The Endless War: Phase II (10 BC-10 AD)
Introduction
Introduction
The Second Phase of the Endless War is generally marked as being between 10 BC and 10 AD between the fall of Cyprus and the beginning of the Assyrian civil war in 10 BC and the fall of Ephesos in 10 AD. This was really the height of the Endless War and the point at which fighting was heaviest for both sides, it also featured some huge events such as the fall of Carthage, the economic crisis and the great plague. It was here that the war really could have gone either way before winding down in the third phase between 10 and 20 AD and finally coming to an end in 30 AD. This was also the period in which a huge figure in history would be born and the world would be changed forever.
The Assyrian Civil War (10-5 BC)
An Overview of the Assyrian Civil War
In general the Assyrian Civil War kicked off after the death of Ardys II in 10 BC which left only his 8 year old Assurbanipal III to take the throne. However upon the assassination of the king in 10 BC, three candidates rose to be in a position to take the throne:
-Tigranes or Igranes: Tigranes was easily the most well known of the three candidates and had significant public support from the people. For many of the non-Assyrian ethnic groups in the empire Tigranes represented this huge hope for the future. There was huge support for him from the lower classes which he generally represented and the entire PR around him was based on this. However there was one area where Tigranes lacked major support: the nobility. At the time the vast majority of the aristocracy and nobility of the empire were distinctly Assyrian and still looked down upon other ethnicities. As it was Tigranes was an Armenian and this conservative nobility looked down upon him as an upstart and blatantly refused to acknowledge an Armenian as emperor. But the aristocracy had one major flaw in that it was divided on who, as an Assyrian, should become emperor between two candidates.
-Murmaza: Murmaza was an Assyrian general who had initially been sent to Egypt to defeat Arcatheus and had been beaten twice by Shepeskaf heavily. The response to this was that Murmaza was removed from command and sent to a relatively minor post in the Iranian region to prevent a rebellion. However Murmaza came from a very rich merchant family that had grown rich from the Assyrian Empire and their trade throughout it. This gave Murmaza huge resources and influence among the aristocracy. Incidentally Murmaza held a huge grudge for Anumalik and his son Ardys II and one theory is that he used his huge support to have Ardys assassinated. Nevertheless Murmaza had major support among the aristocracy and was in a position to become emperor whether he would have been good for the position or not.
-Rabsuna: Unlike Murmaza, Rabsuna was an Assyrian merchant who had never seen battle in any way but was a cunning and devious politician. Rabsuna had spent the last few years pulling strings and growing influence in the state to such a point at which he held huge influence over the aristocracy and rich of the empire. Therefore by 10 BC Rabsuna was in a position to take the throne for himself and used his influence to gain a significant backing for such a venture. This meant that he, like Murmaza, had a significant position to take the throne for himself.
Initial Moves
Interestingly enough the goals of Murmaza and Rabsuna to try and take the throne were very different to those of Tigranes. For Murmaza and Rabsuna the answer to becoming emperor lay in holding Nineveh and thus managing to take control of Mesopotamia. Such wealth had the opportunity to allow them to defeat Tigranes through the use of bribes and assassinations as they took a very political approach to the civil war. Therefore for them the first thing to do was beat one another to Nineveh to crown themselves emperor properly.
Tigranes on the other hand had come to the realisation that he would never beat them to Nineveh but he did have a strong power base in Egypt and there was a leaderless army in Southern Anatolia. Almost immediately Tigranes left his army behind and travelled lightly with his own personal guard to meet with and take control of the army in Anatolia. Without his army, Tigranes moved quickly through the Levant and even gained some further soldiers from various people declaring their support of him. However Tigranes simply had most of these people travel to Egypt where they could meet up with his Egyptian army and prepare for the war ahead.
The Siege of Nineveh and the Fight for the Levant
In August 10 BC Tigranes reached the city of Antioch and there met with the governor of the Levant to try and gain his support. Tigranes knew that if he could take control of the Anatolian army then he would have the Assyrian territories in Anatolia and Armenia as part of his power-base but that without the Levant then he could never bring them together. Initially talks went well and Tigranes came exceptionally close to gaining the support of the governor there. However on August 25th 10 BC, a failed assassination attempt on Tigranes' life was blamed on the governor by his guard and talks broke down. Only the next day Tigranes left the city unsuccessful and travelled into Anatolia.
