Assyrian Inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I (ca. 1100 B.C.E.)
Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077) was the first king of Assyria who made extensive conquests. This inscription was found at the great temple at Assur, the Assyrian capital. Assyria successful as a purely military monarchy and her kings were the bold leaders of a brave and battle-loving people, but they had no genius for organizing peaceful government. They were content to force a defeated nation to pay tribute and submit to general spoliation. The result was ceaseless revolts whenever the Assyrian terror abated, followed by ruthless reconquests often repeated many times.
Assur the great lord, director of the hosts of the gods, the giver of the scepter and the crown, the stablisher of the kingdom; Bel the Lord, king of all the spirits of the earth, the father of the gods, the lord of the world, [and all ye other] great gods, guiders of heaven and earth, whose onset is opposition and combat, who have magnified the kingdom of Tiglath-Pileser, the prince, the chosen of the desire of your hearts, the exalted shepherd . . . with a crown supreme, you have clothed him: to rule over the land of Bel mightily you have established him. . . .
Tiglath-Pileser the powerful king, the king of hosts who has no rival, the king of the four zones, the king of all the kinglets, the lord of lords, the shepherd prince, the king of kings, the exalted prophet, to whom by proclamation of Samas [the Sun-God] the illustrious scepter has been given as a gift . . . the illustrious prince whose glory has overwhelmed all regions, the mighty destroyer, who like the rush of a flood is made strong against the hostile land, he has destroyed the foemen of Assur [i.e. Assyria].
Countries, mountains, fortresses and kinglets, the enemies of Assur I have conquered and their territories I have made to submit. With sixty kings I have contended furiously, and power and rivalry over them I displayed. A rival in the combat, a confronter in the battle, I have not. To the land of Assyria I have added land, to its men I have added men: the boundary of my own land I have enlarged, and all their lands I have conquered.
At the beginning of my reign 20,000 men of the Muskaya and their five kings to their strength trusted and came down: the land of Kummukh [along the upper Euphrates] they seized.
Trusting in Assur my lord I assembled my chariots and armies. Thereupon I delayed not. The mountains of Kasiyara, a difficult region, I crossed. With their 20,000 fighting men, and their five kings in the land of Kummukh I contended. A destruction of them I made. The bodies of their warriors in destructive battle like the Inundator [the god Eimmon] I overthrew. Their corpses I spread over the valleys and the high places of the mountains. Their heads I cut off: at the sides of their cities I heaped them like mounds. Their spoil, their property, their goods, to a countless number I brought forth. Six thousand men, the relics of their armies, which before my weapons had fled, and took my feet. I laid hold upon them and counted them among the men of my own country.
[After telling at great length about his numerous conquests, rebels crushed, cities taken, kings reduced and general slaughter of the enemy, Tiglath-Pileser boasts of his feats as a royal hunter: a matter wherein an Assyrian king would take almost as much pride as in his conquests.]
Under the protection of [the god] Uras, who loves me, from young wild bulls, powerful and large in the deserts, with my mighty bow, a lasso of iron and my pointed spear, their lives I ended. Their hides and their horns to my city of Assur I brought.
Ten powerful male elephants . . . I slew. Four elephants alive I captured. Their hides and their teeth along with the live elephants I brought to my city of Assur.
One hundred twenty lions with my stout heart in the conflict of my heroism on my feet I slew, and eight hundred lions in my chariot with javelins I slaughtered.