590-589 BCE
The World and events outside of Assyria and the Iranian Plateau in 591 BCE
Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia
Psamtik II settled peace with the Southern Protectorate and hence, Assyria in 592 BCE, but the peace came at the price of a fairly expensive tribute, especially grievous was the loss of gold and amber. The treasury was already feeling the devastation of war that Necho II had brought to the realm and ultimately, Egypt needed a decisive victory in the south (for either side) and then a time to recover. As it stood, Psamtik II was in a theoretical war with Assyria since Necho II and his campaign. So, the peace of 592 permitted Psamtik II to at least protect his eastern and north flanks. Psamtik II had also in prior years of 594-592 BCE, concluded alliances with Athens, Sparta, Argive, Miletus, the Cretan states and Rhodes. Psamtik II thus for the later months of 592 and early 591, prepared for his counter to Aspelta, who had seemingly exhausted his resources and likewise, faced a revolt in the city of Meroe south of Napata, with which Aspelta sent armies to destroy.
Psamtik II thus gathered an army by the month of February 591 BCE, with haste, this was made up of native Egyptians numbering some 20,000 and a cadre of mercenary, primarily of Greeks numbering 12,500. Psamtik II appointed his commanders to be the adolescent prince Wahibre only 9 years of age and the young 21 year old star, Ahmose who despite humble origins had risen to fame in the native Egyptian army and in trying times, Psamtik II appointed this upstart to head his armies alongside him.
The Egyptian army received news too of the victory of Eurycratides over the Argives in December of 592 BCE, hence forcing Argos into vassalage under the Spartans. With the thoughts of Sparta hegemony in the Peloponnese looming, the Egyptian army marched in February. With Aspelta facing revolt in the south, his response was slowed and the Egyptian populace in Upper Egypt’s patience was draining. Aspelta thus, with fears, fled Thebes in late February of 591 when news that Psamtik II had bypassed Qau and that he had made peace with Assyria. Thus, according to Greek historian Herodotus, Aspelta feared that, Psamtik II was being supported by Assyria (not just at peace). Psamtik II thus entered Thebes in glory and instituted a forgiveness for all in the city who had betrayed his father. Hence, Psamtik II came to be loved within Thebes and an epithet was added to his name, ‘the merciful.’
Psamtik II left his son Wahbire in Thebes then and marched south of Thebes in the month of March after a four week stay in Thebes overseeing the restoration of Egyptian unity. Psamtik II and Ahmose marched taking Edfu in March after short siege and then proceeded to quicken their pace further capturing town after town, picking up steady momentum. Ahmose particularly successful in this activity, defeating the Nubians at every turn in pitched battles or in sieges, while Psamtik II effectively acted as the agent of unity between the diverse army.
Psamtik II pushed ever further, bypassing the Second Cataract, where he met Aspelta in battle. Therein, Aspelta, already diminished in his authority, was defeated in battle. The Nubian army was destroyed by a combination of arms from the Egyptian army. Afterward, the Egyptian army briefly reached Napata and set siege to the city, after which, Aspelta pledged to peace and renounced his claim to the rulership in Egypt. By July of 591 BCE, Psamtik II returned to Thebes in triumph as the destroyer of the Nubians and restoration of Egypt. The new border was set at the Second Cataract.
Psamtik II for the remainder of 591 BCE, would oversee the issue and topic of Greek relations. These deals were set in place after Psamtik II returned to Sais in September of 591 BCE, where a envoy from the new king of Sparta awaited him. The new king, Leon I had besought Psamtik II seeking to formalize more agreements of an alliance and trade relations. Psamtik II weighed these with the earlier report of Spartan hegemony that had emerged in the defeat of Argos in 592 BCE with that of the Athenian power. Sparta seemed the greater force militarily, and held a growing hegemony, yet Athens possessed a navy and had become acclaimed in their defiance to Sadyattes in the Ionian war. However, Psamtik II chose to formalize friendship with Sparta, bypassing the other Greek realms (aside from Crete, whom the Egyptians exercised extensive relations to). Egypt made a formal alliance with the King of Sparta, Leon I and formulated as a series of mutual friendship pacts, economic ties and an agreement to support each other in times of war, especially Egypt would provide critical aid to Sparta in the event of a Greek or Ionian war. In counter, Sparta would provide military aid to Egypt and likewise, give sole trading rights to Egypt in respect to ‘eastern’ countries. Theoretically, this included a marriage alliance, which was not enacted. Also, interestingly, Egyptian scribes composed the alliance in a trilingual form.
