THE TRIALS OF ESARHADDON: THE CONSPIRACY OF SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY BC

THE TRIALS OF ESARHADDON: THE CONSPIRACY OF SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY BC

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an attempt to use the scarce available sources, both textual and archaeological, in order to reconstruct the events leading up to the mass execution of members of the Assyrian governing elite in the year six hundred seventy BC.

In this paper, I will reveal a dark chapter of the reign of the Assyrian King Esarhaddon: a conspiracy that came to a cruel end in the year six hundred seventy BC. In the seventh century BC, the ancient kingdom of Assyria was by far the largest Near Eastern empire of its time, encompassing the area of the modern states of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in their entirety, half of Israel, wide parts of south-eastern Turkey and extensive regions of Western Iran. Assyria was at that time divided into about seventy provinces, each under the control of a governor. The king personally appointed each and every governor, and these in turn answered directly and only to the king. As a rule, governorship was not hereditary: Thus, the office could not be passed on from father to son, and in order to prevent dynastic ideas and schemes from the outset, the king preferred his governors to be eunuchs - castrated men who were physically unable to have children. The king was understood to be chosen by the gods and to rule by their grace; his word was law, and he could directly intervene at all levels of his empire. Nevertheless, the Assyrian administration was largely decentralised and in their provinces, the governors were authorised to act independently on behalf of the king: As far as routine matters were concerned, they operated at their own discretion.

But in order to make sure that all subjects of Assyria were at all times aware of the fact that the one person who was all-powerful in the empire was the king, and only the king, his omnipresence and ubiquity was established and guaranteed on various levels: Hence, the king entertained residences all over the empire which he visited on a regular basis during his continual travels through his kingdom; in each of these palaces lived an entire royal household, complete with an administrative staff, various supply and maintenance units and also entertainment personnel such as musicians and singers. The average inhabitant of the many Assyrian residence cities will not always have known whether the king was present in his local palace or not; but the imposing building itself was always there, visible every day as a monument to the king's claim to power. Moreover, the king was present in the form of his images: In all major sanctuaries of Assyria, his statues and steles took their place next to the divine image; they were also erected at other prominent locations, such as city gates. And maybe most importantly, each and every inhabitant of Assyria was personally tied to the king by the means of a loyalty oath; such oaths were imposed at the time of the new king's ascension to the throne, but were repeated in the context of important state events such as the election of a crown prince. The oath was perceived as a spiritual essence, and the oath-taking ceremony included the ritual drinking of water which was thought to cause the oath itself to enter the body; this was meant to prevent "from within" any breach of the agreement.

The combination of a decentralised administration and the close personal link between the people and their king was the backbone of the Assyrian empire which since the fourteenth century BC had been a constant in the ever-changing political geography of the Ancient Near East. For seven centuries this way of government succeeded, always headed by a member of the same family; this clan had ruled the ancient city of Assur many centuries prior to its mutation into the centre of a territorial empire, and therefore the dynasty of the Assyrian kings is to be counted among the longest-living in world history.

One of the reasons that kingship could so firmly remain in one family's control for more than a millennium was that it needed not necessarily pass from father to son or even eldest son: Each of the king's male relatives was a possible successor to the throne, and hence the royal bloodline was well protected against its extinction. In principle, all the king's sons, brothers, cousins and nephews, but also more distant relatives could ascend to the Assyrian throne; however, one requirement was an absolute essential: In order to be king, a candidate needed to enjoy perfect physical and mental health. But even under the proviso of this sensible condition, dozens, if not hundreds of possible successors to the throne were usually available. It was, however, the king's exclusive privilege to choose an heir, during his reign and with divine assistance. This heir could use his time as crown prince to gain experience as a ruler in the making and to secure his power base; usually, he could then hope to ascend to the throne after his predecessor's natural death with wide acceptance. Nevertheless, time and again Assyria saw controversies and also battles for the throne; but the protagonists were all members of the royal clan. We know of several instances when the struggle for power did not originate in the old king's death, but already started when his crown prince was chosen: More than once, disappointed hopefuls reacted to the installation of a rival as heir to the throne by killing the ruler, trying to wrestle the power not only from the old king, but also and especially his chosen successor. Esarhaddon, six hundred eighty-one to six hundred sixty-nine, was confronted with this fate twice during his lifetime, and we will focus on the second and lesser known of these events.

