LET us glance again at the Assyrian One of our illustrations portrays King Assur-nasir-pal in battle. He is to be recognized by the little cone surmounting his cap. He is in his chariot, with his charioteer and his shield bearer, and he is discharging his arrows at the flying enemy. Hovering over his majesty is his god, and he also has his bow bent and sends forth his arrows against the foe. The god is within an emblem of the sun, and its lateral wing-like forms are either figures of the sun’s rays, or an idea of wings. All that these old kings did in the way of slaughter was done in the name of their gods. It never occurred to them that any act of cruelty or mode of death they practiced was other than a correct tribute to their deities.
The prostrate figure represented over the heads of the bowmen is that of a wounded enemy. A vulture is pecking out his eyes, and the man has just strength enough to put up his hand to try to thrust it away. It is said by some that the Assyrians trained the vulture to follow them in battle; and this is not unlikely when we recall similar methods adopted by the Egyptians with lions. Another wounded soldier is trying to crawl away from the trampling of the horses of Assir-nasir-pal’s chariot. The king has broken up the enemy, and all he has now to do is to slay his foes by arrow or spear, or, if their captains should be captured, to flay them alive.
The above illustration is of a siege—possibly that of Damascus. It tells a graphic story. In the left-hand corner the soldiers are at work undermining the city wall. On the same level two men are quarrelling over some spoil they have found. In the right-hand corner, the bowmen are at work under cover-shields, and a general or some chieftain shoots as his armor-bearer holds up the protecting shield. Close by this archer the battering ram is at work, while to counteract its blows the besieged have let down twisted ropes to save the walls. A hand-to-hand fight is going on amongst the men upon the tower of the city and those on that of the besiegers. But the women tearing their hair on the center tower of the city, and the soldiers falling slain from the walls, plainly tell that Damascus will soon be in the Assyrian’s hands. War in those old days and war in our own bears a remarkable resemblance to each other. The artillery covers the battering-ram, and the archers harass the besieged while the great assault is made.
The kings of Israel, in their descent from the worship of Jehovah to that of the gods of the heathen, favored some of the deities of Assyria, and the Assyrian became their scourge and their destruction.