Three forms of the treaty were composed by the Egyptian scribes in Sais. One in a triumphant style in hieroglyphics on the palace in Sais. A second, composed only in Akkadian, sent to Palace Herald of Assyria, Kanisratu-balutu-Assur, for the purpose of disposing of the information to Assyria would more thoroughly deter their anger and likewise, fulfilled the prior treaty of 592 (which stipulated that Egypt must inform Assyria of potentially important alliances). Then a third, to be made in clay and papyrus, one set to be kept in Sais and a second sent to Sparta. This third version was composed in Demotic, Archaic Greek and importantly, Akkadian. This admission and addition of Akkadian is a symbol to the new and growing reality of Assyrian hegemonic authority in the Eastern Mediterranean. As such, the addition of this Akkadian language and cuneiform to the text, would have large effects upon the development of the Greece. This would be the first time that cuneiform text has into Greece since the Bronze Age and the first for Akkadian (in the Bronze Age, Hittite would have been the only known cuneiform usage in Greece, presumably).
In Nubia, Aspelta moved his capitol to Meroe, abandoning Napata as his capitol, yet the city remained a relatively important settlement. The abandoning of Egypt for the moment, gave Aspelta perhaps a greater time to influence matters in Abyssinia, to his southeast. Most important of these neighbors, was the burgeoning city of Aksum and Damat. All these lands were referred to as the Land of Punt, the so-called land of vast golden reserves and immensely important for Egyptian trade and authority. However, oddly perhaps, aside from Nubia, Egyptian cultural influence did not translate to the development of large cities and or overt expressions of Egyptian styles of rule or cultural markers.
Rather, most of these Abyssinian states were influenced more thoroughly by the Arab states across the strait of Aden and the Red Sea in Southern Arabia, especially Yemen. Damat itself though within Abyssinia, was a thoroughly Arabized state along the coast of Abyssinia, east of Meroe. The state of Damat was based upon the priest-king traditional model of Yemen and took the title, mukarrib. The then current mukarrib of Damat in 591 BCE, was a Shaaro-Rebaa. Aksum was similar, except with a less overt Arab influence, acting as a repository for inner-African, Semitic and Egyptian influence, just south of Damat. Its rulers were still referred to as chiefs, however.
To the southeast of Aksum was the land of Nemyw, a land of tribal realms, speaking Cushitic tongues. These peoples had trade links with Damat and Aksum and provided gold, hides, ivory, slaves and other resources to these cities, who in turn traded them to Meroe west and north or to the east with the Yemeni states. Not yet has Nemyw established contact to South Asia or directly to the states of the Persian Gulf, including Assyria.
Yemen and the Death of Karabil-Watar II
In the year 592 BCE, the king of Sheba Karabil-Watar II perished (621-592 BCE) and with it, the stability of the Sheban kingdom. In 592 BCE, he was succeeded by Samah’ali-Zarih who ascended to the throne around October of 592 and already by November rebellion was in the air across Arabia. In the city of Datinat a rebellion erupted at the death of Karabil-Watar II under a new god-king, Athar-Ba’athay I (the bull of Athar, the god of irrigation and storms; associated to Adad), who claimed the remaining former Awan states south of Sheba.
Samah’ali-Zarih engaged this rebel in battle in the month of November 592 BCE and was defeated by the Awan god-king that same month at the battle of Ghilsan. Afterward, the Sheba hegemony began to unravel as varied Awan kingdoms pledged allegiance to Athar-Ba’athay I. This was first Dhiyam, Nasam and Ruqayy, south of Hadrahmut. All of these formed the new Awani kingdom in the region. Samah’ali-Zarih was also faced with a series of rebellions, first in Ma’in, led by a collection of chiefs and then followed by the Qataban city of Timma (only 40-60 km from Ma’rib the capitol of Sheba) and finally by the Dubhan and Mu’far in the southwest, reaffirming their ‘Western Coalition.’ By March of 591 BCE, the Sheba kingdom had only managed to subdue the Qataban and then halted an incursion from the Awan upon the Sheban heartland.