In Anatolia the Assyrian army had been just about able to hold it's own despite having lost Ardys only recently and had given little land to Mithridates. When Tigranes arrived in October 10 BC, he quickly took control of the army and gained significant support in the region. However increased pressure by Mithridates in the region forced Tigranes to spend the next couple of weeks fighting the Pontic Empire and establishing basic fortifications to hold the line.
In the meantime Rabsuna and Murmaza raced towards Nineveh both intending to crown themselves emperor. Rabsuna had only about 6000 soldiers on hand and therefore travelled faster than his counterpart towards the city. On October 4th 10 BC Rabsuna reached the city and succeeded in entering with little opposition with his military force and even managed to strengthen his force with the local garrison to about 7500 soldiers. He also succeeded in capturing the palace itself which was situated just to the North of the city. Inside the palace Rabsuna managed to capture Assurbanipal III who he initially kept in the palace under guard.
However only a few days later news came of Murmaza being very close to the city with his numerically superior military force and Rabsuna chose to withdraw his forces and the entire royal family to the city itself. As for the palace Rabsuna had it stripped of valuables and burnt to the ground so as to not allow Murmaza control of the structure. On 12th October 10 BC Murmaza reached the city and promptly laid siege to it with 12,000 soldiers intending to take it and eliminate a major rival at the same time. Murmaza also knew that there were a number of aristocrats who supported him within the city, a fact which he intended to make use of. Murmaza succeeded in getting into contact with a number of his supporters inside the city who promised to open the gates. Only a couple of days later these supporters made an attempt to open the gates to Murmaza but were caught and arrested by Rabsuna. At this point Rabsuna realised that Murmaza's supporters in the city were the biggest threat to his position so, on 18th October 10 BC Rabsuna had any and all supporters of Murmaza rounded up and executed. Their heads were then flung over the wall to Murmaza's army as a public display of antagonism.
Meanwhile on October 20th 10 BC Tigranes met with the Assyrian fleet at Seleukeia after the fleet had declared their support of Tigranes earlier that year. However the force garrisoning Cyprus refused to support Tigranes and instead proclaimed support for Murmaza and the governor of the Levant followed suit shortly afterwards. This put Tigranes in an awkward position as it effectively split his two regions of power in two with the Levant in support of Murmaza. To try and take control of Cyprus, Tigranes sent a missive to the island to get in touch with the 'Eagle of Cyprus' and to gain their support. While initially talks with the Cypriots came to nothing, the later talks soon managed to gain growing support from the growing group. To try and help facilitate the resistance against Murmaza, Tigranes began sending some of his more veteran soldiers and commanders to Cyprus to help train the group. This proved important as their training would gradually change the resistance group from a band of pirates and Cypriots into a well-trained and disciplined fighting force, in later years the ‘Eagle of Cyprus’ would become a strong and important portion of the Cypriot army.
Meanwhile Tigranes began amassing his soldiers in an attempt to take the Levant and then march on the capital, he left enough soldiers simply to garrison his fortifications against Mithridates and left with a significant portion of the force towards the Levant. Meanwhile he got in touch with his forces in Egypt and began organising an attack from the South. Starting in early November 10 BC the Egyptian army began the march North and laid siege to Gaza while Tigranes simultaneously laid siege to Antioch in the North. Gaza, which had always been a minor base for the navy and had a huge following of people supporting Tigranes, fell within a couple of weeks and the army managed to push on easily towards the North. However Antioch held firm against Tigranes with its three-tiered defence system set up by Seleucus IV resisting Tigranes and the exceptional food storage within the city allowing it to hold out under siege for months. The siege of Antioch would prove to be a long and bitter struggle for both sides over the next year and a half from 10 BC to 8 BC. In the meantime the Southern army made good progress to the North and pushed through Gaza to Hierosolyma, Ptolemais and finally Tyros. It was at Tyros that the Southern army reached a standstill unable to break the city’s defences and push through to take it from the defenders.
