The main misfortune of the Assyrians turned out to be closely connected with their brilliant military victories. In wars with the strong and young state of Urartu (800-700 BC), the Assyrian state was on the verge of defeat more than once (see article Urartu). To win, the Assyrians replaced (about 750 BC) the militia with an army of mercenary soldiers specially trained in military affairs. To maintain such an army, the kings were forced again and again to go on predatory campaigns.
Since that time, the position of free peasants, the former militias, has been rapidly deteriorating. The nobles begin to enslave and enslave them. Dispossessed Assyrians, mingling with unfree people driven from distant lands, find themselves in the minority in their homeland ... The power of a great power begins to weaken rapidly. And in 614 BC. the Medes took the ancient capital of the country Ash-Shur, and two years later they, in alliance with the liberated Babylon, defeated Nineveh (see the article "Ancient Iran").
Assyria has disappeared from the face of the earth. It turned out that it was impossible to create a strong state with the help of fear, violence and robbery. This is also taught by the history of a small town, the merchants of which at first wanted only one thing - to trade freely in the peaceful eastern markets.
By 800 B.C. the threat of Assyrian enslavement loomed over the countries of Western Asia (see article "Assyria"). It seemed that no one could resist the onslaught of the Assyrian armies - neither the weak kings of Babylon, nor the rulers of small "fragments" of the great Hittite state, nor the leaders of the tribes that inhabited the Iranian Highlands and Transcaucasia. The establishment of Assyrian domination meant a catastrophe for these peoples - after all, it would inevitably lead to the terrible ruin of the conquered countries and the mass extermination of people.
And yet, at a time when the power of the Assyrian state was truly enormous, in Western Asia there was a people who not only decided on an open struggle with a formidable enemy, but also almost won a deadly confrontation with him. We are talking about closely related tribes that inhabited the mountain valleys of Transcaucasia approximately in the area where the borders of Turkey, Iran and Armenia now converge. At that time, two strong unions of tribes, two states, Urartu and Manna, were formed on this territory. Their centers were the valleys of the mountain lakes Van and Urmia.
For the time being, the Assyrians did not pay attention to the events that took place on the northern outskirts of their state. The rulers of the world treated the Urartians as one of the many semi-wild tribes, believing that they should be kept in constant fear and punished for disobedience by punitive campaigns. The Assyrians clearly underestimated the Urartians. And later this people demonstrated their military, political, administrative and cultural talents. Assyrian positions in Asia Minor were not as strong as one might think. The kings of Urartu Menua (810-786 BC) and his son Argishti I (786-764 BC) began to skillfully use this.
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After a long ten years, Solon returned to Athens already an old man. He had to witness how the ongoing struggle between his fellow citizens ended in the establishment of the tyranny of Peisistratus. Although Peisistratus was his relative and in the past they were connected by friendship, Solon unraveled the aspirations of the ambitious and tried to warn the Athenians about the impending danger: “You have turned your eyes to the speeches of an insidious husband.” When Peisistratus captured the Acropolis with his guards, Solon called on the citizens to armed struggle against the tyrant. Approximate self-proclaimed ruler declared him crazy, to which Solon replied: “Am I really crazy, a short time will show: the truth will come to light, no matter how much you drown it.”
The fate of Solon after Peisistratus came to power is covered differently by ancient writers. Diogenes Laertes writes that he left Athens and died, having lived to the age of 80, in Cyprus. According to Plutarch, Solon remained in Athens, and Peisistratus managed to win him over to his side, consulting with an old friend in everything. How many years Solon lived under Peisistratus, Plutarch does not know for sure.
Contemporaries turned out to be deaf to the exhortations of Solon, but many years later, having put an end to tyranny, the Athenians turned to the precepts of the great reformer. The principles of measure, the "golden mean", civil unity were correctly defined by him as the basis for the existence of the policy. Therefore, the Athenians ranked Solon among the “seven wise men” - this was the name of several of his contemporaries, who, like him, actively participated in the development and creation of the foundations of the state system of the Greek polis.
Pericles was born in 492 BC. His father was the hero of the Greco-Persian wars Xanthippus, and his mother Pericles belonged to the noble family of the Alcmeonids, who gave Athens many prominent political figures.
Like many Athenians from respectable families, Pericles had worthy mentors. He was taught music by the musician and thinker Damon, philosophy by the famous Greek scientist Zeno.
