743 BC

Map 97: 743 BC. Previous map: **774 BC**. Next map: **735 BC** (*Maps Index*)

**GETAE**
**Wall.**
**Cur.**
**Oiom**
**CIMMERIA**
**Duna**
**Ruteni**
**Palt.**
**Jutonia**
**Ang.**
**Winnili**
**Samb.**
**Tartessos**
**To Phoenicia**
**CETUBALIA**
**To Miletus**
**DANIA**
**Gothia**
**SUEDIA**
**RAUMICA**
**Bothnia**
**GETULIA**
**TYR.**
**LAT.**
**Sab.**
**Aur.**
**Oen.**
**Iap.**
**Walha**
**Fris.**
**Estones**
**Sitones**
**Qua.**
**Boh.**
**Sen.**
**Teu.**
**Rugi**
**Vand.**
**WENDICA**
**Saxones**
**GALLIA**
**AN.**
**TU.**
**PIC.**
**SAN.**
**Bo.**
**Agen**
**Arv.**
**SICAMBRIA**
**Lan.**
**Mo.**
**Bra.**
**BRITANNIA**
**Loeg.**
**Cambria**
**Albanacta**
**Cor.**
**Ulaid**
**ALBA**
**ERIU**
**CELTIBERIA**
**Mor.**
**FRANCONIA**
**Norica**
**Helv.**
**Raet.**
**PANNONIA**
**Tantamo**
**Moesia**
**THRACO-ILLYRIA**
**Sherden**
**Carthage**
**Mac.**
**ACHAEA**
**COR.**
**LAC.**
**Sicelia**
**Cyrene**
**MESHWESH**
**LIBYA**
**Noba**
**Nabatea**
**AT**
**CRETA**
**COLCHIS**
**BABIL**
**ASHUR**
**SUS.**
**Alans**
**SAM.**
**Qedar**
**JUD.**
**Aram.**
**Pho.**
**Edom**
**Meshwesh**
**THEBES**
**Philist.**
**SARMATIA**
**MUSHKI**
**Amazoni**
**Massagetae**
**LYDIA**
**LUKKA**
**Que**
**TABAL**
**Madai**
**Man.**
**Kar.**
**Rifath**
**Hyr.**
**Saga**
**Celtoscyth.**
**URARTU**
**Ala.**
**Diahi**
743 BC - TIGLATH-PILESER III TAKES OVER ASSYRIA

## MAIN EVENTS

### 771 BC - Uzziah in Judah

King Uzziah (Azariah) succeeded Amaziah in Judah in 771 BC, and continued Judaism as the state religion, but did not remove the pagan shrines. In his reign he subjected Philistia, Ammon, the Meunites of the Sinai, and the Arabs of Gurbaal, while king Jeroboam II continued to rule in Samaria.

### 764 BC - Sarduri II in Urartu

Sarduri II followed Argisti I as king of Urartu in 764 BC, and in his reign he expanded to the southwest among the Neo-Hittite states disaffected with Assyria, and made Arpad a client kingdom, setting up confrontation with Assyria.

In Assyria, Ashur-Dan III followed Shalmaneser IV in 772 BC, and Ashur-nirari V followed him in 755 BC. These kings were weaker than the Assyrian general in the west at the time, Shamshi-ilu, and their reigns were beset by plague at home. In 752 BC, Aramaic was made an official language of the Assyrian Empire, alongside Akkadian, in recognition of the fact that it was now the language of most of her inhabitants. While Akkadian had to be written in cuneiform logographs, Aramaic revolutionized the work of scribes as it was written with an abjad of only 22 consonant signs. Ashur-nirari V did manage to campaign eastward as far as the Caspian in 750 BC.

In Britannia, Riwallon succeeded his father Cunedag as king in 763 BC, and his realm was also beset by plague.

### 759 BC - Miletus controls Sea

In 759 BC, control of the sea or Thalassocracy, and part of Hispania, passed from the Egyptians or Meshwesh, to Miletus, the Greek state in Asia Minor. According to Jerome, the Milesians (not to be confused with the Goidelic sons of Mil) also built the city of Naucratis as a Hellenic outpost in the Egyptian Delta at this time.

