Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/60

30 General History of Europe over Western Asia as the head of an empire a group of conquered and subject states. It was the most extensive empire that that world had yet seen (see map). 43. Organization of the Assyrian Empire. To maintain the army was the chief work of the Assyrian government. The State was therefore a vast military machine, ruthless and terrible. From the Hittites (see map and 76) iron had been introduced, and the Assyrian forces were the first large armies equipped with weapons of iron. The famous horsemen and chariots of Nineveh became the scourge of the East. For the first time, too, the Assyrians employed powerful siege machinery, especially the battering-ram. This device was the earliest "tank," for it ran on wheels and carried armed men (see Ancient Times, p. 140). The sun-dried-brick walls of the Asiatic cities could thus be battered down. Wherever the terrible Assyr- ian armies swept through the land, they left a trail of ruin and desolation behind, and there were few towns of the Empire which escaped being plundered. 44. Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) and his Capital, Nineveh. The Assyrian king Sennacherib was one of the great statesmen of the early Orient. He devoted himself to the city of Nine- veh, north of Assur, which now became the far-famed capital of Assyria. Here in his gorgeous palace he and his successors ruled the Western Asiatic world with an iron hand and collected tribute from all the subject peoples. 45. Assyrian Palaces; the Library of Assurbanipal. The Assyrian palaces were imposing buildings adorned with arches of brilliantly colored glazed tiles (see Ancient Times, Plate II, p. 164). Vast statues of human-headed bulls guarded the entrance. Within the palace there were long rows of reliefs cut in alabaster (see cuts on pages 32-34) depicting the king's exploits. Nowhere does the artist succeed in expressing any feeling in the human faces, but his animals are often represented full of life. In the excavations made in modern times at Nineveh a great library was found containing twenty-two thousand clay tablets. This was collected by Assurbanipal, the grandson of Sennacherib.