View source for Marduk-balassu-iqbi

{{Infobox monarch
| name = Marduk-balāssu-iqbi
| title = [[List of kings of Babylon|King of Babylon]]
| image = BM_90834.jpg
| caption = Kudurru of Adad-eṭir, mentioning a Marduk-balāssu-iqbi, a 9thcentury BC monument.<ref group=i name=adad>Kudurru BM 90834.</ref>
| reign = ca. 819 – 813 BC
| coronation =
| predecessor = [[Marduk-zakir-shumi I|Marduk-zakir-šumi I]]
| successor = [[Baba-aha-iddina]]
| spouse  =
| royal house = Dynasty of ''E''<br>(mixed dynasties)
| father =
| mother =
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| buried =}}

'''Marduk-balāssu-iqbi''', inscribed <sup>md</sup><small>AMAR.UTU-TI</small>''-su-iq-bi''<ref group=i name=ibni>Kudurru AO 6684 in the Louvre, published as RA 16 (1919) 126 iv 17.</ref> or <sup>md</sup><small>SID-TI</small>-''zu''-<small>DUG</small><sub>4</sub>,<ref group=i>''Synchronistic King List'' fragment, Ass 13956dh (KAV 182), iii 13.</ref> meaning “Marduk has promised his life,”<ref name=pkb>{{ cite book | title = A Political History of post-Kassite Babylonia, 1158-722 B.C. (AnOr. 43) | author = J. A. Brinkman | publisher = Pontificium Institutum Biblicum | year = 1968 | pages = 205–210, 351–352 }}</ref>{{rp|205}} ca. 819 – 813 BC, was the 8th king of the Dynasty of ''E'' of [[Babylon]]; he was the successor of his father [[Marduk-zakir-shumi I|Marduk-zākir-šumi I]], and was the 4th and final generation of [[Nabu-shuma-ukin I|Nabû-šuma-ukin I]]'s family to reign. He was contemporary with his father’s former ally, [[Shamshi-Adad V|Šamši-Adad V]] of [[Assyria]], who may have been his brother-in-law, married to who was possibly his sister [[Shammuramat|Šammu-ramat]], the legendary [[Semiramis]], and who was to become his nemesis.

==Biography==

He was recorded as a witness on a [[kudurru]] dated to his father’s 2nd year,<ref group=i name=ibni/> 25 years before he ascended the throne, suggesting he was fairly elderly when he assumed power, and he may be a witness on another kudurru,<ref group=i>The [[Tablet of Shamash|Sun God tablet]] BM 91000 published as BBSt 36, vi 24.</ref> dated to his grandfather’s 31st year, although this individual is identified as the ''bēl pīḫati'', or a “provincial administrator,” a “son” of Arad-Ea.<ref name=pkb/>{{rp|192}} The kudurru pictured<ref group=i name=adad/> is a ''ṣalmu'' or commemorative granite stele to Adad-eṭir,  the dagger-bearer of [[Marduk]], by his eldest son, where the name Marduk-balāssu-iqbi appears in the context of the donor and possibly may not be the king. The fourth line reads "the king his lord, Marduk-balāssu-iqbi," leading some to assign it to his reign although it is without a succeeding royal determinative and is followed by ''mārušu rabū'', "his eldest son." It is, however, an inscription of this era. He receives a fleeting mention in the ''[[Eclectic Chronicle]]'' alongside his father.<ref group=i>Chronicle 24, tablet BM 27859, r 7.</ref>

He seems to have made his capital at Gannanāti, a town on the [[Diyala River|Diyāla River]]; he engaged in construction activity in [[Seleucia]], and exerted control over territory encompassing both [[Der (Sumer)|Dēr]] and [[Nippur]]. His officials, like him, seem to have received their positions through inheritance, such as Enlil-apla-uṣur, the ''[[šandabakku]]'' or governor of Nippur, and the sons of Tuballiṭ-Ešdar, the ''sukkallus'' (court personnel) and ''šākin ṭēmi'' (a regional governor), suggesting weak central authority and some local autonomy in the provinces.<ref name=pkb/>{{rp|207}}

===Šamši-Adad's campaigns===

[[Image:Shamshi-Adad V-2.jpg|thumb|right|The Nimrud Stele of Šamši-Adad V recording his ''Annals''.<ref group=i name=nimrud>The Nimrud Stele, BM 118892, first published as I R 31,  iii 70 to iv 45.</ref>]]

The Assyrians under, Šamši-Adad V (ca. 823-811 BC), led two successive campaigns against him, the first of which was his fourth since coming to power. The motivation for these assaults is uncertain, however, Šamši-Adad may have harbored some resentment to the inferior position he had been placed into, in a treaty with Marduk-balāssu-iqbi's immediate predecessor, Marduk-zâkir-šumi.