Esarhaddon became king of Assyria in the year six hundred eighty-one. Despite the fact that his father and predecessor Sennacherib, seven hundred four to six hundred eighty, had made him crown prince two years earlier and had had the whole country take an oath on behalf of his chosen heir, this happened against all odds: Esarhaddon had not been Sennacherib's first choice and in order to have him installed as crown prince, the old king first needed to dismiss another of his sons from the office. This son, Urdu-Mullissi by name, had been crown prince and heir apparent to the Assyrian empire for well over a dozen years when he suddenly had to resign from the prominent position; the reasons for his forced resignation are unknown, but were obviously not grave enough to have him pay with his life. Despite the fact that Urdu-Mullissi had to swear loyalty to his younger brother, he opposed his elevation to the office of crown prince, conspired against Esarhaddon and tried to cause Sennacherib to take back the appointment; the king did not comply, but the situation was clearly very precarious, and the new heir was sent into exile for his own protection. Sennacherib does not seem to have realised just how dangerous his decision to back Esarhaddon's promotion was for his own life; otherwise it is a mystery how the former crown prince Urdu-Mullissi could be allowed to stay in his father's closest proximity where, right under his nose, he plotted to become king. Sennacherib seems to have been caught completely off-guard when Urdu-Mullissi and another son of his attacked him with drawn swords in a temple of Nineveh: On the twentieth day of the tenth month of six hundred eighty-one, Sennacherib was killed by the hands of his own sons whose deed caused a stir all over the Near East, best witnessed by the report found in the Old Testament. Yet the kingship that Urdu-Mullissi craved for was not to be his. The aftermath of the murder saw friction between him and his conspirators; his accession to the throne was delayed and ultimately never took place at all. Assyria was in chaos when Esarhaddon, leading a small army, entered the country from his western exile and marched towards the heartland of the empire. He managed to drive out the murderers of Sennacherib and, two months after the assassination, he became king of Assyria.

These bloody events shaped the new king profoundly. It comes as no great surprise that after his accession to the throne Esarhaddon ordered all conspirators and political enemies within reach to be killed; yet he could not touch the leader of the conspiracy as Urdu-Mullissi had found asylum in Urartu. That Assyria's northern neighbour would harbour the murderer of Sennacherib is not at all unexpected: The two countries had been in an almost constant state of war for the past two centuries. At that time, chances were that Urdu-Mullissi still might become king and in that event, the Urartian king could reasonably expect to gain substantial influence over Assyria. In the meantime, Esarhaddon made an effort to ensure that his brother would not have any powerful allies at home, should he ever try to stage a coup d'etat from his exile: Many officials throughout the country who were suspected of entertaining sympathy for the enemy fraction were replaced. To give but one example, the complete security staff at the royal palaces of Nineveh and Kalbu was dismissed; it is of course understood that these men were not sent into retirement: They will have been executed.

Henceforth, Esarhaddon met his environs as a rule with overwhelming distrust. Routinely, he sought to establish by means of oracular queries whether certain courtiers, officials and even members of the royal family wished him ill or actively tried to harm him. If he seems to have been wary of his male relatives, he appears to have entertained less suspicions about the women of his family. This is certainly one of reason why Esarhaddon's mother Naqi'a, his wife Esarra-hammat and his eldest daughter Šerua-ețirat were able to wield an amount of influence that has few parallels in Ancient Near Eastern history. The power of his wife was much noticed even outside palace circles; it is quite extraordinary that her death in the year six hundred seventy-three is mentioned prominently in two contemporary chronicle texts. The devoted widower had a mausoleum erected and special rites for his wife's funerary care installed. Even more remarkable, he did not get married again; the vacant position of the Assyrian queen was hitherto occupied by his mother Naqi'a who had already played an important role in Esarhaddon's appointment as crown prince and in his eventual taking of power: This is most obvious from a prophecy which records the encouraging words of Ištar of Arbela to Naqi'a during the time of Esarhaddon's exile. That also the daughter Šerua-ețirat occupied a prominent position at her father's court is known from some letters that speaks of her self-confidence. Her far-reaching influence is apparent from the fact that in later years she acted as a mediator in the conflict between her brothers, the kings of Assyria and Babylon; this is without parallel for any Near Eastern woman of that time.

