History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent DiscoveryKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C.; History, Ancient
The new chronicle does not supply us with further details of the
struggle between Babylon and the Country of the Sea, but we may conclude
that all similar attempts on the part of the later kings of the First
Dynasty to crush or restrain the power of the new state were useless. It
is probable that from this time forward the kings of the First Dynasty
accepted the independence of the Country of the Sea upon their southern
border as an evil which they were powerless to prevent. They must have
looked back with regret to the good times the country had enjoyed under
the powerful sway of Hammurabi, whose victorious arms even their ancient
foes, the Blamites, had been unable to withstand. But, although the
chronicle does not recount the further successes achieved by the Country
of the Sea, it records a fact which undoubtedly contributed to hasten
the fall of Babylon and bring the First Dynasty to an end. It tells us
that in the reign of Samsu-ditana, the last king of the First Dynasty,
the men of the land of Khattu (the Hittites from Northern Syria) marched
against him in order to conquer the land of Akkad; in other words, they
marched down the Euphrates and invaded Northern Babylonia. The chronicle
does not state how far the invasion was successful, but the appearance
of a new enemy from the northwest must have divided the Babylonian
forces and thus have reduced their power of resisting pressure from the
Country of the Sea. Samsu-ditana may have succeeded in defeating the
Hittites and in driving them from his country; but the fact that he
was the last king of the First Dynasty proves that in his reign Babylon
itself fell into the hands of the king of the Country of the Sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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