And another angel followed, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen…”
Revelation, 14:08
This verse from the Bible likely sounds familiar to many; it refers to the conquest of the Mesopotamian city by Cyrus the Great and the Persians in 539 BCE, the year they ended a period of Babylonian splendor led by Nebuchadnezzar II.
But nearly a century earlier, in 648 BCE, the city had already endured a similar tragedy when the Assyrian Ashurbanipal (the Sardanapalus of classical literature) destroyed it and massacred its inhabitants for defying his authority. It was a fratricidal episode, as the leader of the resistance was his own brother, Shamash-shum-ukin.
Both were heirs of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria and son of the famous Sennacherib. Upon Sennacherib’s death, Esarhaddon ascended the throne despite not being the eldest son, thanks to the prior deaths of two elder brothers and the renunciation of a third (who later regretted it and organized a rebellion along with other relatives). Esarhaddon ruled Assyria for twelve years, one of his most notable initiatives being the reconstruction of Babylon, which his father had demolished (including the deportation of its population) due to another rebellion, giving it the status of a secondary capital behind Nineveh.

As seen, the Babylonians were a constant problem for the Assyrians and consistently resisted accepting their authority. Thus, when a chronic illness claimed Esarhaddon’s life, his mother and regent, Naqi’a Zakutu (Naqia the Pure), took charge of the succession. Some researchers identify this woman with Nitocris, who, according to Herodotus, rebuilt Babylon (distinct from the Egyptian queen of the same name). Others, however, believe Nitocris is a distorted version of Nebuchadnezzar’s name, as he is historically credited with restoring the city.
Regardless of the truth, Naqi’a exerted significant influence over her son Esarhaddon and decided to fulfill his wishes to end the uncertainty by dividing the inheritance between the two grandsons eligible for succession. Her favorite, Ashurbanipal, was given the imperial crown, while the other, Shamash-shum-ukin, was given control of Babylon.
Paradoxically, this would not end Babylonian rebellion or the civil wars often sparked by succession disputes, as Shamash-shum-ukin was older than his brother and felt unjustly passed over.

In fact, he wasn’t the only one with reasons for discontent. The eldest son, Sin-nadin-apli (a sister, Serua-eterat, actually preceded him), had died unexpectedly in 672 BCE, two years after being declared successor, so the rights should have passed to Shamash-shum-ukin. Furthermore, there was another son, Shamash-metu-uballit, ahead of Ashurbanipal who was also overlooked—perhaps due to poor health (and it is believed Ashurbanipal may have ordered his execution upon assuming the throne).
The lineup was completed by five younger brothers, some verified to exist and who became priests, while others are barely referenced in letters. However, the crisis took time to materialize. Initially, Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin seemed to get along and accept their grandmother’s decision, focusing on governing their respective realms. The former even organized a lavish coronation festival for his brother in Babylon, where they made a joint entrance. This did not conceal the fact that the Babylonians were vassals of the Assyrians, who maintained governors and troops in their territory.
It is unclear why Esarhaddon divided power between his two sons, sidelining the eldest. Perhaps he sought to emulate his father Sennacherib, who chose him over his elder brother, Arda-Mulissu. However, he should have considered that decision had sparked a civil war, now at risk of repeating. One explanation suggests that Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin may not have shared the same mother (Esharra-hammat was the principal wife, but there were several concubines, including the aforementioned Naqi’a). If so, Ashurbanipal’s mother might have been Assyrian and Shamash-shum-ukin’s Babylonian, seemingly justifying these designations.

Nonetheless, both were princes and received the same education—intellectual (science, literature, music…) and physical (horsemanship, weaponry, chariotry)—as was customary for their status and destiny. They also gained valuable administrative training, as Esarhaddon’s poor health often forced him to delegate such duties to his sons. This provided them with political and military experience and likely strengthened the monarch’s decision to appoint them as his heirs.
As we were saying, Ashurbanipal was first crowned in Nineveh in 669 BCE; Samas-sumu-ukin had to wait until the following spring to participate in a ceremony during which he returned the Asullḫi to the Esagila temple—that is, the statue of Marduk (also known as Bel and the patron deity of Babylon). According to religious tradition, that statue conferred legitimacy upon the king, which is why the Assyrians had taken it after the last rebellion. Its return was a powerful symbol that the Babylonian kingdom once again had its own monarch instead of being ruled from Assyria, even though Samas-sumu-ukin was Assyrian.
It is worth clarifying that the Babylonian kingdom was no longer what it had once been—that is, the one that had expanded from a simple city-state to dominate much of Mesopotamia in the second millennium BCE under Hammurabi. In fact, after Hammurabi’s death in 1750 BCE, the kingdom experienced a progressive decline, culminating in the overthrow of King Samsu-ditana by the Kassites. This ushered in a period of continuous invasions (Hittites, Arameans, Chaldeans) until the conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