Pericles began his life as a military man. “He was brave in campaigns and looked for dangers,” the ancient Greek historian Plutarch wrote about him. But at that time he did not get much fame in the military field. Pericles was young and ambitious, engaging in politics was in the tradition of his family, and in the mid-60s. 5th century BC. he entered the political arena. At this time, a fight broke out in Athens between the democrats - supporters of the rule of the majority of citizens - and aristocrats, adherents of the rule of a few noble families. Pericles, although he came from a noble family, took the side of the demos - the people, perhaps because the Alcmeonids always supported democracy, or Pericles realized that the greatness of Athens and his own glory lies precisely in the democratic structure of the state.
The Urartians founded many cities; some of them, such as Yerevan, still exist today. Individual cities had a regular rectangular layout; in front of their defensive walls, even the famous military art of the Assyrians turned out to be powerless. In 735 BC Assyrian king Tiglath-palasar III was unable to take the fortress in Tushpa. In 714 BC his successor Sargon II, who devastated the entire territory of Urartu, did not even approach Tushpa, remembering the failure of his predecessor. The temples of the Urartians were quite different from their contemporary structures. The style of local architecture was a bit like the later Greek; inventions of Urartian engineers and builders subsequently spread widely in Asia Minor.
All these talents were needed by the Urartians when their kings, Argishti I and his son Sarduri II (764-735 BC), began to develop the vast lands located between the Arak and Kura rivers. The fact is that the vital centers of Urartu were located too close to the Assyrian possessions, and enemy troops could reach them in just a few transitions. Therefore, for Urartu, the transfer of state forges and granaries to the northern regions became a matter of life and death. In just a few decades, these lands were covered with orchards and vineyards; bustling cities sprang up in the mountain valleys.
It is difficult to find mistakes in the actions of the rulers of Urartu. Throughout almost the entire USh c. BC. they slowly and stubbornly "squeezed out" their formidable opponent, accumulating strength and avoiding a decisive battle. But the wounded lion jumped, and his jump turned out to be disastrous for the hunter. At the cost of extreme effort, the Assyrians still managed to defeat their prudent enemies.
There were apparently several reasons for this catastrophe. In 745 BC. Tiglathpalasar S. ascended the Assyrian throne. A very energetic ruler, he suppressed internal unrest and carried out military reform. Assyria began to have a powerful army of hired, well-trained soldiers (see Art. "Assyria"). And the very first clashes between the Urartians and the Assyrian troops showed that the enemy of the Urartians was invincible. It was necessary to save what could still be saved.
However, pride and unwillingness to abandon far-reaching plans turned out to be stronger than sober political calculation. The next king of Urartu, Rusa I (735-713 BC), decided to win by cunning where it was no longer possible to win by force. Distracting the Assyrian troops to the area of Lake Urmia, Rusa I tried to go behind their lines. But Sargon II was an experienced warrior and did not fall into the trap. The defeat of the Urartians was complete. Rusa fled to Tushpa and committed suicide.
Stepping on the political path, Pericles became friends with Ephialtes, the leader of the Athenian demos. Together they achieved a weakening of the role of the Areopagus, which was not only the highest state council and custodian of traditions, but also a stronghold of the nobility. Having entered into an open struggle with the aristocrats for influence in Athens, Pericles achieved the expulsion of their leader Cimon. He was accused of treason. Shortly thereafter, Ephialtes was killed by like-minded exiles. In 461 BC Pericles took the place of his deceased friend, and from that moment begins the "age of Pericles" - a century that fit in 32 years, but significant, like a whole century.
The Urartian tribes, like the Hittites, belonged to the Indo-European language family. The number of Indo-European peoples in Western Asia was constantly increasing due to constant migrations from the Balkans and from the Black Sea steppes; it can be said that a formidable Indo-European "cloud" hung over Assyria from the north. The appearance of nomadic peoples - Cimmerians and Scythians - in Transcaucasia and Asia Minor after 730 BC. gave this "cloud" even more menacing outlines. After the collapse of the Hittite kingdom (about 1200 BC), all these Indo-European peoples and tribes close in language, religion and culture lost their unifying center. The kings of Urartu took the place of the leader thanks to their energetic actions. Menua and Argishti I gradually took over the areas of Mutsatsir (east of the Assyrian capitals) and Northern Syria (west of them) inhabited mainly by Indo-European peoples. Thus, the Urartians cut off the main trade routes of the Assyrians, leaving them only one direction for military and commercial activity - the south. And there was recalcitrant Babylon, which already gave the Assyrian kings a lot of trouble.
The weak point of the Assyrian state was its dependence on the import of raw materials (primarily metal ores) and finished metal products from Asia Minor and Transcaucasia. The Urartians also had their own mines. In addition, Urartian steel, due to the skill of blacksmiths, was better than Assyrian. The Assyrians themselves preferred weapons made in Transcaucasia, and during campaigns against Urartu they sought to capture as many swords, daggers, and spearheads as possible.