page_title: Esarhaddon
section_title: Conquest of Egypt and substitute kings
hierarchical_section_title: Esarhaddon / Reign / Conquest of Egypt and substitute kings
caption_attribution_description: [edit] English&#x3a;&#32; Map of the Assyrian EmpireEspañol&#x202f;&#x3a;&#32; Extensión del Imperio AsirioPolski&#x3a;&#32; Mapa Asyrii w 824 i 671 r. p.n.e.Português&#x202f;&#x3a;&#32; Extensão do Império Assírioالعربية&#160;&#x3a;&#32; خارطة الإمبراطوريَّة الآشوريَّة.فارسی&#x3a;&#32; نقشه امپراتوری آشور
context_page_description: Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon, was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sennacherib in 681 BC to his own death in 669. The third king of the Sargonid dynasty, Esarhaddon is most famous for his conquest of Egypt in 671, which made his empire the largest the world had ever seen, and for his reconstruction of Babylon, which had been destroyed by his father.
  After Sennacherib's eldest son and heir Ashur-nadin-shumi had been captured and presumably executed in 694, the new heir had originally been the second eldest son, Arda-Mulissu, but in 684, Esarhaddon, a younger son, was appointed instead. Angered by this decision, Arda-Mulissu and another brother, Nabu-shar-usur, murdered their father in 681 and planned to seize the Assyrian throne. The murder, and Arda-Mulissu's aspirations of becoming king himself, made Esarhaddon's rise to the throne difficult and he first had to defeat his brothers in a six-week long civil war.
context_section_description: In the early months of 671 BC, Esarhaddon again marched against Egypt. The army assembled for this second Egytian campaign was considerably larger than the one Esarhaddon had used in 673 and he marched at a much slower speed in order to avoid the problems that had plagued his previous attempt. On his way he passed through Harran, one of the major cities in the western parts of his empire. Here, a prophecy was revealed to the king, which predicted that Esarhaddon's conquest of Egypt would be a successful one. According to a letter sent to Ashurbanipal after Esarhaddon's death, the prophecy was the following:
  When Esarhaddon marched to Egypt, a temple of cedar wood was erected at Harran. There, the god Sin was enthroned on a wooden column, two crowns on his head, and standing in front of him was the god Nuska. Esarhaddon entered and placed the crowns onto his head, and the following was proclaimed: 'You shall go forth and conquer the world!' And he went and conquered Egypt.
  Three months after having received this prophecy, Esarhaddon's forces were victorious in their first battle with the Egyptians. Despite the prophecy and initial success, Esarhaddon was not convinced of his own safety. Just eleven days after he had defeated the Egyptians, he performed the "substitute king" ritual, an ancient Assyrian method intended to protect and shield the king from imminent danger announced by some sort of omen. Esarhaddon had performed the ritual earlier in his reign, but this time it left him unable to command his invasion of Egypt.
  The "substitute king" ritual involved the Assyrian monarch going into hiding for a hundred days, during which a substitute (preferably one with mental deficiencies) took the king's place by sleeping in the royal bed, wearing the crown and the royal garbs and eating the king's food. During these hundred days, the actual king remained hidden and was known only under the alias "the farmer". The goal of the ritual was that any evil intended for the king would instead be focused on the substitute king, who was killed regardless of if anything had happened at the end of the hundred days, keeping the real monarch safe.
  Whatever omen Esarhaddon was fearing, he survived 671 and would perform the ritual twice during the two years that followed, which left him unable to fulfill his duties as the Assyrian king for a total of almost a year. During this time, most of the civil administration of his empire was overseen by his crown princes and the army in Egypt was likely commanded by his chief eunuch, Ashur-nasir. The Assyrian army defeated the Egyptians in two additional battles and successfully seized and plundered the Egyptian capital of Memphis. The Assyrian army was also forced to fight some of their vassals in the Levant, such as Baal of Tyre, who had allied with the Egyptians against Esarhaddon.
  Although the Pharaoh Taharqa had escaped, Esarhaddon captured the Pharaoh's family, including his son and wife, and most of the royal court, which were sent back to Assyria as hostages. Governors loyal to the Assyrian king were placed in charge of the conquered territories. In his victory stele, erected to commemorate the defeat of Egypt, Esarhaddon is depicted in a majestic pose with a war mace in his hand and a vassal king kneeling before him. Also present is the son of the defeated pharaoh, kneeling and with a rope around his neck. The conquest resulted in the relocation of a large number of Egyptians to the Assyrian heartland. In an excerpt from the text inscribed on his victory stele, Esarhaddon describes the conquest with the following words:
  I slew multitudes of his [e.g. Taharqa's] men and I smote him five times with the point of my javelin, with wounds from which there were no recovery. Memphis, his royal city, in half a day, with mines, tunnels, assaults, I besieged, I captured, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire. His queen, his harem, Ushanahuru, his heir, and the rest of his sons and daughters, his property and his goods, his horses, his cattle, his sheep, in countless numbers, I carried off to As
caption: The Neo-Assyrian Empire in 671 BC, after Esarhaddon's successful invasion of Egypt.
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