At this point, the kingdom’s borders had shrunk significantly, encompassing only a handful of notable cities such as Babylon, Borsippa, Dilbat, Kutha, and Sippar, along with smaller towns and their surrounding areas. Babylonian cities like Ur, Uruk, and Nippur, while part of the kingdom, were supervised by Assyrian governors.
Thus, the extent of the Babylonian monarch’s powers was unclear, as Esarhaddon had stipulated that Samas-sumu-ukin must swear an oath of loyalty to Ashurbanipal while warning the latter not to interfere in his brother’s governance.
It seems that Ashurbanipal, after his father’s death, did not honor this directive and reduced Babylon’s autonomy, likely fearing that his brother might grow too powerful and claim the united throne. After all, there was only one precedent of an Assyrian prince ruling exclusively in Babylon (his uncle Asurnadin-sumi, the eldest son of Sennacherib). This fear also led Ashurbanipal to limit the size of Samas-sumu-ukin’s army. When the Elamites invaded Babylon in 653 BCE, Samas-sumu-ukin had to seek help from his brother.

Even so, much of Samas-sumu-ukin’s early reign was peaceful and stable. He rebuilt the walls of Sippar, reinstated the Akitu (a barley-sowing festival marking the New Year in their calendar, which had not been celebrated since the Marduk statue had gone missing), and initiated improvements in many temples, including that of Ishtar in Uruk, whose territorial holdings he expanded. In sum, he fully embraced Babylonian culture and values. Meanwhile, Ashurbanipal pursued similar endeavors in Nineveh, founding the famous library.
Things took a turn in 652 BCE. Babylonian records from the time list both kings’ names as evidence of their peaceful coexistence, but Assyrian records mention only Ashurbanipal, underscoring the difference in status between the two. Despite this, Samas-sumu-ukin’s letters never referred to his brother as a superior, always addressing him as “my brother”, while consistently referring to Esarhaddon as “the king, my father”. Unfortunately, no responses from Ashurbanipal survive to clarify the matter.
As we noted, in 652 BCE, the facade crumbled as Ashurbanipal began curtailing Samas-sumu-ukin’s jurisdiction. Commercial correspondence from the period reveals that Babylonian cities were divided into two camps: those loyal to their king and those recognizing the Assyrian king as their supreme lord. Ashurbanipal began overseeing every decree issued by his brother, informed by reports from governors, officials, and agents, rekindling Babylonian resentment over past grievances.

It is easy to imagine Samas-sumu-ukin’s discontent, likely stoked by neighboring Elam, Assyria’s rival. Discord erupted, and although Serua-etirat (their elder sister) attempted to mediate, she failed (a later legend claims she went into exile, disheartened). The conflict escalated into open warfare when Samas-sumu-ukin forbade Ashurbanipal from performing sacrifices in Babylonian cities. Since such rituals symbolized Assyrian royal authority, this act was tantamount to a declaration of war.
Samas-sumu-ukin gained significant support from Mesopotamian ethnic groups, reflecting the widespread resentment toward Assyria in the region. Elamites, Chaldeans, Arameans, Gutians, and Amorites—all in the south—seized the opportunity to rebel against Assyria, ignoring Ashurbanipal’s appeals for alliance. In these messages, Ashurbanipal referred to his brother with terms like “non-brother,” “treacherous brother,” “enemy,” and more poetic insults such as “that man whom Marduk hates,” while reproaching Elamite King Ummanigash for accepting the “bribes” offered by Babylon.
Sources also mention the aid of Meluhha, though it has not been determined which people this refers to. Some historians believe it might refer to the Medes, although it could just as easily be a term for the Egyptians, who between 667 and 665 BCE had been victims of a campaign by Ashurbanipal. However, this seems unlikely, as he left puppet pharaohs Necho I and Psamtik II in place, and there is no record of Egyptian troops being present in the conflict.