The eponym year of Šamaš-ilaya (818/817 BC) records a campaign against “[...]šumme.” The later eponym years of Inurta-ašared and Šamaš-kumua record campaigns against [[Chaldea]] and Babylon respectively, and these are thought to correspond with the second campaign against Marduk-balāssu-iqbi and the subsequent overthrow of his successor, [[Baba-aha-iddina|Bāba-aḫa-iddina]]. There is an intervening eponym year of Bêl-lu-ballat which records “campaign against Dēr; [[Anu]] the Great went to Dēr” (ca. 814/813 BC), which probably best represents this first assault.<ref name=pkb/>{{rp|208}}

The campaign route followed the course of the eastern side of the [[Tigris]] along the edge of the mountains, as the direct route into Babylonia was blocked by the fortress of Zaddi, the northern most town in Babylonia at this time, a little way south of the [[Little Zab|Lesser Zab]].<ref>{{ cite journal | title = Babylonia as an Assyrian Dependency | author = A. T. Olmstead | journal = The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures | volume = 37 | year = 1921 | pages = 221–222 | doi=10.1086/369931}}</ref>  According to his ''Annals'',<ref group=i name=nimrud>The Nimrud Stele, BM 118892, first published as I R 31,  iii 70 to iv 45.</ref><ref group=i>Fragmentary copy BM 115020 from Nineveh.</ref><ref group=i>Assur Stele, Ass. 6596, published as AfO 9 90–101, iii 1 to iv 10.</ref> Šamši-Adad paused to hunt and kill three fierce lions on the slopes of Mount Epih ([[Hamrin Mountains|Jebel Hamrin]]) and then proceeded to leave a trail of devastation in his wake, besieging the town of Me-Turnat on the bank of the Diyāla, which he then crossed at high water, to take and burn, the royal city of Qarne. He looted Di’bina and then assaulted Gannanāti’s suburbs, Datebir and Izduja.<ref name=pkb/>{{rp|208–9}} He sacked Qiribti-alani, boasting that he had carried away “(the inhabitant's) spoil, their property, gods, oxen (and) sheep.”<ref>{{ cite book | title = Assyrian and Babylonian literature: selected translations | author = Robert Francis Harper | publisher = D. Appleton & Co. | year = 1904 | pages = 49–50 }}</ref> Then he despoiled the royal city of Dur-Papsukkal, near Dēr after which he seems to have been successfully countered with a grand alliance of Chaldeans, [[Elam]]ites, [[Kassites]] and [[Arameans]], although the ''Synchronistic History'' describes how the Assyrian king “filled the plain with the corpses of (Marduk-balāssu-iqbi’s) warriors,”<ref group=i>''Synchronistic History'', tablet fragment Sm. 2106 rev. iii 6–9.</ref> and his annals record his capture of chariots, cavalry and some of the camp furniture.<ref name=pkb/>{{rp|209}}

The second campaign was apparently a more surgical affair, with Šamši-Adad making a bee-line straight for Gannanāti, causing Marduk-balāssu-iqbi to flee to the Diyāla region where he sought refuge initially in Nimitti-šarri (Aḫišānu) but was cornered following the capture of Dēr and led away in chains to Assyria.<ref>{{ cite book | title = Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles | author = A. K. Grayson | publisher = J. J. Augustin | year = 1975 | page = 225 }}</ref> Šamši-Adad boasted thirty thousand captives were deported from Dēr in his ''Gottesbrief'',<ref group=i>Tablet VAT 9628.</ref> a diviner's literary text recording an address to the king from the [[Ashur (god)|god Aššur]], from the city of [[Assur|Aššur]].<ref>{{ cite book | title = Aššur Is King! Aššur Is King!: Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire | author = Steven W. Holloway | publisher = Brill Academic Pub | year = 2001 | page = 129 }}</ref>

