Nebuchadrezzar died shortly after his defeat at the hands of Assyria signaling the beginning of a period of decadence in the Near East. Egypt was approaching its collapse. The Hittites along with their neighbors had been engulfed by the barbarian hordes of the west. And the once mighty Babylonia, now weakened, reverted back to a period of petty kingships.
Without opposition, Assyria's opportunity to once again expand her borders rose to fruition with the ascendency of Tiglath-pileser (1115-1102) to the throne. The Moschi people had sometime earlier (est. 1170-1160) captured historic Assyrian lands on the kingdom's north-east region. Their fifty year rule of the Alzi and Purukuzzi provinces would culminate in a violent confrontation.
In Tiglath-pileser's first year as monarch (1115), the five kings of the Moschi mustered an army of twenty thousand strong and set forth to further invade Assyria and her surrounding allies, particularly the small kingdom of Commagene, a vessel state subservient to Assyria. In this battle, the young king of Assyria slew many enemies himself, and upon the defeat of the Moschi, the corpses were decapitated, collected and piled into bundles, and transported back to Ashur along with six thousand newly acquired slave-prisoners.
Upon his return, Tiglath-pileser declared that with the aid of Ashur he'd gathered his war-chariots and crossed into the Commagene to defeat same the false-kings who defied them for half a century.
Despite their rescue at the warrior-king's hands, Commagene was not particularly appreciative. Perhaps there was a disagreement between the two nation-states upon who bore the fiscal responsibility for the war effort, as the smaller kingdom refused to pay Assyria its newfound levied taxes. King Tiglath-pileser was faced with a difficult decision. If he'd allowed such liberties to be taken at his throne's expense, then other disloyalties would certainly follow.
In the end, king Tiglath-pileser came to a decision. For her refusal to pay recompense, Commagene must be put to the torch and her people to the sword.
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