I may have belabored the role of Mugallu, but it only serves to underline the general weakening in the reign of Esarhaddon of Assyrian control in the north and east territories because of growing pressure, exerted in a wide arc stretching from the central Zagros to the shores of Lake Van and east-central Anatolia, by Cimmerians, Scythians, and local war lords, such as Mugallu himself and Kaštaritu of Karkaššî (see below). It is not accidental that many of the extant queries are concerned with conditions in these regions. The Assyrians had long recognized the need to keep a close watch on the developments on the north and east frontiers. The result was the evolvement of what has been referred to as an Assyrian "deuxième bureau,"[[246]] a well organized intelligence service which the crown prince was apparently in charge of, or at least was closely associated with: Sennacherib under Sargon II and Assurbanipal under Esarhaddon.
The information received from Assyrian outposts on these frontiers from agents, informers, deserters, and fugitives was processed, as the evidence suggests, through the crown prince for presentation to the king. According to ABL 434, for example, Assurbanipal was in charge of interrogating Mannean fugitives. This letter may actually reflect conditions prevailing at the time in the region. It alerts the garrisons stationed on the Urarṭian, Mannean, and Median frontiers to the importance of gathering intelligence from fugitives arriving from these territories. These were to be dispatched promptly to the crown prince for interrogation.[[247]]
This letter illustrates the important role played by the crown prince in the Assyrian intelligence gathering service, especially in the closing years of Esarhaddon's reign, when his illness often incapacitated him and placed much of the burden of government on the shoulders of Assurbanipal.[[248]] Sennacherib too, when he was crown prince, had occasion to receive and forward to his father accounts of witnesses, such as these described in ABL 197, of the Urarṭian defeat at the hands of the Cimmerians. It has been suggested that this experience may have helped him, as king, to deal with the north-east regions by recourse to diplomacy rather than war.[[249]] He in fact fought only sporadically north and east. Early in his reign (in the course of his second campaign), rebellious Ellipi, for example, was punished by having some of its territory annexed to Harhar, and his generals conducted campaigns against Cilicia and Tilgarimmu.
The northern frontier may have appeared secure to Assyria, at least for a time, following the double defeat of Urarṭu at the end of the eighth century at the hands of the Cimmerians and Sargon II. But the weakening of Urarṭu opened the way for a Cimmerian incursion into the general area between Lake Van and Lake Urmia, and eventually farther west in Asia Minor to overwhelm the prosperous kingdoms of Phrygia and Lydia. As noted above, early in his reign, in his second year according to the chronicles (i.e. 679), Esarhaddon claims to have defeated the Cimmerians at Hubišna located in east central Anatolia,[[250]] but as the evidence makes clear, they remained prominent among the enemies of Assyria all through the reign of Esarhaddon, and long after. Nor were the Cimmerians the only newcomers on the scene. Scythians, the very people who are said by Herodotus to have forced the Cimmerians out of their homeland to seek a new one elsewhere, make their appearance at the time on the peripheries of the Mannean and Median territories. These peoples, Cimmerians and Scythians alike, had no difficulty in forming alliances with the more sedentary populations settled in their path, especially those who had been unwilling tribute-bearers of Assyria. Both were associated at one time or another with the Manneans, for example.
246 See R. Follet, RSO 32 (1957) 61ff. On the Assyrian intelligence service, see also F. Malbran-Labat, L'Armee et l'organisation militaire de l'Assyrie (1982), p. 47ff.
247 This letter should not be dated earlier than 672, because the greeting formulas refer both to the crown prince of Assyria and to the crown prince of Babylonia, i.e. Assurbanipal and Šamaš-šumu-ukin, respectively, who were so designated in that year.
248 Cf. Parpola, LAS 2 p. 235f.
249 See Wiseman, VTE (1958), p. 9.
250 Possibly to be identifıed with Greek Kybistra. See Kessler, RIA 4 500 s.v. Hupišna.
Ivan Starr
Ivan Starr, 'The Northern and Northeastern Frontiers', Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, SAA 4. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990; online contents: SAAo/SAA04 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa04/chronologyandhistoricalbackground/northernandnortheasternfrontiers/]