Tiglath-Pileser III
Tiglath-Pileser III was the Neo-Assyrian emperor from 745 BC to his death in 727. One of the most prominent and historically significant Assyrian rulers, Tiglath-Pileser ended a period of Assyrian stagnation, introduced numerous political and military reforms, and doubled the lands under Assyrian control. Because of the massive expansion and centralization of Assyrian territory and the establishment of a standing army, some researchers consider Tiglath-Pileser's reign to mark the actual transition of Assyria into an empire. The reforms and methods of control introduced under Tiglath-Pileser laid the groundwork for policies enacted not only by later Assyrian kings but also by later empires for millennia after his death.
The circumstances of Tiglath-Pileser's rise to the throne are not clear. Because ancient Assyrian sources give conflicting accounts concerning Tiglath-Pileser's lineage and there are records of a revolt around the time of his accession, many historians have concluded that Tiglath-Pileser was a usurper, who seized the throne from his predecessor Ashur-nirari V, who was either his brother or his father. Other historians postulate that the evidence could just as easily be interpreted as Tiglath-Pileser inheriting the throne through legitimate means, and the debate remains unresolved.
Tiglath-Pileser increased royal power and authority by curbing the influence of prominent officials and generals. After securing some minor victories in 744 and 743, he defeated the Urartian king Sarduri II in battle near Arpad in 743. This victory was significant since Urartu had briefly equalled Assyria in power; Sarduri had defeated Tiglath-Pileser's predecessor Ashur-nirari eleven years earlier.
After defeating Sarduri, Tiglath-Pileser turned his attention to the Levant. Over several years, he conquered most of the Levant, defeating and then either annexing or subjugating previously influential kingdoms, notably ending the kingdom of Aram-Damascus. Tiglath-Pileser's activities in the Levant were recorded in the Hebrew Bible. After a few years of conflict, Tiglath-Pileser conquered Babylonia in 729, becoming the first king to rule as sovereign of both Assyria and Babylonia.
Background
Ancestry and rise to the throne
There is not enough surviving evidence to conclude how Tiglath-Pileser III came to the throne and the nature of his accession is thus unclear and disputed. Several pieces of evidence indicate that he might have been a usurper. Pointing to this are the facts that there was a revolt in Nimrud, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, in 746/745 and that numerous officials and governors were replaced after 745. Ancient Assyrian sources give conflicting information in regards to Tiglath-Pileser's lineage. Tiglath-Pileser in inscriptions attributed his rise to the throne solely to divine selection, rather than the more typical practice of Assyrian kings ascribing their rise to both divine selection and his royal ancestry. The Assyrian King List, an ancient Assyrian document listing the kings of Assyria, states that Tiglath-Pileser's father was his immediate predecessor Ashur-nirari V. Tiglath-Pileser in his own inscriptions claimed that he was the son of Adad-nirari III, making him Ashur-nirari's brother.Assyriologists and other historians have overwhelmingly concluded that Tiglath-Pileser was a usurper. The Assyriologist Bradley J. Parker went as far as suggesting that he was not part of the previous royal dynasty at all, but per the Assyriologist Karen Radner, his claims of royal descent were probably true, meaning that while he did usurp the throne, he was a legitimate contender for it, having been victorious in an intra-dynastic civil war. Tiglath-Pileser faced no known resistance or rebellions against his rule after taking the throne.
If accepted as a royal dynast, uncertainties still exist in whether Tiglath-Pileser was the son of Adad-nirari or Ashur-nirari. The Assyriologists Fei Chen, Albert Kirk Grayson and Shiego Yamada consider it more likely that he was Adad-nirari's son, with the Assyrian King List's identification of him as the son of Ashur-nirari possibly being a scribal error. The Assyriologist Paul Garelli considers this unlikely, given that 38 years separate the reign of Adad-nirari from that of Tiglath-Pileser, writing that the possibility of him being Ashur-nirari's son cannot be fully ruled out.
The historian Tracy Davenport holds that "we may never know" whether Tiglath-Pileser was Ashur-nirari's son or brother. There are ways to explain Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions proclaiming him as the son of Adad-nirari despite the 38 years between their two reigns. It is possible that "son" in this context meant "grandson", meaning that Tiglath-Pileser would have been the son of Ashur-nirari or another of Adad-nirari's sons, or that Tiglath-Pileser actually was Adad-nirari's son, but came to the throne when he was already relatively old, possibly aged about 50.
File:Tell Ahmar, mural palacio rey Tiglatpileser audiencia sicglo VIII.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|A wall painting from Til Barsip depicting Tiglath-Pileser holding court. The official closest to him to the right is his son Shalmaneser V.