At the same time Rabsuna was faced with a problem as the siege of Nineveh progressed poorly for him, for the first few months between October 10 BC and February 9 BC he and the defenders held firm against Murmaza. But in March 9 BC the attackers broke through and took the walls from the defending force. Realising that the city was lost to the attackers, Rabsuna fled and escaped through a passageway he had had dug during the course of the siege. From here he and his small force fled West pursued most of the way by 5000 cavalry sent by Murmaza. Rabsuna had realised now that he had one hope to take the throne and that was to rendezvous with his supporters in the West and try to build a power-base in Syria using their soldiers. Making use of the few supporters he had in Tigranes’ army, Rabsuna succeeded in building up his force to about 10,000 strong and laid siege to the city of Damaskos in July 9 BC. The city of Damaskos had a small garrison and fell by August 9 BC allowing Rabsuna control of the city. Later that month Rabsuna finally confronted the cavalry force sent to defeat him and decisively defeated them. From here Rabsuna turned his attention to expanding his power base beyond Damaaskos into the rest of the region and turned his eyes towards the main prize itself, Antioch. Meanwhile Murmaza was finally crowned emperor of the Assyrian empire in July 9 BC and became Murmaza II as he denounced Tigranes and Rabsuna as traitors and rebels that he would now go and crush.
As it was, by the beginning of August 9 BC, all three candidates had some sort of influence in the Levant although Murmaza was effectively pushed away from his by Rabsuna and Tigranes. In revenge for what Rabsuna did to his supporters, Murmaza followed his counter-part by having Rabsuna’s supporters rounded up and executed save for those who succeeded in fleeing the city. It wouldn’t be until October 9 BC that Murmaza would leave Nineveh and begin the march West to take Damaskos and then relieve Antioch from Tigranes’ siege. Meanwhile Rabsuna was also travelling West towards Tyros to try and get the city on-side and open up a port city for himself. When Rabsuna finally arrived in November 9 BC, he found a garrison on the verge of defeat and made the offer to help repel Tigranes’ Egyptian force on the condition they hand the city over. Initially the defenders refused and continued to hold against the increasingly dangerous attackers but as the defenders fell back from the walls and lost more and more of the city, they finally relented and allowed Rabsuna into the city. With his 10,000 soldiers, Rabsuna joined the defenders and succeeded in pushing the attackers back and even eventually expelling them from the city. However this didn't break the siege which only dragged on despite the defeat in the city.
Probably the height of Rabsuna's position would come on 10th December 9 BC when the governor of the Levant died and all three pretenders to the throne put forward their own candidate for the position to secure the province. Tigranes favoured a Greek by the name of Alexander who was, at the time, one of the primary administrators in the province and was staying in Antioch. In comparison Murmaza favoured an Assyrian candidate from Nineveh by the name of Eparna for the position of governor. As another pro-Assyrian pretender, Rabsuna favoured another Assyrian candidate by the name of Saulmagina who, at the time, was captain of the guard within Antioch but part of a very powerful and influential noble family centred ibn the Levant. But Murmaza's candidate was immediately out in the short term as he wasn't situated in the city but in Nineveh, nevertheless Murmaza did have him brought to join the army so that he could be set up as governor once the region was brought back under control.
Fearing for his life inside the city as simply and administrator, Alexander managed to sneak out of Antioch and met with Tigranes himself to avoid Saulmagina who, as captain of the guard, would undoubtedly have him arrested. While this saved Alexander's life, it also effectively handed control of the city and position as governor of the Levant to Saulmagina who easily took the position by force. At the time Saulmagina was about 45 years old and had had a life of fighting in the military and, after being wounded in battle, the city guard of Antioch. His family's wealth was a major source of funding for Rabsuna and one of the main reasons that Rabsuna's war for the throne continued and it is likely that the family used this wealth to 'convince' Rabsuna to put forth Saulmagina as governor. But Saulmagina faced heavy opposition within the city as many members of the guard, primarily the non-Assyrian members supported Tigranes and wanted to open the gates to him. This was a major threat to Saulmagina who quickly clamped down and re-established his control with brutal discipline, notably he had a number of members of the guard executed and their heads sent to Tigranes' camp.
But in late December Rabsuna's control of the Levant, or what control he had, was shattered when Murmaza laid siege to Damaskos. With Rabsuna occupied fighting Tigranes' force at Tyros, there were few soldiers left to protect Damaskos which basically assured Murmaza's victory. Having thoroughly angered Murmaza to the point at which his life was at stake and coming to the realisation that this was not a war that could be won, Rabsuna turned to Tigranes for help. Damaskos held for months during which time Rabsuna managed to get into contact with Tigranes and asked for help. While Tigranes did offer to provide help on the condition that Rabsuna give up his claim to throne, there was one major point of contention, Antioch. See Tigranes was worried about Antioch for the future because it was a city traditionally dominated by families supported Rabsuna. What Tigranes demanded from Rabsuna was not just handing over the city but also effectively cutting all ties with these noble families who potentially could support a coup in the future. This included his own family which formed a huge basis of contention between the two as neither would back down from their point of view.
