An Assyrian king who effectively built on the efforts of his father, King Ashur-dan II, to restore the power and prestige of the Assyrian nation, which had recently undergone serious decline. According to an ancient account, Adad-nirari defeated Shamash-mudammiq, king of Babylon. Later Adad-nirari concluded a treaty with the new Babylonian king, which resulted in three generations of peace between the two peoples. on the eastern front, Adad-nirari drove the Aramaeans out of the Tigris valley and recaptured some of the cities that Assyria had formerly controlled on the plains west of the Tigris. In an inscription commemorating these deeds, he boasts:
The defeat of the desert folk, the Ara-
Maeans, was accomplished. . . . I am he who returned the cities Hit, Idu,
And Zakku, strongholds of Assyria, to the territory of this land. . . . The old
City of Apku, which the kings who went before me had built, had fallen [in]to decay and was turned to a mound of ruins. That city I rebuilt.
... I made it beautiful, I made it splendid, I made it greater than it had been before.
Significantly, Adad-nirari and his immediate successors initiated a consistent, relentless imperial policy best described as “greater than before”; that is, each ruler attempted to surpass his predecessor’s efforts to acquire power and prestige and thereby glorify the god Ashur. These efforts mainly included foreign military campaigns and domestic building programs. Adad-nirari was succeeded by his son, Tukulti-Ninurta II.
See Also: Ashur-dan II; Assyrian Empire; Tukulti-Ninurta II
World History
