Imaginary dialogue between Assarhaddon (Asarhaddon) and Ashurbanipal
by Charactorium · Ashurbanipal (684 av. J.-C. — 630 av. J.-C.) · Politics · Military · Culture · 5 min read
It is in the land of no return, the house of dust where the dead feed on clay and silence, that Esarhaddon recognizes the new shadow of his son. He himself has been dead for nearly forty years, in 669 BC, leaving Ashurbanipal the throne of Assyria and Shamash-shum-ukin that of Babylon. In the twilight where no tiara shines any longer, the old king approaches: he wants at last to know what became of the division he himself had ordered. A smell of damp earth floats, like that of the fresh tablets that, as a child, his son loved to hold.
—Father, I entrusted you to the scribes more than to the bow, you my heir. Did that knowledge of tablets truly serve you in ruling?
You know better than anyone, you who placed me under the scribes' rod while my brothers learned only to draw the bow. I could read the most obscure Sumerian as well as the Akkadian of our annals, and even solve calculations that trip up the diviners. On my cylinder, I had engraved that Marduk had given me a broad mind, and that I possessed the art of the sage Adapa, the hidden knowledge of all the art of writing. Other kings boasted of lions slain; I boasted of understanding a tablet that no scribe could decipher anymore. What you gave me there was worth more than a province.
A king who reads depends on no man to know the will of the gods.
—You speak of tablets — what did you do with them at Nineveh? I was told you sent men to search even the houses of Babylonia.
I made them the greatest treasure of Nineveh, father — not a treasure of gold, but of tablets. I sent my men to search the temples and houses of Babylonia, to copy or seize everything that bore signs: omens, incantations, hymns, king lists. I wanted no knowledge of Sumer and Akkad to be lost, and that under my palace should sleep the memory of the whole world. Each tablet bears my colophon: the palace of Ashurbanipal, king of the universe. You taught me to array an army; I arrayed knowledge as one arrays soldiers, each series in its rank. No king before me had gathered such a library.
—And among all those texts you had copied, which one stayed with you the most, you who so loved old tales?
The story of Gilgamesh, without hesitation. My scribes established its most complete version, the one where the old survivor of the flood reveals to the king of Uruk a secret of the gods: how a single family escaped the waters, in a city on the banks of the Euphrates. I read it again and again, father. A king who seeks eternal life, travels the world, and returns empty-handed to die like all men — what a lesson for one who wears the tiara! I made Elam and Egypt tremble, and yet that tablet reminded me each evening that the wall of my city would outlast me better than my name. Perhaps that is why I built so much.
—I made you king of Assyria and gave Babylon to your brother Shamash-shum-ukin, so that none would envy the other. Did that division hold?
It held for sixteen years, father, then it broke. Shamash-shum-ukin, whom you wanted as my equal in the south, raised Babylon against me, allied with Elam and the Arabs. The war lasted four years. I had to besiege the city you cherished, starve it until its inhabitants devoured each other. In 648 BC, my brother perished in the burning of his own palace rather than fall alive into my hands. You divided your kingdom to avoid hatred between your sons; perhaps it was that very division that nurtured it.
—Did you mourn your brother, or did you see in him only a rebel? Tell me true, here where kings no longer lie.
Before my governors, I showed only the rebel, the perjurer who had betrayed the oaths sworn in the name of Ashur. But you, you may hear the rest. We grew up together in the palace, and it was your hand that bound us on the same day, in 672 BC, before the gods and the grandees of the kingdom. I had Babylon purified, its temples restored, and the divine statues that war had driven away brought back — not out of pity for him, but so as not to let his fault fall upon the holy city. A king does not weep in public, father. But a man who has caused his brother's death does not sleep quite as before.
—They say you brought down Elam, that neighbor whom even I could not subdue. How did you break Susa?
Elam had harassed us forever, father; it had to end. After years of campaigns, I took Susa, their holy city, in 646 BC. I had engraved on my prism that I had entered its palaces and stayed there in joy. My soldiers shattered the ziggurats, carried off the statues of their gods, scattered the bones of their ancient kings so they would have no rest. I sowed salt on its fields. What you could not finish, I carried through to the end: Elam ceased to exist as a power. For a time, no enemy stood to the east.
—I heard that after this victory you had a strange feast sculpted on your walls. What did you want to show thereby?
Yes — a garden, the queen at my side, wine, harps, birds in the trees. And, hanging from a branch among the fruits, the severed head of the Elamite king, which the visitor notices only on second glance. I wanted it understood at a single glance what the peace of an Assyrian king is: rest in the midst of the garden is savored only because the enemy is vanquished and displayed. Whoever contemplates that wall now knows what it costs to raise a hand against Nineveh.
The stylus engraves glory, but the chisel engraves terror, and both serve the throne.
—And those lions we see you piercing with your arrows on the stone — real hunts, or another of your stagings?
Both, father. On the walls of the North Palace of Nineveh, I am shown drawing the composite bow and felling the beasts one after another. But those animals were raised in cages, then released before me in an enclosed space, guarded by my soldiers and dogs. It was not a hunt in the desert: it was a rite. The king of Assyria must show that he holds chaos in check, that the beast threatening flocks and men falls by his hand. By piercing the lion, I repeated before all what I did to the enemies of the empire. Strength, if not displayed, is worth nothing.
—You speak constantly of showing, of making seen. Is that then what ruling is — not being strong, but appearing so?
You ask me the question that every king asks himself in secret, father. Real strength I had: armies, walls, iron. But an empire is too vast to be held by the hand alone. It is held by the image one engraves, by the story one spreads, by the terror that a sculpted wall inspires in the ambassador come from afar. My reliefs, my annals, my hunts all said the same thing: to resist Nineveh is to end up like the lion. You who reigned before me, you know that a throne keeps more provinces by what it makes believe than by what it sends soldiers.
—Soon you will go further into this house of dust. Of all you have done, my son, what do you fear to see disappear?
The provinces, the tributes, the palaces — all will crumble, I already know, for no empire lasts as long as stone. What I would like to save is my library. Kings remember battles won; I would like to be remembered as a king who could read. You made me warrior and scholar at once, father; it is the scholar who, perhaps, will outlive me. If one day, in a thousand years, a man picks up one of my tablets and still reads Gilgamesh on it, then Nineveh will not be quite dead — and neither will you, who taught me to fill it.
Iron rusts, walls burn, but a fired clay tablet can cross the centuries.
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This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Ashurbanipal's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.