This conflict lasted almost four years. The first phase saw alternating victories and defeats on both sides without significant consequences. Later, the contest became entangled due to the defections of minor allies, instigated by double agents, the most notable being Nabu-bel-shumati, a southern governor who changed sides several times. Eventually, the balance began to tip in favor of the Assyrians, whose army was renowned at the time, as demonstrated once again by defeating the Elamites in Der (modern-day Tell Akar, Iraq).
By 650 BCE, Ashurbanipal’s troops had besieged and captured, one after another, Sippar, Borsippa, and Kutha, finally laying siege to Babylon itself, which could no longer expect help from anyone. Isolated and cut off from supplies, it fell victim to hunger and epidemics, with records even documenting cases of cannibalism. Despite this, the city resisted for two years; in 648 BCE, the Assyrians managed to breach its defenses and entered the city, sacking it in their famously brutal style. This is how Ashurbanipal himself described it in an inscription:
“I fed their dismembered bodies to dogs, pigs, wolves, eagles, birds of the sky, and fish of the deep.”

In another inscription, he graphically described the destructive fate that befell his Elamite adversaries:
“I entered their palaces, I dwelt there with rejoicing; I opened the treasures where silver and gold, goods and riches were heaped up […] the treasures of Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon that the ancient kings of Elam had plundered and carried away […]. I reduced to nothing the temples of Elam; its gods and goddesses I scattered to the winds. The secret groves where no foreigner had ever entered, where no profane foot had ever trod, my soldiers entered, saw their mysteries, and destroyed them with fire. The tombs of their ancient and recent kings who had not feared [the goddess] Ishtar, my lady, and who had been the cause of the torment of the kings, my fathers, those tombs I destroyed, exposed to the sun, and annihilated […]. I devastated the provinces of Elam and [in their lands] scattered salt […].”
The Assyrians set Babylon ablaze, and into those flames Samas-sum-ukin is said to have thrown himself voluntarily to avoid the humiliation of captivity. At least, that is what traditional accounts say, though contemporary sources only mention that he “met a cruel death” and that the gods “cast him into the fire and destroyed his life.” This should not be taken literally but rather metaphorically, as it refers to the sacrilegious nature of his rebellion against the legitimate sovereign.
In reality, it cannot be ruled out that Samas-sum-ukin met another fate. In the case of execution, scribes would avoid documenting it, as fratricide was inadmissible in Assyrian thought; if he had been killed by a soldier, that soldier would also have been executed for killing someone of the royal family, as Samas-sum-ukin was not considered an usurper. In any case, the truth is impossible to determine.

What does seem clear is that his figure suffered a damnatio memoriae, as from that point onward, he is scarcely mentioned in inscriptions, and some discovered stelae show his figure with the face erased. Ashurbanipal replaced his deceased brother by placing Kandalanu on the Babylonian throne, a bureaucrat about whom little is known, whose name referred to a physical defect in his foot—possibly chosen as a form of humiliation for the Babylonians.
Another hypothesis suggests that Kandalanu was a Babylonian alias adopted by Ashurbanipal himself, much like predecessors Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V, who took the names Pulu and Ululayu, respectively.
In the end, Kandalanu’s powers were very limited, and with his death twenty years later, the X Assyrian dynasty came to an end. It was succeeded by the XII Chaldean dynasty, which founded the Neo-Babylonian Empire under Nabopolassar, who capitalized on the power vacuum created by the coinciding deaths of Kandalanu and Ashurbanipal. His son, Nebuchadnezzar II, avenged Babylonian honor in 612 BCE by razing Nineveh with the help of the Medes and rebuilding Babylon, adorning it with its famous Hanging Gardens.
This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on September 11, 2023: Cómo Asurbanipal destruyó Babilonia, cuyo rey era su propio hermano mayor
SOURCES
Elena Cassin, Jean Botttéro, Jean Vercoutter, Los imperios del antiguo Oriente. La primera mitad del primer milenio
Joaquín Sanmartín, José Miguel Serrano, Historia Antigua del Próximo Oriente. Mesopotamia y Egipto
Sami Said Ahmed, Southern Mesopotamia in the time of Ashurbanipal
Shana Zaia, My Brother’s Keeper: Assurbanipal versus Samas-suma-ukin
Jean Bottéro et al., Introducción al Antiguo Oriente. De Súmer a la Biblia
Wikipedia, Shamash-shum-ukin
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