By May, the situation had grown worse for Sheba in the south, when Sheban garrison armies were forced to return to Ma’rib and Timma from the old Western sections of the Awan kingdom. Athar-Ba’athay however was also reaching his limits and was disputed as god-king by some of the western states in the former Awan kingdom, most especially the cities of Dahasum, Tubana’a, Ta’fid and Yuzham. These four formed in middle 591 an alliance called the Quadruple Alliance, each affirming distinct priest-kings, these were:
-Karibi-Bayin of Ta’fid
-Ilu-Karab of Tubana’a
-Haubas-Ba’nulm of Dahasum
-Hazu’ali-Watar of Yuzham
This division in the Awan kingdom permitted Sheba to assure Maswar and Tay’ab to the north of the Quadruple Alliance. Thus, Sheba for the remainder of 591 BCE, maintained its borders with the Awan feuding realms while it dealt with the rebelling Ma’in state in Kaminahu. By November, the Ma’in state had failed to assert any offensives against Samah’ali-Zarih but were able to stop his advance north. Unlike his father, Samah’ali-Zarih was not nearly as energetic or forceful. Whence he faced difficulties, he turned his army south or north and returned to Ma’rib. He, however, was fortunately skilled in maintaining authority in his locality and knew well from his father the skill and forethought that it took to defend a city. In the month of December until January of 590 BCE, a series of new fortifications were prepared in Mar’ib, while the walls at Timma were forcibly demolished and he remains taken to reinforce Mar’ib.
It would seem, that the Sheba kingdom was attempting to empower its own city, at the expense of its Qataban vassals. The result, was that Sheba did not under Samah’ali-Zarih form any identity over an entire region, rather preferring to simply assert a hegemonic presence through the fear of the king’s armies. A fear that was diminishing, even if the Sheba state was fortifying itself. Hadrahmut itself in the west, remained a vigilant ally of the Sheba, and readily assisted the Sheba in the wars against the Awan kingdoms and the Ma’in.
For the remainder of 590 BCE, intermittent warfare was waged between the kingdoms in the region, especially between the Awan states and the Ma’in who were invaded by a an Arab clan called the Banu Khayash, who conquered much land from the Ma’in by the month of August in 590 BCE. This invasion by the Banu Khayash was only a taste for the northern Arab incursions incoming in the next years.
The Assyrian Interior
In 591 BCE, the majority of the Assyrian realm and associated areas were paying service to the monarch by a series of increased tribute. The Phoenician city states however, despite increasing tributes, were extraordinarily prosperous in the years of 599-590 BCE. Leaders of the states, such as Tyre, Baalbek and others purchased readily numbers of deportees, especially from among the Philistines. Also, the expansion of Carchemish from 596-590 BCE, expanded the trade links and routes in Syria. Tyre itself, under a certain Baal III claimed to have expanded the city of Tyre by 1/3rd of the population of his grandfather Baal I. Baal III passed in the year 593 BCE and was succeeded by Ithobaal III who continued an extensive series of expansions of temples in his city and focused upon joint-Phoenician colonizing of Quwe, wherein Tyre represented the foremost city.
As mentioned earlier, Carchemish was reaching a new golden age of power and authority in the region. Ruled directly by Assyria through Akkado-Hittite mayors the city was seen as perhaps the last outpost of Bronze Age Hittite culture within Syria. However, amidst the changes since then, it had become a diverse city of Aramaic, Akkadian, Luwian, Phoenician, Hurrian, Hebrew, Greek and Cimmerian speakers. For the majority of the Assyrian empire since Tiglath-Pileser I, the city was one of the foremost cities of the Assyrian hegemonic sphere that was not within general Sumero-Akkadian society. It however, fell below its western competitor, the Aramaic city of Aleppo after Sargon II sacked the city in 717 BCE and dethroned its Hittite vassal king, Pisiri, the last Hittite derived ruler.