Esarhaddon's general distrust against his environment is also mirrored by his choice of residence. He had a palace in the city of Kalbu adapted which his forefather Shalmaneser the third (eight hundred fifty-eight to eight hundred twenty-four) had constructed as an armoury some two centuries earlier. This building was situated far from the administrative and cultic centre of the city, on top of a separate mound that protected it well from its surroundings. In the years between six hundred seventy-six and six hundred seventy-two, Esarhaddon had the old building renovated and enhanced, turning it into a veritable stronghold: The gateways especially were turned into strongly fortified and impregnable towers that, if needed, could be used to seal off the palace against the rest of the city. The only access to the building was through a narrow entrance, leading into a long and steep hallway inside the enclosing wall which was protected by a sequence of several heavy doors and which steeply ascended towards the palace. Esarhaddon had a similar palace erected in Nineveh, also far removed from the acropolis proper at Kuyunjik on the separate mound of Nebi Yunus; however, as this is today the site of one of Mossul's most important mosques, the building is only insufficiently explored.

In the first years of his rule, Esarhaddon proved himself a successful regent who, after a chaotic start, was able to consolidate his kingship and efficiently prevented segregation and territorial losses. Treacherous vassals, who had thought Assyria weakened and had tried to benefit from this, had to come to the painful realisation that Esarhaddon fully controlled his governors and his army and was able to take revenge for treason in the same way as his predecessors had done: As a consequence, the vassal kingdoms of Sidon and of Subria were conquered and turned into Assyrian provinces. The completion of a peace treaty with Elam, Assyria's long-standing rival in Iran, in the year six hundred seventy-four must be seen as a skilful political manoeuvre, and the securing of the Eastern border provided Assyria for the first time ever with the chance to attempt and exploit the power vacuum in Egypt to its own advantages - Assyria's first invasion into Egypt, however, ended with a defeat against Taharqa the Nubian, and a hasty retreat.

At that time it had become increasingly clear that Esarhaddon's physical condition was poorly: He was constantly struck with illness, mostly of a rather severe nature. For days, he withdrew to his sleeping quarters and refused food, drink and, most disturbingly, any human company; the death of his beloved wife in the year six hundred seventy-three may well have further damaged his already fragile health. For the all-powerful king of Assyria, this situation was bizarre. Esarhaddon's counsellors witnessed his deterioration first with apprehension and then with increasing objection, but were of course not in a position to actually change the state of affairs. It is a testament to Assyria's sound administrative structure that the country could take the king's continuing inability to act his part. Modern day man may well be able to muster considerable sympathy for Esarhaddon whose symptoms were indeed rather alarming: As we know from the correspondence left by the royal physicians and exorcists, his days were governed by spells of fever and dizziness, violent fits of vomiting, diarrhoea and painful earaches. Depressions and fear of impending death were a constant in his life. In addition, his physical appearance was affected by the marks of a permanent skin rash that covered large parts of his body and especially his face. In one letter, the king's personal physician - certainly a medical professional at the very top of his league - was forced to confess his ultimate inability to help the king: „My lord, the king, keeps telling me: 'Why do you not identify the nature of my disease and find a cure?' As I told the king already in person, his symptoms cannot be classified." While Esarhaddon's experts pronounced themselves incapable of identifying the king's illness, modern day specialists have tried to use the reported symptoms in order to come up with a diagnosis in retrospect. However, it is not entirely clear whether the sickly Esarhaddon contracted one illness after the other or, as would seem more likely, suffered from the afflictions of a chronic disease that never left for good. Be that as it may, in a society that saw illness as a divine punishment, a king who was constantly confined to the sick bay could not expect to meet with sympathy and understanding. He could, however, reasonably presume that his subjects saw his affliction at the very least as an indication that the gods lacked goodwill towards their ruler, if not as the fruit of divine wrath, incurred by committing some heinous crime. Therefore, the king's condition needed to be hidden from the public by all means, and that this was at all feasible was very much facilitated by the ancient tradition that whoever came before the king had to be veiled and on their knees.