The Eponym Chronicle, a list of eponyms, names for the years, typically taken from influential officials, of Assyria confirms there was a revolt in Nimrud the year before Tiglath-Pileser became king. According to the historian Stefan Zawadzki, writing in 1994, the eponyms also provide insight into how the transition from Ashur-nirari to Tiglath-Pileser might have happened. That Tiglath-Pileser took the throne the year after the uprising was interpreted by Zawadzki, and others, as firmly indicating that he took the throne as the result of a coup d'etat. Zawadzki believes the Eponym Chronicle further suggests that the rebellion, while not necessarily led by Tiglath-Pileser himself, was started with his knowledge and consent. The chief piece of evidence Zawadzki presents for this is that the revolt of 746 began in Nimrud and the first official appointed as eponym holder by Tiglath-Pileser was Bel-dan, the governor of Nimrud.
Garelli believes the revolt in 746 was instigated by Shamshi-ilu, a prominent official throughout the reigns of Tiglath-Pileser's predecessors, and that the uprising was crushed by Tiglath-Pileser after he legitimately inherited the throne. Zawadzki believes Shamshi-ilu may have revolted, as he is no longer recorded in Tiglath-Pileser's reign, but that the uprising in Nimrud was a separate revolt from Shamshu-ilu's supposed uprising and that Tiglath-Pileser or his supporters would have fought both Shamshu-ilu and Ashur-nirari.
In her 2016 PhD thesis, the historian Tracy Davenport advanced the theory that Tiglath-Pileser might have been entirely legitimate and that he could even have co-ruled with Ashur-nirari for some time. Supporting Garelli's idea that Tiglath-Pileser was not responsible for any rebellion and the idea that he was a member of the royal dynasty, Davenport examined the Eponym Chronicle. Notably, the eponyms for Tiglath-Pileser's early reign do not follow the traditional sequence used for Assyrian eponym holders. Typically, the king was eponym holder in his second regnal year, followed by important magnates and then provincial governors.
If Tiglath-Pileser became king in 745, the eponym holder of his second regnal year was Bel-dan, not the king himself, who was the eponym holder in 743, his third regnal year. This could be explained by Tiglath-Pileser not having become the sole ruler of Assyria until 744. There are some strange features of the Eponym Chronicle that suggest that Ashur-nirari ruled until 744, together with Tiglath-Pileser 745–744. There are two horizontal lines in this part of the list, one beneath 746, possibly marking Tiglath-Pileser's rise to the throne, and one beneath 744, possibly marking Ashur-nirari's death.
It is unlikely that the second line is an error, since it occurs right after a note that records the end of Ashur-nirari's reign and its length. Both the Eponym Chronicle and the Assyrian King List gives Ashur-nirari a reign length of 10 years, only possible if he ruled until 744, and not 745. If Ashur-nirari did rule until 744, it is unlikely that there was a civil war, since Tiglath-Pileser is recorded to have gone on campaigns against Assyria's foreign enemies in this time, not possible if he was simultaneously involved in internal conflict.
Name
Assyria was known for centuries primarily through its appearances in the Hebrew Bible. Mesopotamian rulers mentioned in the Bible are thus known today by the Biblical forms of their names. The modern name Tiglath-Pileser therefore derives from the Hebrew version of the name, which is a corrupted form of the original form, Tukultī-apil-Ešarra. Presumably a regnal name, adopted upon his accession to the throne, Tukultī-apil-Ešarra means "my trust belongs to the son of Ešarra." The Ešarra was a temple dedicated to the god Ninurta. By the time of Tiglath-Pileser's reign, Ninurta was viewed as the son of the Assyrian national deity Ashur.In some non-contemporary sources, such as the Canon of Kings, the Babylonian King List, the Bible and the works of later Babylonian and Greco-Roman historians, Tiglath-Pileser is recorded under the name Pulu, the etymology of which is uncertain. Though sometimes interpreted as a second regnal name, there are no contemporary Assyrian or Babylonian sources that refer to Tiglath-Pileser by this name and there is no evidence that it was ever used officially. No evidence exists of any Assyrian king ever using more than one regnal name in their lifetime.
In 2007, the Incirli Trilingual inscription was published that gave contemporary confirmation that Pul and Tiglath-Pileser III were the same individual. Only the Phoenician language part of the inscription has been published so far because of the monument's poor state of preservation. Still, the identification of Tiglath-Pileser III as Pul is reasonably sure because this phrase is repeated more than once in the text. The Phoenician spelling of this name is Puwal.
The Phoenician inscription is narrated in the first person by king Awarikus of Quwê, who is known from other ancient inscriptions. His stele was erected to mark the land gifted to Awariku by Tiglath-Pileser III. He is also known as the King of the Danaans, or the "Danunean king". He also describes himself as 'the King of the dynasty of Mopsos'.
Some Assyriologists, such as Eckart Frahm and Paul-Alain Beaulieu, have speculated that Pulu was Tiglath-Pileser's original name before he became king and assumed his regnal name or perhaps a nickname.
According to Gerard Gertoux, Tiglath-Pileser III was the son of Adad-nīrārī III and used the name Pulu as a young co-regent under previous kings. When he won the kingship of Babylon, for the last two years of his life, this again became his official name in Babylon. Gertoux explains the derivation of this name as a hypocoristic use of the word aplu “the heir”.