However, Carchemish was rebuilt by Sinnacherib and Assurhadon and reached new heights under Assurbanipal. Though, it remained below its rival Aleppo still. Yet, after the Western Coalition War, Aleppo, Arpad and Hamath all fell firmly below Carchemish, which too was awarded a rimutu from Sinbanipal. From 598-591 BCE, this translated to migration from other cities west of the Euphrates to Carchemish. Likewise, the upward expansion into Anatolia gave the Carchemish city increased importance as the point of entry and exit from Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia. Thus, Dugul-Naboo through his own budget and noble revenues, distributed incomes to merchants who would set locations at the waypoint between Ankuwa and Mari and between Damascus and Ankuwa, as such, all roads north and south went through Carchemish.
To the south, Damascus was relatively unchanged. While it was sacked and under occupation like Hamath, Aleppo and others, it did not suffer as critically. It remained a direct Assyrian state. West of Damascus was Baalbek, a vassal state was ruled by a series of appointees by the Phoenician city states. South of both was the Kingdom of Judah, which suffered greatly in the wars of the coalition, but were mightily rewarded. The deportation of much of the population of Philistine, while not wholly wiping away the population, opened the doors for demographic change in the area. Likewise, it removed obstacles in expansions of Hebrew settlement into the west. From 597-588 BCE, these expansions came with support from the Southern Protector and the local Assyrian administers, who permitted these expansions and their settlement. The ending result would be seen in time, but in short Philistine transitioned from an overwhelmingly Philistine area of settlement to one of a plurality wherein Philistines came to be a minority in comparison to arrivals from the Southern Protectorate, Judah and from the lands of Canaan-Phoenicia.
Within the Southern Protectorate matters were much changed since the last topic. From 597-591 BCE, the Protectorate was used to launch raids into Egypt and patrol much of the southern frontier lands. The Protectorate had also expanded its borders by a fair amount, with the annexation of Sinai and the deposition of Edom. As the Nippur Correspondence suggests, this was to better use the Protectorate’s units to be more and more specialized to the defense of the realm at peace. Much easier load thus we may assume for the Assyrian or Karduniash monarch.
The acquisitions of Edom and Sinai came with demographic replacement and deportation. Edomites were often prey of the Arab and Nabtu tribes, who were expressly permitted to raid and pillage these at their wish. Slave taking already a custom in the Arab tribes of the region, gorged themselves on preying on the villages, never taking enough slaves so as to erase the community, but enough to subordinate the locals and to assure their dominance over them.
In the capitol city of the Protectorate was the city of Tima, the crown jewel of Arabia increasingly and an outpost of Akkadian cultural influence. It had grown considerably since the year 610 BCE, into the largest city in Arabia north of Yemen and the most cutting edge technologically. Puzur-Adad, the current Protector General famously established in the name of various Kings (Sinsharishkun, Enusat, Assur-Uballit and Dagon-zakir-shumi), temples to some of the Great Gods and shrines to all. The Goddess Ishtar was becoming more and more prominent in the city, with the three temple sin the city dedicated to Marduk, Ishtar and Gula. These formal temple structures were filled with priests and worshippers from Mesopotamia but also an increasing number of Arab subjects.
Irrigation was also becoming more and more of a priority. Oasis were located and trees were planted there and small scale farming. Arabs who were not actively engaged in war were paid a small stipend if they agreed to work these settlements. Likewise, merchants were ordered and directed to wear around their necks or on their persons stamps in the cylindrical style common in Mesopotamia. These were necessary for trade in the city of Tima, assuming you were not a foreigner. They were intended as a means to increase Akkadian influence in the area and ensure that taxes for mercantile activity were paid, for those wearing said stamps or possessed on their person, were required to make a stamp upon clay upon entry into the city. Anyone who was doing trade in the city, would be asked if they had made a stamp upon clay and if they had, it would be recorded, and their trade would be permitted. If it had not, they would be punished.
Laws were introduced to the region likewise. These laws were traditional Akkadian retribution-based laws. It was similar enough to Arab tribal custom that the laws were generally seen as non-invasive. Shekels were already a known concept in the Nabtu lands, so currency itself was not disliked. Also, Assyria lacked coinage of the true form and as such, there was no distortion to the barter-based economy of the Arabs, easing economic transitions in the area.