Because of his failing health, Esarhaddon saw himself permanently in death's clutches; this alone made it necessary to provide for his succession: Who would be king after him? There were a great many possible candidates: Esarhaddon himself had fathered at least eighteen children, but some of them suffered, like their father, from a frail condition and needed permanent medical attention. It would appear that sickly sons were, just like all the daughters, deemed unfit from the start: After all, only a man without fault could be king of Assyria. At one point, a son called Sîn-nadin-apli was deemed a fit candidate, as is demonstrated by an oracular query addressed to the sun god. However, it was Assurbanipal who was elevated to the rank of crown prince of Assyria in the year six hundred seventy-two, on the eighteenth day of the month Iyyar, and at the same time, his elder brother Šamaš-šumu-ukin was declared crown prince of Babylon. Installing one son as the next king of Assyria and another son as the future ruler of Babylon was a novel approach, as for the past decades the Assyrian kings had simultaneously held the crown of Babylon. Following the tradition established for Esarhaddon's own proclamation as crown prince, the whole country had to swear an oath to respect and honour the king's decision; simultaneously the king's mother, Naqi'a, saw to it that all those who could at one point have entertained hopes to succeed Esarhaddon as king of Assyria took an additional loyalty oath in favour of her grandson Assurbanipal. And even his dead mother Ešarra-hammat was thought to have risen from her grave to secure Assurbanipal's claim: According to a contemporary letter, her ghost appeared to the new crown prince in a dream, blessing him and pronouncing him and his heirs the rightful rulers of Assyria.

The new succession set-up was also expressed by visual means, most prominently on the royal stelae set up at Sam'al and Til Barsip which depict the king and both crown princes. Also the image displayed on the royal seal was adapted to fit the new situation: The traditional depiction of the king killing a lion was replaced by an updated design that showed this subject not just once, but three times; this was meant to convey that not king Esarhaddon alone, but also his two crown princes Assurbanipal and Šamaš-šumu-ukin were the country's legitimate rulers; that this was indeed reality is clear from a number of references in letters which show both crown princes deeply involved in matters of political and cultic importance. Such a division of power must have appealed to all those who wished to see the sick king's burden lightened: It seems that a socially acceptable way of coping with an unpleasant and dangerous situation had been found.

Yet making public who would be the next king could endanger the present ruler's life, as Esarhaddon had learned the hard way from the example of his father Sennacherib's grim fate. It is at that time that Esarhaddon became for the second time in his life the victim of a conspiracy that was meant to wrestle Assyrian kingship from his hands.

In the beginning of the year six hundred seventy-one, Esarhaddon set out on a second campaign against Egypt. On his way to the river Nile he visited the city of Harran where a prophecy was revealed to him. In a letter that was sent to Esarhaddon's successor some years after the event, the following is related: "When Esarhaddon marched to Egypt, a temple of cedar wood was erected at Harran. There, the god Sîn was enthroned on a wooden column, two crowns on his head, and standing in front of him was the god Nusku. 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." The two deities mentioned are part of the divine triad that had been worshipped in the city of Harran since old, the moon god Sîn, his consort Nikkal and their son, the god of light Nusku. The moon god's two crowns are only attested in this text and have found various interpretations. One popular reading takes it to be a reference to the Egyptian double crown and thus a sign announcing the victory over Egypt. It seems more likely, however, that the description simply refers to the combination of crown and moon sickle which the moon god is wearing on his head, especially as the moon sickle is often called the "crown" of Sîn in the written sources.

Undoubtedly encouraged and heartened by the divine words, Esarhaddon and his army continued their march towards Egypt and indeed, three months later, on the third day of the month Tammuz, the Assyrian troops were victorious in a first battle. However, Esarhaddon seems to have not trusted his good fortune after all: Only eleven days after the victorious battle, he had the substitute king ritual performed. This was an ancient ritual meant to protect the king from impending death that had been announced by an omen, usually an eclipse. It was not the first time that the rite was performed during Esarhaddon's reign, but the ceremony of six hundred seventy-one is especially important as it was to be the first of a series of three that incapacitated the king for a substantial portion of the following two years: For each time the ritual was undertaken the king went into hiding for the next one-hundred days.