However the decisive moment would come in June 8 BC when, after a shockingly bitter and long resistance, Damaskos fell and Murmaza turned his attention towards Tyros itself. At this point Rabsuna finally gave in and accepted Tigranes' demands simply to prevent Murmaza gaining an overall victory so as to save his life. Tyros surrendered immediately although it wouldn't be until a month later that Antioch would follow suit when Saulmagina, the last real opposition to letting Tigranes in, was killed during a fight on the walls of Antioch. Antioch soon opened it's gates and Alexander was named governor of the Levant. With Rabsuna having effectively capitulated, the civil war was down to two candidates: Tigranes and Murmaza.
The Desert Storm
Probably one of the most well known names for Tigranes came from a good 100 years after his death in a Greek drama titled 'I Assyriaki' which literally means 'The Assyrian'. The playwright himself is unknown but he was believed to have come from Athens at a time when the Assyrian Empire was at it's height and dominated the Mediterranean. Interestingly enough this was a period of fascination with the old great men of Assyria, people like Ardys Accalu, Tigranes and Murmaza I. It was also a period in which Tigranes was incredibly popular as a figure and great general and in which Murmaza was portrayed as this terrible villain out to destroy the noble, young Tigranes and Rabsuna was portrayed as a vile, scheming, coward who betrays everything and everyone he knows. Of course none of these people were evil or even good necessarily, not even Tigranes. Tigranes certainly played at being this noble character and by all accounts he was above the standard level of people at the time but this doesn't take into account his dark sides. Tigranes was intelligent, charismatic, popular and and military genius but he was also manipulative, brutal at times and just easy to fall prey to the same traps everybody else did. Rabsuna became known as this vile, manipulative and treacherous man while Murmaza has become known as arrogant, brutal and downright evil.
But Murmaza was intelligent, undoubtedly charismatic and just as able to secure popular support. Rabsuna certainly changed sides and manipulated people to his own gains but Tigranes did that just as much, especially at the Battle of Damaskos where Tigranes effectively killed Rabsuna. A great example can be seen when Antioch fell, the legend people know was that the nobles supporting Rabsuna tried to assassinate Tigranes but no evidence was ever found to support this claim which came from a good 200 years later. In fact it's most likely that Tigranes' first act was to round up the more dangerous nobles and have them executed to prevent them from launching a coup. Yet the storied and legends of the nobility and greatness of Tigranes spread to the point at which people hundreds of years later from various religions praised him as being this semi-divine figure despite his obvious flaws.
Of course therefore, the quote which bore the most well-known name of Tigranes was uttered in regards to an arrogant Murmaza after he claimed that Tigranes would be crushed by nightfall. The full quote was:
'Boreíte poreía me éna strató apó éna ekatommýrio ischyró kai ómos tha prépei na eínai dýspistoi óson aforá tin kataigída tis erímou giatí tha skorpísei stratiótes sas ston ánemo .'
Which means:
'You march with an army a million strong and yet you must be wary of the desert storm for he shall scatter your soldiers to the wind.'
This was a quote formed out of the famous battle of Aravia and it's overall impact on the Assyrian Empire but it was one that had a resonating effect and one which made the name of 'The Desert Storm' a common one. In later years the Greeks even started referring to Tigranes whenever he was talked about in any context as 'Tigránis tin Kataigída tis Erímou' or 'Tigranes the Desert Storm'.
With the surrender of Antioch in July 8 BC, Tigranes was faced with one enemy between him and the title of emperor: Murmaza. As it was Murmaza was based at Damaskos and had his eyes on taking control of the Levant which Tigranes held on to. In August 8 BC Murmaza made his move and began the march towards Tyros, at the time the majority of Assyrian soldiers were under the command of either Murmaza or Tigranes with only a few on the border being pushed back by Mithridates as he managed to regain large swathes of Southern Anatolia. This gave Tigranes a total of 20,000 soldiers in the Egyptian army supported by about 10,000 soldiers from Rabsuna and about 50,000 in his army at Antioch. In late August he finally received help from the Eagles of Cyprus in the form of about 5000 men who had just arrived from the conclusion of the brutal fighting in Cyprus. In comparison Murmaza had about 60,000 soldiers and was marching towards Tyros albeit slowly. Initially Tigranes' plan was to join his armies together to crush Murmaza which he began to do in late August.
