s suggested by the
following entry in an eponym list.

Eponymy of Upahhir-belu, prefect of the city of Amedu ...
According to the oracle of the Kulummite(s).... A soldier
(entered) the camp of the king of Assyria (and killed him?), month
Ab, day 12th, Sennacherib (sat on the throne).[530]

The fact that Sennacherib lamented his father's sins suggests that the
old king had in some manner offended the priesthood. Perhaps, like
some of the Middle Empire monarchs, he succumbed to the influence of
Babylon during the closing years of his life. It is stated that "he
was not buried in his house", which suggests that the customary
religious rites were denied him, and that his lost soul was supposed
to be a wanderer which had to eat offal and drink impure water like
the ghost of a pauper or a criminal.

The task which lay before Sennacherib (705-680 B.C.) was to maintain
the unity of the great empire of his distinguished father. He waged
minor wars against the Kassite and Illipi tribes on the Elamite
border, and the Muski and Hittite tribes in Cappadocia and Cilicia.
The Kassites, however, were no longer of any importance, and the
Hittite power had been extinguished, for ere the states could recover
from the blows dealt by the Assyrians the Cimmerian hordes ravaged
their territory. Urartu was also overrun by the fierce barbarians from
the north. It was one of these last visits of the Assyrians to Tabal
of the Hittites and the land of the Muski (Meshech) which the Hebrew
prophet referred to in after-time when he exclaimed:

Asshur is there and all her company: his graves are about him:
all of them slain, fallen by the sword.... There is Meshech,
Tubal, and all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all
of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused
their terror in the land of the living.... (_Ezekiel_, xxxii.)

Sennacherib found that Ionians had settled in Cilicia, and he deported
large numbers of them to Nineveh. The metal and ivory work at Nineveh
show traces of Greek influence after this period.

A great conspiracy was fomented in several states against Sennacherib
when the intelligence of Sargon's death was bruited abroad. Egypt was
concerned in it. Taharka (the Biblical Tirhakah[531]), the last
Pharaoh of the Ethiopian Dynasty, had dreams of re-establishing
Egyptian supremacy in Palestine and Syria, and leagued himself with
Luli, king of Tyre, Hezekiah, king of