All of this, both legal, trade based, religiously and agriculture and most importantly authority was intended and in accordance with the Assyrian mission. Puzur-Adad was not only a Protector General for military purposes as a march of sorts, but also was an overseer of Akkadian expansion, promulgation and fulfillment of the mission.
“Before Sinsharishkun established the Southern Protectorate, the Arabs were people whose lives were abhorrent to the Great Gods…. Their worship was of mounds of sand and of trees in the oasis, they were most inhumane. As a rule, their people did not have kings, but they were ruled by a swarm of men who all claimed lordship and among all things other than impiety, plurality of kingship is the most abhorrent to the Great Gods….. Sinsharishkun established a rule over them and brought to them agriculture, correct trade, a single King through an overseer and taught them most importantly, the submission that is due to masters of the universe.” -Nippur Correspondence
“For the Arab, his lot is to learn the correct passage and submit to his betters. They may say with one mouth that the Lords appointed by the Great Gods are found in but a single Land. Through us doth they see the Light of the Great Gods.” -The Unbroken Chronicle
As such, the mission fundamentally with the Southern Protectorate was to more efficiently establish the principles of the mission of Akkadian kingship upon them. So the Protector General acted as the overseer of this transition and change, whilst also oddly, maintain martial qualities of the Arab peoples so that they may be used in the current manner that the Protectorate is employed in.
It also goes without saying that the greatest partners that the Protectorate holds, is with the Kingdom of Karduniash. With most of the works in the city introduced with the dual names of the two. Increasingly as of 591 BCE however, a new trend has emerged in the Protectorate and spread into several other locales, that of simplifying the current situation of naming both Kings and instead saying:
“In the name of the Brother Kings,, Era name,, month,,, day”
This custom included a series of reliefs in 590 BCE, made in the temple of Ishtar, depicting the two Kings, Sinbanipal and Dagon-Zakir-Shumi as equal pairs in observance to Ishtar, with an Akkadian text reading:
“The Brother Kings, appointed by the Great Gods, Dagon-zakir-shumi and Sinbanipal, praise The Unique Star, Queen of the Universe, Mistress of War and Mother of Man.”
This would be also the case for the first reliefs made in Babylon, Nippur and other cities in Karduniash. It has not spread elsewhere as a custom by 589 BCE, however. What this entails for the future of Assyria, is not known.
Hindustan
By the year 591 BCE, the Mahajanapada period has begun in South Asia and the Vedic period of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age come to a true end. In the Indus Valley, the region is composed of a series of pastoral and semi-sedentary peoples who dominate the Punjab region down to the far ends of the Indus Valley in the south. These tribes are the Trigarta, the Madra, the Kakaya, and so forth in the Northern Punjab. These realms were strong and fearsome in battle but possessed no large cities or settled regions for agriculture, living a more let us say, Central Asian sort of existence.
To the northwest of the Punjab, was the two Aryan realms, Gandhara and Kamboja. Gandhara was a kingdom of noted power and importance in the mountainous edge of the Hindu Kush, ruling northwest Punjab and the Kashmirs. To the northwest of them, was the Aryan realm of Kamboja (Kabul), an aristocratic republic of sorts. Noted for their horsemanship and their fame as some of the most fearsome among the Aryan in the battlefield. They, nevertheless, act as the first guard of defense for the Subcontinent and the lowest in population of the Aryan lands.
Leaving the west for a time, we go to the heart of agricultural development in the Aryan lands, the Gangetic Plain. Beginning in the western extremes, the oldest of the Aryan realms, is that of Kuru, the ancient kingdom of legend. Once the foremost of the Aryan tribes, the Kuru kingdom has undergone a level of decay, but nevertheless remains very powerful and famed for their chariots (which remain common in the Aryan world, while not so in our traditional Assyrian setting). Southeast of that is Panychaala and Kosala, the rising powers in the early VI century. Kosala especially sits atop as the highest tier of the Aryan states aside from Kuru and the strongest amongst the realms at present. Both have access to the fertile central sectors of the Ganges river, whilst the Kuru to the northwest, edge close to the Indus and the bend of the Ganges northward.