However the march would soon be brought to a halt when a deadly outburst of plague tore through his army and inflicted heavy casualties and left significant portions of the army incapable of travelling. Instead Tigranes, desperate to save his army at Tyros, went on ahead bringing with him only 2000 of the Cypriots and no other soldiers as support. They travelled quickly and managed to arrive at Tyros in early October only to find the city already besieged by Murmaza. Murmaza had led 40,000 soldiers to besiege the city to make sure it fell and had sent his other 20,000 North to threaten Tigranes in the North and prevent his army from making a major move at risk of losing Antioch. However what he didn't expect what Tigranes' approach to the city with his Cypriot support. Upon realising the predicament the city was in, Tigranes sent a hurried missive to his navy stationed in Cyprus asking for support and set up a fort on a hill overlooking the besiegers.
However a heavy storm inflicted heavy damage on the Assyrian fleet after only a week at sea and forced them to return to Antioch for repairs thus lengthening the time it would take for them to arrive. News soon reached Tigranes who began desperate efforts to shore up his defences in case Murmaza attacked his position. However with only 2000 soldiers it would be virtually impossible to hold the fort if a concerted attack actually came. But sure enough on October 28th 8 BC, Murmaza attacked Tigranes' position with 15,000 of his 40,000 soldiers to assure the defeat of his enemy. This has become known as the Battle of Tyros and has fallen into legend for being one of Tigranes' greatest victories.
Murmaza himself didn't lead the attack and instead sent his son, Samaskumua, with the 15,000 soldiers to take the fort and bring Tigranes to him, preferably alive. Realising that holding the fort in a direct defence would never work, Tigranes instead made preparations to lure the attackers into a trap. Now the fort was made of wood and a traditional fort just like those that had been situated along the steel wall earlier in the war, inside the fort Tigranes also had a number of longs left over for various uses. It was these logs that Tigranes had cut into thin boards which were planted into the ground the inside of the walls with boards for covering up the sides. This inner wall was designed to be thin and easy to break down and was quickly built by his soldiers as a preparation. When the attack began and the enemy soldiers reached the fort, they found no resistance as they travelled through the fort. There were no provisions or weapons and most importantly soldiers to be found, the gates had been left open and everything suggested that Tigranes had somehow fled the fort which wasn't beyond belief especially with his reputation.
Soon enough the majority of the attackers were crowded into the camp and the trap was sprung. Breaking down the inner wall, the defenders fell upon their enemy and caught them by surprise. The sheer heavy weight and shock of the attack quickly forced Murmaza's soldiers back and allowed Tigranes to take control of the gates allowing his soldiers to break out. Then, in a particularly brutal move, Tigranes had the gates shut and the opening mechanisms destroyed to lock them so. His soldiers easily pushed back the few thousand soldiers outside the camp and proceeded to set fire to the wooden camp. The wooden boards inside the camp allowed the fire to easily spread to the inner buildings in a similar situation to what Tigranes had done to the Pontic soldiers. The dry wood ignited extremely quickly and Tigranes' soldiers fanned out around the camp and cut down anyone who escaped. By the time the battle had ended, a good 13,000-14,000 soldiers were dead and the rest badly wounded. Many had burnt alive including Samaskumua who's head Tigranes had sent to Murmaza.
The defeat was huge in regards to the morale of Murmaza's soldiers who, under near constant raids by Tigranes and the Cypriots, began to feel complete terror in regards to the general. To them Tigranes was this man of nightmare, he had never lost a battle and had just slaughtered thousands of Murmaza's soldiers relatively easily. Now Tigranes was out of the fort and launching attacks against them time and again and they never knew where or when to expect Tigranes to strike. Bit by bit Tigranes' constant attacks wore away at the enemy morale and numbers as their soldiers began to fear him more and more. However this only lasted for about 3 weeks before the attacks ceased, for Murmaza and his army there was seemingly no reason for this and Tigranes remained this terrible threat simply watching them from afar and waiting to strike. Soon enough this paranoia took a noticeable effect to the strength and morale of Murmaza's army but there was a perfectly reasonable and, potentially horrifying explanation for why Tigranes had stopped the attacks, he was inside the city.