### 756 BC - Fragmentation of Egypt

Takelot III became sole Pharaoh of Upper Egypt after Osorkon III in 769 BC. He was followed by Rudamun in 760 BC. In 762 BC, the regent Kashta succeeded the young Alara (Aksumay II) in Napata, and was influential in Thebes, getting his daughter Amenerdis to be adopted as heir to the pagan high priestess there. In 756 BC, Upper Egypt became fragmented with Ini pharaoh in Thebes, Peftjaubast in Heracleopolis, and Nimlot at Hermopolis.

Shoshenq V continued his reign in Lower Egypt, but it fragmented around the same time among the Meshwesh and Libu chiefs and princes. Emperor Kashta, aka Handyon II of Ethiopia and Napata was followed by Piyankhi (Piye) in 744 BC.

### 754 BC - Olfinechta in Eriu

Rothectaid Rotha, the eastern subking of the house of Eber Finn, defeated Sirna Seglach and the House of Erimon at the Battle of Alind in 761 BC. Rothectaid II then assumed the High Kingship of Eriu until he was killed by a lightning strike in 754 BC, and his son Elim Olfinechta, who was already chief of Pictish Alba, succeeded him.

Olfinechta was killed a year later, 753 BC, at the battle of Comair Tri Nuisce by Giallchad of the House of Erimon, who then usurped the throne in Eriu, while Guidid Gaed Brechach became next chief of Pictish Alba. Giallchad was in turn killed and overthrown in 744 BC in another coup at the battle of Mag Muaide, by Olfinechta's son Art Imlech, once again restoring the House of Eber Finn to Eriu.

### 753 BC - Romulus and Remus found Rome

Numitor Sylvius had succeeded Procas Sylvius in Latium (Alba Longa) in 796 BC, but Numitor was overthrown and driven into exile by his brother, Amulius Sylvius, who had ruled Latium since. However Numitor later had two infant grandsons, Romulus and Remus, who were sentenced to die, abandoned by the Tiber, and grew up in a cave with a she wolf. In 753 BC, fully grown and with a large following, they overthrew Amulius and reinstated their grandfather Numitor in Alba Longa, then set off to found a new city nearby called Rome (Roma). Remus was killed in the process; by some accounts his brother Romulus killed him with a shovel. Romulus at that time became the founder of a new monarchy at Rome as first king of the new settlement.

### 751 BC - Earthquake in Judah

753 BC, in a message to the prophet Amos of Judah, is when Yahweh first canceled the animal sacrifices He had instituted with Moses exactly 900 years earlier, in 1653 BC. This clear message would be repeated over the next centuries through later prophets of Yahweh, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah. Notwithstanding this, the animal sacrifices were continued by the Jews anyway while there was a Jerusalem Temple, as late as AD 70, and Jesus even tolerated the practice, if not the sellers of sacrificial doves in the Temple courtyard.

Two years after Amos received this message, king Uzziah of Judah arrogantly demanded to burn incense at the holy temple himself, a function to be performed only by the priesthood. This led to a confrontation at the Temple between some 80 priests and Uzziah's men. Suddenly a major earthquake happened in Israel at that moment, as Josephus relates, damaging the Temple, whereupon Uzziah's forehead was visibly stricken with leprosy at that same moment. Uzziah's son Jotham was then elevated to co-rule, or rather rule his father's kingdom, until Uzziah, stricken with leprosy, passed away in 740 BC.

In Samaria, Jeroboam II was succeeded by his son Zechariah in 748 BC. Zechariah continued paganism in Samaria, and he was overthrown in a coup the next year by one of his officers, Shallum. Shallum lasted on the throne for only one month before being overthrown in another coup by another officer, Menahem, who likewise continued paganism in Samaria.

### 745 BC - Coup of Pulu

In 745 BC, the Assyrian general Pulu (Pul) staged a coup and overthrew Ashur-nirari V, seizing the throne as Tiglath-pileser III. He then subjected Babylonia, leaving Nabonassar in Chaldea, long Aramaicised like the rest of Babylonia. In 744 BC Pulu also made Parsuash and Madai tributary as far as the Caspian, then under Artakshatra (Artycas). Pulu also began campaigning against Urartu, laying siege to Arpad from 743 to 740 BC.

Nabonassar came to his throne in the 2nd year of the 8th Olympiad, 747 BC, and reformed the Babylonian Calendar. It seems the notion of dating events to something more enduring than a king's reign was spreading soon after the Olympiads began in 776 BC, for the Romans would adopt a calendar numbering years from the founding of Rome in 753 BC, while the 'Era of Nabonassar' counting, attested somewhat later, begins with his accession in 747 BC.