South of Kuru on the Yamuna tributary of the Ganges is the Shurashena, Avanti, Chetiya, Vatsa and Matsya. Avanti sits as the primary power among these realms as an extension of Aryan civilization westward towards the Gujurat. By 591 BCE, each of these realms pays tribute to either Kuru or to Avanti, who itself is an expanding realm, while Kuru is on the decline.
South of Kosala on the Ganges, yet north of Vatsa is the Kaashi. The Kaashi are a strong and powerful realm, renowned in battle and trade. As of 590 BCE, the Kaashi captiol city of Varanasi is the largest in the subcontinent and the most prestigious of all. Exceeding any of the other Aryan states about it. Kaashi, looks to compete with Kosala, Kuru and others for the dominance in the Aryan domains. To its northeast is the Malla, an aristocratic Kshatriya republic out of the city of Kushinagara. Their power is noted as of 591 BCE and their forces seek to challenge all around it, especially Kosala, Kaashi, the Vrji and the Magadhi. To the east of the Malla, is the confederacy of the Vrji, another Kshatriya republic that resembled an assembly of clans. They are weaker than their neighbors, but an important ally for any seeking to oppose a stronger foe. East of Vrji, is the Magadhi, a strong realm out of Pataliputra, they are said to be a despised people by Kuru and others, but otherwise strong and firmly Aryan. Their larger population base and centralized kingship burgeoning by 590 BCE, implies possible greatness for the eastern Aryan kingdom. Even further east is the kingdom of Anga based out of the city of Champa/Malini. The Anga are a relatively famous kingdom for its mercantile fame and trade networks and as the furthest east of the Aryan states. However, it is geopolitically similar to that of Vrji, unable to truly contest the great Aryan powers, but strong enough to pose a series of alliances to block hegemonies from forming.
The Aryan states are not too aware of the situation occurring beyond the Hindu Kush, aside from Kamboja and Gandhara. Relatively, internally focused for the time was the Aryan realms of the Hindu Kush, however, it would be long before they would be forcibly included in a series of turbulent events originating in the west. Surely, Assyria acts as a turbulence in and of itself, forcing everything to be subsumed within it or forcibly ejected.
Greece and Anatolia West of Ankuwa
After the end of the Ionian war with Lydia, Spartan king Eurycratides returned to Sparta and gaining from the death of Lacidaus, Sparta attacked Argos now under a young king Meltas. Meltas, with the Argive army having been diminished in Ionia, was bested in battle and Argos submitted to Sparta in 592 BCE. Eurycratides however was not long for the world, he passed shortly thereafter and was succeeded by Leon I of Sparta who was a young and energetic king of incredible foresight and vigour. His reign would culminate in an expansion of Spartan militarist claims across the region.
Athens was the primary power facing Sparta in 590 BCE, Athens was then under Solon and already in the transition towards a Democracy. The Athenian democracy was already known for its naval power and was expanding influence outward. It had been the salvation of the Ionian League and was expected to bear a great portion in the upcoming war.
The remainder of the Greek city states, such as say Corinth, were partners of these growing partners or lords of their own lands, but otherwise not important of note for the Assyrian or Egyptian observer.
Sadyattes in Lydia meanwhile was engrossed in his bid to remain in power. The invasion of the Skudra/Thracians had badly affected his country, especially economically. Migrants from the north poured into cities in the south and or were forcibly impressed by Sadyattes into his growing field armies. These field armies at the beginning of 594 BCE, were fairly well trained, but by 591 BCE, these armies were a mob of either fanatical devotees of the king, whose godlike qualities were increasingly being expanded or were frightened and scared and poorly fed peasants.
Farms sat empty the closer one reached the northern frontiers and the fortress cities of the north were tightly packed with people as the populace fled to these large cities to avoid the Skudran offensives. Sadyattes grew his armies large so as to garrison towns and possibly promote fear amongst the Skudra kings. However, Sadyattes himself may have even realized that he required time to train a new army for a renewal of northern offensives or hire mercenary, the former of which, he could no longer do and maintain his fame. Thus, the expensive affair of raising a new army would be the lynchpin of his 591 year. How he would attain the money was not known; Sadyattes had many options.