Tigranes had soon received word that the navy had arrived to support and transport him into the city and had pulled back from the area to, unbeknownst to Murmaza, be transported into the city. Murmaza certainly saw ships but this wasn't unusual as naval supply missions to Tyros had been a common sight for Murmaza and his army. But what they didn't know was that this supply mission contained extra passengers in the form of Tigranes and his 2000 Cypriots. It was this paranoia that Tigranes was still outside the city that he intended to play on to his advantage. The attacks had raised Murmaza's guard to attacks from the outside and possibly the arrival of the entirety of Tigranes' army but the guard of the city itself was actually lower as a result as their focus was on the countryside. This was what Tigranes exploited as he took command of the total 32,000 soldiers in the city and prepared to defeat Murmaza's army once and for all.
Tigranes waited a while to allow the paranoia to set in before he made his move towards Murmaza's army. Tigranes used a tactic used by Hannibal in the Second Punic War as he had a number of his men sneak out of the city the same way they had come in and tie torched to oxen one night before sending them towards Murmaza's army. While this was happening, Tigranes had his army launch a sally but kept himself deliberately hidden so as to let Murmaza's army still believe he was out there. Soon enough the oxen arrived but Murmaza's army could only actually see the torches and assumed that that was Tigranes, here the fear set in and, believing they had been flanked, the army began to break. This morale advantage was all Tigranes' army needed to capitalise on as they broke through and routed Murmaza's army.
Tyros was saved and Tigranes was victorious once again as he turned his attention to crushing Murmaza. He pursued Murmaza East and managed to manoeuvre his army to push Murmaza into the desert. However Tigranes left a significant portion of his army to besiege Damaskos and, with Rabsuna at his side, pursued Murmaza's 30,000 soldiers into the desert with only 5000. Effectively the next few weeks are considered to be the Battle of Aravia and would constitute an important victory for Tigranes. Between late December 8 BC and early February 7 BC Tigranes pursued Murmaza's army and launched a number of raids on him. In one of these raids he sent Rabsuna with only 300 cavalry to attack Murmaza promising him support following up. However this support never came and Rabsuna's force was slaughtered likely as a deliberate act on the part of Tigranes. However Tigranes' raids in conjunction with ever-fading supplies, would soon start to kill Murmaza's army bit by bit.
Tigranes could move faster and had more supplies for fewer soldiers and thus could keep going as compared to the retreating and poorly supplied Murmaza. Tigranes also used is army to block off Murmaza's attempts to escape the desert and force him further into it. By early February Murmaza only had about 17,000 soldiers left and finally gave up trying to avoid a pitched battle he was worried he would lose. So it was that the battle of Aravia would end with a pitched confrontation and it would be a slaughter. Murmaza's army had virtually no morale and was exhausted, hungry and parched from trekking through the desert. Unable to put up a proper resistance, Murmaza's army was slaughtered although Murmaza himself escaped into the desert on horseback. A few days later Tigranes' army found Murmaza's dead horse which had been thoroughly chewed and significant amounts of blood drank, presumably by Murmaza. Murmaza was never found however as his never turned up despite a number of searches commissioned by Tigranes later in his reign and he himself never returned to Nineveh.
From here Tigranes moved North and, in June 7 BC, effectively integrated Murmaza's remaining army into his own and, as the sole pretender to the throne, marched on Nineveh. The trip would take longer than expected due to numerous setbacks but in late November 7 BC Tigranes arrived at Nineveh.
The Siege of Nineveh
The civil war had destroyed the aristocracy nearly entirely as most of the powerful and influential families had been wiped out by Murmaza, Tigranes and Rabsuna or driven to bankruptcy. Many were dead from the Endless War itself and the aristocracy was effectively ruined by the conflicts. But what little resistance remained to Tigranes was holed up in Nineveh and it was this resistance that Tigranes sought to crush. The siege of Nineveh would be another long, bitter struggle lasting between November 7 BC and July 5 BC as the defenders held out against all odds and refused to give even an inch of the city up. But the siege itself would end in July 5 BC after a long, hard assault which finally pushed the defenders back from the walls and into the city.
Finally on 15th August 5 BC, Tigranes was crowned emperor and finally became Tigranes (more commonly known as Igranes) I of the Assyrian Empire.