Elamite Military Aid to Merodach-Baladan

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AS THE compiler of the Babylonian Chronicle realized, the political histories of Assyria, Babylonia, and Elam were inextricably intertwined during the first century of the Nabonassar era (year 1 = 747 B.C.). At that time Assyria was the most powerful of the three lands. Under Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V, Assyrian kings for the first time also personally held the throne of Babylonia during the years 728 to 722.1 However, upon the death of Shalmaneser V in late 722, the regular succession to the Assyrian throne was interrupted,2 and Sargon II became king. Because of the temporary political instability of Assyria during the first years of Sargon's reign, Babylonia succeeded in regaining its independence for twelve years. These dozen years were in a sense the last flowering of Babylonia's independence at this time for, with only minor exceptions, from 710 down to the founding of the Chaldean empire in 626, Babylonia was regularly an Assyrian dependency. It is a striking yet generally unrecognized fact that during these early years of the Nabonassar era Babylonia's most successful bids for independence from Assyria were almost always connected with assistance received from Elam. This Elamite-Babylonian coalition was initiated in the time of Merodach-Baladan, the Chaldean tribal chieftain who seized control of the northern capital, Babylon, after the death of Shalmaneser V and made himself king of Babylonia.3 In the following pages we are going to investigate briefly the origins of this coalition, the armed support and political asylum which Elam furnished Merodach-Baladan on several occasions, and finally the reasons on both sides which prompted this union of interests. The Babylonian-Elamite alliance, which was to prove the mainstay of MerodachBaladan's foreign policy, had already been effected by the second year of his reign (720), as is evidenced by the various accounts touching on the battle of DMr,4 which took place in that year.5 DMr was an outpost of the Assyrian empire at the time,6 and the Elamites