A brick inscription  excavated at Tall ‘Umar, ancient Seleucia, in 1933, a neo-Babylonian copy of a legal text recovered from Nippur in 1951 dated to his second year,<ref group=i>Tablet A 33600, 4NT 3.</ref> and a humorous school text described below, are the only extant contemporary inscriptions.<ref>{{ cite book | title = Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Libanukasabas – Medizin | chapter = Marduk-balāssu-iqbi | author = J. A. Brinkman | editor = Dietz Otto Edzard | publisher = Walter De Gruyter | year = 1999 | page = 376 }}</ref> The legal text gives as a witness, a certain <sup>md</sup><small>BA.Ú-ŠEŠ-SUM</small>''-na'', an official who may possibly have been his eventual successor, Bāba-aḫa-iddina.<ref name=pna>{{ cite book | title = The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Volume 1, Part II: B–G | author = J. A. Brinkman | editor = K. Radner | publisher = The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project | year = 1998 | pages = 247 }}</ref>

===Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite===

According to its colophon, "for educating apprentice scribes of [[Uruk]],”<ref group=i>Tablet W 23558, IM 78552.</ref> '''Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite''', also known as The Tale of the Illiterate Doctor in Nippur,<ref>{{ cite journal | title = The Tale of the Illiterate Doctor in Nippur | author = E. Reiner | journal = NABU | number = 3 | year = 2003 | page = 62 }} note 54.</ref> has garnered a lot of academic attention and was first published in 1979 by Antoine Cavigneaux when “the text was not properly understood,” from which we infer he didn’t get the joke. A certain, Ninurta-Pāqidāt, the brother of Ninurta-ša-kunnâ-irammu and nephew of Enlil-Nippuru-ana-ašrišu-ter (both absurd names), of Nippur was bitten by a dog, the symbol of [[Nintinugga|Gula]], the goddess of healing.<ref>{{ cite book | title = Study of the Ancient Near East in the 21st Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference | author = Jerrold S. Cooper, Glenn M. Schwartz | publisher = Eisenbrauns | year = 1996 | page = 187 }}</ref> He sought help from Amel-Baba, a priest from [[Isin]], who, after reciting the appropriate anti-rabies incantation:

{{ quote|Incantation (against diseases) of the house of [the god] [[Enki|Ea]]: Concerning a man whom a snake attacks, or a scorpion attacks, or a rabid dog attacks, and to whom it passes its venom … (The water) shall be cleansed in his pure tube. Cast the spell into the water! Feed the water to the patient, so that the venom itself can go out (of the body).}}

must travel to Nippur to collect his fee. On arrival, he encounters Bēltīya-šarrat-Apsî (“who tends the garden called Abundance of Enlil and sits [at a] plot on Right Street selling vegetables”), the daughter of Ra'im-kini-Marduk, who insists in communicating with him in [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] (the language of ancient Nippur many centuries earlier), causing much  misunderstanding when he mistakes her for mocking him and is threatened with being driven out of town by an outraged mob of apprentice scribes with their buns (clay practice tablets). Despite the efforts of generations of Assyriologists, such as [[Erica Reiner]] (“Why do you cuss me?”), the punch-line remained elusive,<ref>{{ cite journal | title = Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite, and Notes on Other Comic Tales | author = A. R. George | journal = Iraq | volume = 55 | jstor = 4200367 | year = 1993 | pages = 63–75 }}</ref> until the Sumerian response, en.nu.dúr.me-en, was translated as “O (my) lord, I am a farter,” thus identifying the piece as an early exemplar of lavatorial humor.<ref>{{ cite journal | title = Note 41 | author = I. L. Finkel | journal = Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires | year = 1994 | page = 39 }}</ref>

==External links==
* Ninurta-paqidat's Dog-Bite at [http://www.etana.org/node/569 eTACT]

==Inscriptions==

<references group="i"/>

==References==

{{Reflist}}
 
{{Babylonian kings}}

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[[Category:Babylonian kings]]
[[Category:9th-century BC rulers]]