page_title: Sennacherib
section_title: War in the Levant
hierarchical_section_title: Sennacherib / Reign / War in the Levant
caption_attribution_description: English: Assyrian soldier, using a dagger, about to behead a prisoner from the city of Lachish. Detail of a gypsum wall relief, which is part of a large sequence of the so-called "The Siege of Lachish Reliefs", dating back to the reign of Sennacherib, 700-692 BCE. From the South-West Palace at Nineveh, Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, currently housed in the British Museum, London.
context_page_description: Sennacherib was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sargon II in 705 BC to his own death in 681 BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is among the most famous of all Assyrian kings due to the role he played in the Old Testament of the Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. Other events of his reign which secured his legacy throughout the millennia following his death include his destruction of the city Babylon in 689 BC and his construction of the last great Assyrian capital, Nineveh.
  Although Sennacherib was one of the most powerful and wide-ranging of all the Assyrian kings, he faced considerable difficulty in controlling Babylonia, which formed the southern portion of his empire. Many of Sennacherib's Babylonian troubles stemmed from the Chaldean tribal chief Marduk-apla-iddina II, who had been Babylon's king until he was defeated by Sennacherib's father. Shortly after Sennacherib inherited the throne in 705 BC, Marduk-apla-iddina retook Babylon and allied with the Elamites.
context_section_description: After the Babylonian war, Sennacherib's second campaign was in the Zagros Mountains. There, Sennacherib subdued the Yasubigallians, a people from east of the Tigris river, and the Kassites, a people which centuries prior had ruled Babylonia. Sennacherib's third campaign, directed against the kingdoms and city-states in the Levant, is very well documented compared to many other events in the ancient Near East. Notably, it is the most well-documented event in the history of Israel during the First Temple period. In 705 BC, Hezekiah, the king of Judah, had stopped paying his annual tribute to the Assyrians and began pursuing a markedly aggressive foreign policy, probably inspired by the recent wave of anti-Assyrian rebellions across the empire. Hezekiah conspired with Egypt and Sidqia, an anti-Assyrian king of the city Ashkelon, attacked Philistine cities loyal to Assyria and captured the Assyrian vassal Padi, king of Ekron, and imprisoned him in his capital Jerusalem. In the northern Levant, former Assyrian vassal cities rallied around Luli, the king of Tyre and Sidon. The anti-Assyrian sentiment among some of the empire's western vassals was encouraged by Sennacherib's arch-enemy Marduk-apla-iddina, who corresponded with and sent gifts to western rulers such as Hezekiah, probably hoping to assemble a vast anti-Assyrian alliance.
  In 701 BC, Sennacherib first moved to attack the Syro-Hittite and Phoenician cities in the north. Like many rulers of these cities had done before and would do after, Luli decided to flee rather than face the wrath of the Assyrians, escaping by boat until he was safely outside of Sennacherib's reach. In his stead, Sennacherib proclaimed a noble by the name Ethbaal as the new king of Sidon as his vassal and oversaw the submission of many of the surrounding cities to his rule. Faced with a massive Assyrian army nearby, many of the Levantine rulers, including Budu-ilu of Ammon, Kamusu-nadbi of Moab, Mitini of Ashdod and Malik-rammu of Edom, quickly submitted to Sennacherib to avoid retribution.
  The resistance in the southern Levant was not as easily suppressed, forcing Sennacherib to invade the region. The Assyrians began with taking Ashkelon, defeating Sidqia, and then proceeded to besiege and take numerous cities. As the Assyrians were preparing to retake Ekron, Hezekiah's ally Egypt intervened in the conflict, however the Egyptian expedition was defeated in battle near the city Eltekeh. The cities of Ekron and Timnah were taken and Judah stood alone, with Sennacherib setting his sight on Jerusalem. While a portion of Sennacherib's troops prepared to blockade Jerusalem, Sennacherib himself marched on the important Judean city Lachish. Both the blockade of Jerusalem and the siege of Lachish probably served to prevent further Egyptian aid from reaching Hezekiah and to intimidate the kings of other smaller states in the region. The siege of Lachish, which ended in the city's destruction, was so long that the defenders eventually began using arrows made of bone rather than metal due to lack of supply. In order to take the city, the Assyrians constructed a great siege mound, essentially a ramp made of stone and earth, to reach the top of Lachish's walls. After the city was destroyed, survivors were deported into the Assyrian Empire. Some of them were forced to aid in Sennacherib's building projects and others were employed in the king's personal guard.
caption: Relief depicting an Assyrian soldier about to behead a prisoner from Lachish. Exhibited at the British Museum.
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