Eponymy of Upahhir-belu, prefect of the city of Amedu ...  According to the oracle of the Kulummite(s)....  A soldier (entered) the camp of the king of Assyria (and killed him?), month Ab, day 12th, Sennacherib (sat on the throne).[530]

The fact that Sennacherib lamented his father’s sins suggests that the old king had in some manner offended the priesthood.  Perhaps, like some of the Middle Empire monarchs, he succumbed to the influence of Babylon during the closing years of his life.  It is stated that “he was not buried in his house”, which suggests that the customary religious rites were denied him, and that his lost soul was supposed to be a wanderer which had to eat offal and drink impure water like the ghost of a pauper or a criminal.

The task which lay before Sennacherib (705-680 B.C.) was to maintain the unity of the great empire of his distinguished father.  He waged minor wars against the Kassite and Illipi tribes on the Elamite border, and the Muski and Hittite tribes in Cappadocia and Cilicia.  The Kassites, however, were no longer of any importance, and the Hittite power had been extinguished, for ere the states could recover from the blows dealt by the Assyrians the Cimmerian hordes ravaged their territory.  Urartu was also overrun by the fierce barbarians from the north.  It was one of these last visits of the Assyrians to Tabal of the Hittites and the land of the Muski (Meshech) which the Hebrew prophet referred to in after-time when he exclaimed: 

Asshur is there and all her company:  his graves are about him:  all of them slain, fallen by the sword....  There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude:  her graves are round about him:  all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living.... (Ezekiel, xxxii.)

Sennacherib found that Ionians had settled in Cilicia, and he deported large numbers of them to Nineveh.  The metal and ivory work at Nineveh show traces of Greek influence after this period.

A great conspiracy was fomented in several states against Sennacherib when the intelligence of Sargon’s death was bruited abroad.  Egypt was concerned in it.  Taharka (the Biblical Tirhakah[531]), the last Pharaoh of the Ethiopian Dynasty, had dreams of re-establishing Egyptian supremacy in Palestine and Syria, and leagued himself with Luli, king of Tyre, Hezekiah, king of Judah, and others.  Merodach Baladan, the Chaldaean king, whom Sargon had deposed, supported by Elamites and Aramaeans, was also a party to the conspiracy.  “At that time Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah....  And Hezekiah was glad of them."[532]

Merodach Baladan again seized the throne of Babylon.  Sargon’s son, who had been appointed governor, was murdered and a pretender sat on the throne for a brief period, but Merodach Baladan thrust him aside and reigned for nine months, during which period he busied himself by encouraging the kings of Judah and Tyre to revolt.  Sennacherib invaded Babylonia with a strong army, deposed Merodach Baladan, routed the Chaldaeans and Aramaeans, and appointed as vassal king Bel-ibni, a native prince, who remained faithful to Assyria for about three years.