The ceremony required the installation of a substitute who took over the king's place for a period of one-hundred days, acting as his replacement in every way: He wore the king's clothes, he ate the king's meals and he slept in the king's bed while the true monarch remained hidden from the public and was to be known only under the pseudonym "The farmer". The goal of the ritual was to trick fate and redirect the bad omens and the evil they predicted onto the replacement king; in order to make absolutely certain that it was he whom death would strike, nothing was left to chance and the man was killed at the end of his hundred day reign; small wonder that retards - who could not grasp the meaning behind their sudden rise to the throne - were deemed to be ideal candidates for the doomed role of substitute king. This ritual had a long-standing tradition in Mesopotamia and was performed for the last time in the year three hundred twenty-three when the priests of Babylon tried to safe the dying Alexander - in vain.

For Esarhaddon, the six hundred seventy-one ceremony proved to be altogether more successful: He survived, and in the following two years, he had the ritual performed at another two occasions: This meant, however, that he did not act as king of Assyria for close to a year, making continuing use of a practice that was only fit to be employed as a last-resort escape route in a dead end situation. In practice, this could only work as the crown princes Assurbanipal and Šamaš-šumu-ukin were in a position to step up to take on their father's tasks.

It was not under their leadership, however, that the Assyrian army continued to wage war in Egypt: Although we do not know the identity of the army's leader for certain, it is most likely to have been Esarhaddon's chief eunuch Aššur-nasir. The Assyrian army continued its victorious campaign, winning two more battles and even conquering the royal city of Memphis. Its temples and palaces were plundered, and among many other spoils, fifty-five royal statues were carried away by the Assyrian troops, some of which have been excavated in Esarhaddon's Nebi Yunus palace at Nineveh.

It was at that time that the news of a second prophecy spread from Harran where a local woman had fallen into ecstasy, uttering a sensational divine message: “This is the word of the god Nusku: Kingship belongs to Sasî. I shall destroy the name and the seed of Sennacherib!" As the successful conquest of Egypt had just proven the oracle of Harran to be most trustworthy, the importance of this second prophecy was paramount: It brand-marked Esarhaddon and his heirs as impostors and unworthy to rule over Assyria and thus provided an ideological foundation for a possible revolt.

At this point, we need to discuss the relationship between Esarhaddon and the shrine of the moon god at Harran. The king's initiative to visit this sanctuary seems to coincide with the beginning of a building project that was to transform this shrine - which was very ancient and had enjoyed the patronage of various Assyrian kings after Harran's reconquest in the ninth century, but certainly did not hold a supreme position among the temples of Assyria - into one of the most prominent Near Eastern sanctuaries of the seventh and sixth century. The newly found status of Sîn's temple at Harran is witnessed by the building inscriptions of the kings Assurbanipal and Nabonidus and also supported by the growing popularity of a legal clause that stipulates a gift to Sîn of Harran in case of breach of contract. The temple and the sanctuaries that succeeded the shrine - eventually the Great Mosque of Harran which was destroyed by the Mongols in one thousand two hundred sixty - were all holy places of wide-ranging and far-reaching importance. The first Harran prophecy in Esarhaddon's favour was already a result of the interest that the king had developed for the temple and that had led to his visit.

But what had attracted Esarhaddon to the moon god in the first place? As we have discussed before, the most visible symptom of the long-suffering king's disease was a skin condition for which his various medical experts were unable to find a cure and which they were hesitant to name. According to the Mesopotamian belief system, every deity was the patron of a special curse that was closely linked to the god's character. The curse of the moon god caused the victim to be afflicted by an incurable skin disease that made him a social outcast. One text states: "Sîn, the lamp of heaven and earth, shall dress you in the saharsubbû disease and ban you from showing yourselves in the presence of the gods and the king. Like wild donkeys and gazelles you shall roam the steppe!" It is not a far stretch to see a connection between the newly found interest of a king, who is plagued by a nasty skin disease, for the temple of a deity, who was capable to cause an illness of that sort. It would seem possible to me that Esarhaddon sought to battle his affliction at its root when he decided to build a new shrine for the moon god: What better way to win a deity's favour?

It would, however, appear that it was exactly the king's pilgrimage to Harran that publicised his disease to a degree that had successfully been avoided so far. Knowledge about the king suffering from such a serious and also repulsive illness cannot have failed to thoroughly disqualify Esarhaddon in his subjects' eyes as ruler of Assyria - an office that could only be held by a man of perfect physical and mental health. We have to see the second prophecy in this context.

