because Ahaz would not cooperate with the coalition’s resistance to Assyria. Ahaz, in turn, sent gift-laden emissaries to Tiglath-pileser, asking for assistance and protection (2 Kings 16:5-9).

The Assyrian’s response was robust and devastating. The army of Assyria marched again in 733-732. Early in this latest campaign, portions of Aram were taken, and Rezin was besieged in Damascus, while Shamshi’s Arabs and a number of nomadic tribes surrendered. Israelite possessions in the Transjordan were conquered, and the residents of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh were deported (2 Kings 15:29; 1 Chronicles 5:6, 22, 25-26). By 732, Tiglath-pileser had completed the conquest of Aram and Israel. Damascus fell, Rezin was executed, and Tiglath-pileser divided Aram into four provinces (2 Kings 16:9). As punishment for Israel’s part in the resistance, Tiglath-pileser conquered Galilee and emptied the region of its citizens (2 Kings 15:29). He doubtless also conquered all major Israelite cities except Samaria, leaving the latter as the capital of a rump state, now headed by the pro-Assyrian Hoshea (2 Kings 15:30), whom Tiglath-pileser claimed he put on the throne.

Meanwhile, affairs in Babylon drew Tiglath-pileser’s attention to the east. Nabu-nasir had died in 734, and his son was soon thereafter killed in the first of a series of coups d’état. In 731 an Aramaean chieftain Ukin-zer claimed the Babylonian throne. When diplomatic efforts by Tiglath-pileser’s ambassadors failed to remove Ukin-zer, the emperor resolved the matter militarily. Ukin-zer and his son were executed and, in 729 (and again in 728) Tiglath-pileser ritually “took the hands of [the statue of] Bel” (the god Marduk) and was thereby proclaimed king of Babylon under the name of Pulu. Not all Babylonians were happy with the dual monarchy. The Chaldean sheikh Merodachbaladan led a resistance that plagued Tiglath-pileser for what little time remained of his life. The Assyrian monarch died the following year.

Significance

Tiglath-pileser established Assyrian dominance over a territory that extended from the Persian Gulf to the border of Egypt. For well more than a century Assyrian monarchs were able to maintain control of this vast empire, in large measure because of Tiglath-pileser’s administrative innovations. Royal authority was strengthened by circumscribing the authority of vassal kings and governors through a deliberate reduction in the size and a corresponding increase in the number of districts in Assyria. Likewise, countries annexed to Assyria were constrained to heed royal control: Vassal kings who submitted to Assyrian authority, as did Ahaz of Judah, were allowed to remain on their thrones. Those who resisted were conquered and their territories routinely converted to Assyrian provinces, administered by a district lord or governor responsible to the king.

Tiglath-pileser’s practice of deportations also discouraged rebellion. He did not invent the tactic, but the monarch did distinguish himself in terms of the size and character of deportations under his reign. Following the conquest of Galilee, for example, the Assyrian’s Annals report a deportation of 13,520 prisoners out of a population recently estimated to have numbered only 18,000. Another year, 154,000 were displaced in southern Mesopotamia. Although the deportees were typically well treated and “counted among the people of Assyria” (as citizens and not slaves), they were transferred to a distant part of the empire. Thus, deportation effectively discouraged any rebellion based on devotion to native territories, traditions, or deities, even as it made the displaced population dependent on the central government. Moreover, the practice served to populate remote districts and to provide Assyria with laborers, craftsmen, and soldiers. Tiglath-pileser’s success in this quarter would later inspire Babylonian policy.

Tiglath-pileser served the vast administrative demands of the expanding empire through the development of a new and efficient system of communication. Ordinary messengers, special runners, or personal representatives of the monarch relayed messages between the king and his governors.

Finally, in contrast to his predecessors, Tiglath-pileser established a standing army. Previously, Assyrian armies had consisted of crown dependents doing military service in exchange for land grants and peasants and slaves supplied by those landlords. This conscripted force was now supplemented by a standing army, mainly composed of soldiers levied in peripheral provinces. Some of these served in cavalry units—another innovation of Tiglath-pileser. The presence of an aggressive standing army, headed by this able warrior king, established the Neo-Assyrian Empire as the dominant power of the Middle East until the accession of the Babylonians at the end of the following century.

Kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

745-727

• Tiglath-pileser III

726-722

• Shalmaneser V

721-705

• Sargon II

704-681

• Sennacherib

680-669

• Esarhaddon

669-627

• Ashurbanipal

627-612

• Ashur-etil-il3ni, Sin-shum-lishir, and Stn-shar-ishkun

612-609

• Ashur-uballit II

Bibliography

Cogan, Mordechai, and Hayim Tadmor. II Kings: A New Translation, with Introduction and Commentary. New York: Doubleday, 1988. This biblical commentary includes a description of Assyria under Tiglath-pileser III and of his role in the biblical drama. Useful appendices feature chronology charts.

Galil, Gershom. “A New Look at the Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III.” Biblica 81, no. 4 (2000): 511-520. The author’s interpretation of inscriptions leads to a cogent reconstruction of the relationship between Assyria and the western states in the days of Tiglath-pileser III.

Roux, Georges. Ancient Iraq. 3d ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. This excellent survey of ancient Mesopotamian civilizations includes significant discussion of Tiglath-pileser III and other emperors of the Neo-Assyrian period.

Tadmor, Hayim. The Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III, King of Assyria. Critical Edition, with Introductions, Translations, and Commentary. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994. Although this singularly important publication of the inscriptions associated with Tiglath-pileser III is aimed at the specialist, the commentary and especially the supplementary studies provide important and accessible insight about the life of the Assyrian monarch.

Younger, K. Lawson, Jr. “The Deportations of the Israelites.” Journal of Biblical Literature 117, no. 2 (1998): 201-227. The essay includes a description of the devastating effects of Tiglath-pileser III’s deportation policies on ancient Israel.