Either find some deal and friendship with the Greeks or the Assyrians or attempt to dig deeper into the noble estates. The Greek route was not possible without ceding land captured to the Ionian league, these new acquisitions and their loot was the primary foundation for his current wealth, that alongside the confiscations. The Assyrian route was simply a paved way to subjugation by Assyria, for trade and relations to Assyria was a request to be subverted and conquered or at least forced to pay tribute. As such, Sadyattes dug deeper into the nobility. In middle 591 BCE, a new edict was promulgated from Sardis, that revoked any privileges of the nobility regarding land taxes. Likewise, a series of restrictions was to be enacted in the Lydian heartland, restricted the amount a land that a person could own without royal permission.
Implicit those who came to argue that their land was justified to be over the limit, would be rejected and all lands exceeding that amount would become royal holdings. Already, peasantry were becoming increasingly under royal control, the intent of the new laws was to bring the same to the nobility, forcing their subordination economically to the royalty and hence take control over their funds for the training of a new centralized army.
A secondary set of new laws was issued in November of 591 BCE, which ordered the production of iron weapons, armor and other military equipment within Sardis. These works were not paid by the royal treasury, but the royalty took the production of a weapons as an advance payment, which would be repaid later. To set this, Sadyattes issued coin notes in copper and gave them as certificates for which later producers could be given gold or silver for their services. Sadyattes formulated all of these laws in a religious veneer, as returning or producing for the Gods. However, even though the peasantry and commoners remained behind him, the situation was becoming intolerable for the upper classes and in the event of a loss in battle and hence loss of that gathered revenue, the royalty would surely collapse.
Sinbanipal Pushes further East.
As 590 BCE begins, the Medes are in a poor position with its king Ainyava and having lost its primary lands. Sinbanipal would spend the first two months of the year 590 consolidating his captures. This would include:
-expanding east, pushing into Drangiana and Parthia
-ensuring Persian submission
-conquering the Ardami confederacy of the Mazandran region
Initial movements east was flanked by spies sent forth to access the situation. They told a story to Sinbanipal beyond belief. The Medes were in migration eastward, they were not returning to the west. Some Medes had moved north into Parthia while some small bands had returned to Assyrian lands and were seeking submission. Dugul-Naboo patrolling the area, captured these bands and sent them to do prostration to the seal of Sinbanipal.
The reality of strained resources, the question of Persia and Ardami, led to Sinbanipal relenting on chasing the Medes for a time. Thus, Sinbanipal recalled Dugul-Naboo, to return to his post in Kalhu, but to leave his Cimmerian contingent whom Sinbanipal ordered to be settled in Hyrcania as garrison. He ordered that Dugul-Naboo saw to the acquisition of brides from slaves and deportees in Assyria to distribute to the Cimmerians. Meanwhile, any Median bands captured were to be deported to Assyria. Sinbanipal settled himself in the city of Ghirsham, while Ipanqazzu was sent to the Ardami to acquire submission from them, this time attacking from the southeast, bypassing their mountain refuges. Assyrian envoys were also en route to Persia carrying the words of Sinbanipal. Enjoining the King Cyrus I to submit to Assyria and make good on his promise to become a subordinate.
Internally, the revived Eastern Protectorate was internally instable at the moment. A plurality of Medes remained in the area, mostly from those left behind by their clans. Otherwise, the new majority was a plurality of Kassites, Lullubi, Elamites, Hyrcanians and so forth. The region was ripe for Assyrian colonization. Elam to the south was under the jurisdiction for now by Sinbanipal, but it was legally to be given as a subordinate officially of the Karduniash kingdom. Victory reliefs were already being constructed in the main cities to commemorate the campaign.
The Median Flight Revisited
The Medes under Ainyava, despite the situation in the west, were leaving the area for the time being. Ainyava ordered the host of clans spread out across the Drangian area to move up the Horayu river toward Kamboja. Conquering the land and forming a new life there. This would be a slow process however of movement, interspersed with farming and assimilation. However, some clans disagreed. These clans were called the Northern Medes, for they in early 590, broke from the main Mede branch and moved north towards the Kwarezm to live amongst the encroaching Dahae steppe nomads.
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I hope that this is a good fleshing out of the situation so that we cane move forward with further campaigns and updates. Tell me what you think of the update. We are beginning to expand more and more into the world beyond the traditional Assyrian theatre!