Who was Sasî whom that prophecy proclaimed to be Assyria's true king? We do not know his identity, but one thing is certain: This man, who bore a rather common name that may well have been an abbreviation and who entertained a household at Harran at the time, is extremely likely to have been part of the royal family as he could not even have been considered as king of Assyria otherwise. Yet it is implausible that he was a son of Esarhaddon or indeed any descendant of Sennacherib, as the prophecy speaks of annihilating the name and offspring of that very king. It is more probable to trace Sasî's ancestry back to the heroic Sargon, six hundred twenty-one to six hundred five, Sennacherib's father and predecessor who had led Assyria to its greatest military triumphs. However that may be, fact is that in a very short period of time Sasî's cause managed to win many followers all over the empire, some of them in extremely high positions: One supporter was Esarhaddon's chief eunuch Aššur-nasir whose role in the planned usurpation was prominent and the subject of an oracular query performed at the moon god's temple in Harran. In the meantime, the prophetess who had proclaimed the divine verdict in

Sasî's favour had placed herself under Sasî's protection; we cannot underestimate the value of this undoubtedly highly charismatic individual for the spread of the movement and the recruitment of new followers. It seems that loyalty oaths were at that time sworn to Sasî, as if he already were king, just like in the case of Urdu-Mullissi whose supporters had taken an “oath of rebellion” against Sennacherib.

The goal of Sasî's followers was obviously to make the prophecy come true: This meant getting rid of Esarhaddon and his crown princes and installing Sasî as king of Assyria. The conspiracy did not remain a secret operation for long. We have already mentioned that Esarhaddon had learned a lesson from his father's death and from the beginning of his reign had entertained little faith in the trustworthiness of his minions; now it paid off that he had made his subjects swear as part of his loyalty oath to report whenever they heard or saw anything that might be interpreted as an action against the king. Indeed, soon after the Sasî movement started to take shape, various letters reached Esarhaddon informing him about the pretender's followers who were not only active in the Harran region, but also in central Assyria and even in Babylonia. In marked difference to the conspirators against Sennacherib, who a decade before had plotted as a small group and in utmost secrecy directly under the king's eyes, the new rebels were far less concerned about the concealment of their plans; their belief that Sasî was chosen and protected by the gods as the true king of Assyria will of course have made all the difference.

At first, Esarhaddon did not take action against Sasî and his followers but waited and gathered more information about the conspiracy. Never were more letters containing denunciations and accusations addressed to the king than in these months, laced with fervent proclamations of loyalty and love for the ruler. Understandably, Esarhaddon was extremely concerned for his safety and his life, and he had the substitute king ritual performed again, on the fifteenth day of the month Tebet of six hundred seventy-one, less than three months after concluding a period of hundred days as "the farmer" - this measure effectively removed him from the public eye and thus offered better protection against any attempt on his life. As soon as this second time-out was over, Esarhaddon took immediate action against the conspirators. Using maximum force and brutal violence, he was successful: In contrast to his father he did not have to pay with his life.

The available chronicle texts offer but a brief remark for the year six hundred seventy: “The king killed many of his magnates in Assyria with the sword.” This stoic statement is brutal enough in itself, but it can only insufficiently convey what this massacre, the second that Esarhaddon had ordered among his own people within a decade, really must have meant for the country: If one considers the well-oiled machinery of Assyria's administration as the backbone of the empire, it becomes apparent that killing off a large part of the top officials would cause far more and also more permanent harm to the state than the murder of a king. Just how much the empire's structure was damaged is also shown by the highly unusual fact that in the first months of the new year no official was chosen to provide the year's name - a situation which is extremely rarely attested in the long course of Assyrian history and usually marks a time of inner turbulences.

For centuries, the Assyrian Empire and especially its centre had not been invaded by foreign troops; yet the people of Assyria were not sheltered from the horrors of war: The crisis of the year six hundred seventy can be shown to have spread far beyond the royal court. During the recent excavations at the small town of Burmarina, Tell Shiukh Fawqani, situated on the Middle Euphrates close to Til Barsip, a private house was unearthed that contained the remains of an archive of dated legal documents. The dating of these texts suggests that the building was destroyed in the year six hundred seventy, and a connection with Esarhaddon's extinction of the Sasî conspiracy is therefore likely. The same is true for the situation encountered at the city of Sam'al, Zincirli, in the region of modern Antakia: Here, too, two business documents with fitting dates were found in the remains of a building, the destruction of which I would again place during the events of six hundred seventy. Both cities are situated in the general area of Harran; this could be more than pure chance and may well indicate that Sasî's cause had met with particular sympathy in his home region which in turn was struck especially hard by Esarhaddon's vengeance.

