Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

124
HISTORY OF PERSIA
onerous tribute. This event is narrated in the book of
Kings as follows : "In the ninth year
of Hoshea the
King of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into
Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the
river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." ^
Halah ^
is Calah, at that period the capital ; Habor is the Khabur,
a main tributary of the Euphrates Gozan ;
lay to the east
of the Khabur, and " the cities of the Medes " were the
districts which had been formed into an Assyrian province
by Tiglath-pileser IV.
The same sovereign, a few years later, during the
course of a campaign with the Mannai, who inhabited
Azerbaijan to the south of Lake Urumia, and were akin
to the Medes, captured one of their chiefs, Dayaukku,
whose name is apparently identical with that of the
classical Deioces, the founder of the Median Empire.
Contrary to the Assyrian custom, the prisoner's
life was
spared and he was sent with his family into exile at
Hamath. As the result of this campaign the Medes once
more acknowledged the suzerainty of Assyria, and twentytwo
of their chiefs swore the oath of allegiance
at the feet
of the monarch.
Esarhaddons Expeditions^ circa 674 B.C.—Under Esar-
haddon, the Assyrian expeditions penetrated as far as
Mount Demavand and the " Salt Deserts," a country
rich in
lapis lazuli, which no Assyrian army had hitherto
reached. It is related that the monarch captured two
petty kings and deported them to Assyria, with their
subjects, their two-humped camels and their thoroughbred
horses. Owing to the successful results of this
expedition, other Median kings followed Esarhaddon back
to Nineveh with gifts of lapis
lazuli and horses, and
begged for his protection. This was graciously accorded,
and thus the empire of Assyria expanded its borders
towards, and even beyond. Media. The exact date of this
campaign cannot be fixed, but it is known to have been
before 673 B.C. This record tends to prove that Tiglathpileser
I. did not penetrate as far as Afghanistan, the only
^ 2 Kings xvii. 6.
2 For a suggested emendation for Calah vide The Passing of the Empires^ p. 216,
note 2.