Page 413 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

35° Bronze and Iron [1160-1090 b.c.]

ated by the Babylonians was a blow to their pride, and it was not
at all certain that a strong Babylon was to be preferred to a strong
Elam on their southern frontier.
In the following years Nebuchadnezzar did nothing to re­
lieve their suspicions. He campaigned northward from Elam into
the hills on punitive expeditions against the hillman allies of the
Elamites, the Lullubi. The Lullubi, in the mountains overlooking
Assyria, were the private and special enemies of the Assyrians. It
was almost an affront for any other nation to attack them, and this

move of the Babylonians began to look very much like encircle­
ment.
Worse was to follow when Nebuchadnezzar turned to the
northwest, attacking the new Aramaean nations along the upper
Euphrates, on the other flank of Assyria. As well as being another
step in the encirclement of Assyria, the attack promised to reopen
the Euphrates trade route, the direct road from the Persian Gulf

to the Mediterranean. Assyria would thereby be bypassed, rele­
gated to the position of provincial cul-de-sac, which the Babylo­
nians had always claimed that it was.
The nobles of Assyria began to raise their voices. It was the
general feeling in Assur that something would have to be done
about the sluggard Mutakkil-Nusku—when he was suddenly con­
siderate enough to die.
Assur-resh-ishi, who succeeded him, was a man of another
stamp. He had no illusions about the aims of Nebuchadnezzar of
Babylon, and he mobilized his army for general training. Once

more the men of 1160 b.c. found themselves practicing with bow
and sword and throwing spear, marching and countermarching
and learning the intricate drill of the formed battleline. Now it
was they who were the veterans. The year was 1127 and they
were in their early thirties, their curled spade beards and their
reminiscences of the Elamite wars the envy of the young recruits.
By the bivouac fires they boasted of what they would do to

Babylon, as they had boasted a dozen years before of what they
would do to Elam.
They had their chance two seasons later when Nebuchadnez­
zar demanded recognition from the Assyrians of his overlordship