It is certainly not pure chance that it is at Sam'al and at Til Barsip, the capital of the province in which Burmarina is situated, that royal stelae have been discovered that show king Esarhaddon and his crown princes and glorify the triumph over Egypt in word and image; the purpose of these stelae is described in the inscription incised on one of them as follows: "I erected this stela forever so that all my enemies may gaze at it in admiration." This remark certainly does not only refer to the king's enemies abroad, but also his enemies inside Assyria - whose sheer existence could not even be hinted at in a royal inscriptions that celebrated the monarch's achievements: Not one of these texts contains any allusion to the plot against Esarhaddon, and hence, in the reconstruction of this episode, we are solely dependent on the references in chronicle texts and in letters as well as indirect hints such as found in the dating of archival documents. Thus, the case of the conspiracy of the year six hundred seventy is symptomatic for the problems that arise from a historical reconstruction that depends too heavily and uncritically on the testament of royal inscriptions. Against the background of the events just described, I would consider it unfortunate to define Esarhaddon's reign as a period marked by internal peace or even style this ruler as a kind of Friedensfürst, this propagates an image of Esarhaddon and his times according to his very own world view and as it was therefore conveyed in his inscriptions. But this reflection of the historical situation is certainly even more distorted than the fragmentary picture that we may develop if we also make use of the more objective sources such as chronicles, letters and economic texts.

After the conspiracy against Esarhaddon had been quelled, the security measures at court were substantially strengthened: To meet the king had never been easy; now it became even more difficult as two additional ranks were introduced to the hierarchy of those officials who supervised the control of access to the palace. The atmosphere of fear and suspicion must have been overwhelming.

The shrine of the moon god of Harran, however, emerged from the crisis of six hundred seventy unharmed and apparently even strengthened: Esarhaddon's successors continued to greatly favour the sanctuary. One of his sons was even made a priest of the temple, and the tradition of the king's relatives serving as cult personnel at Harran can subsequently be traced well into the sixth century. The woman who had proclaimed the prophecy of the god Nusku could easily be defamed as one of those "false prophets" that the Assyrians knew and loathed just like the Old Testament. We know from a letter to Esarhaddon of the plan to wait for a suitable moment to snatch her from the house of Sasî, and it is probable that this plan or a similar scheme was realised when the conspiracy was crushed. We do not know anything about the woman's further fate, and the same goes for the enigmatic Sasî. To assume that the two key figures of the conspiracy survived is only feasible if they had managed to flee abroad, just like the murderers of Sennacherib; it seems more likely, however, that they were executed together with their fellow conspirators.

For a second time, Esarhaddon had been able to escape unharmed from a conspiracy directed against him, and again, the goddess Ištar of Arbela revealed herself through the words of a prophetess, this time to comfort the king: "I will banish trepidation from my palace! You shall eat and drink safely! Your son and your grandson shall rule as kings, protected in the lap of the god Ninurta!" The situation seemed to be well under control, but still, the old fears had not left Esarhaddon completely, and neither had the disease; already in the next year he had to fall back on the substitute king ritual. Shortly after the end of this period of concealment and apparently in good shape, the king set out for a third campaign against Egypt which, clearly encouraged by Assyria's internal problems, had tried to escape Assyria's control; but on the way to the Nile, Esarhaddon died. It happened on the tenth day of the month Marchesvan in the year six hundred sixty-nine, and as far as we know, his death was natural and unexpected. Thus ended Esarhaddon's reign.

Shortly after, Assurbanipal ascended to the Assyrian throne, and his brother Šamaš-šumu-ukin became king of Babylon, proving Esarhaddon's succession plans a success. For the time being, the impact of bloodshed of the past year seemed to be alleviated by the absence of further unrest. But if we leave behind ancient Assyria at this point, we do so with the hindsight knowledge that the period of peace was only short-lived: One of the bloodiest and ultimately the final chapter of Assyrian history was about to begin.