User:Ichthyovenator/Adaside dynasty

The Adaside dynasty, also known as the Adasi dynasty, was the ruling dynasty of ancient Assyria for most of the kingdom's history, being founded during the Old Assyrian period through the accesion of Bel-bani, the son of a usurper by the name Adasi, to the Assyrian throne c. 1700 BC and losing power with the deposition and death of Shalmaneser V in 722 BC during the Neo-Assyrian period, nearly a thousand years later. The Sargonid dynasty, which succeeded Shalmaneser V and ruled until the end of the Assyrian Empire in 609 BC, may or may not have been a branch of the Adaside dynasty.

In Babylonia, the Adaside dynasty was known as the Baltil dynasty (palê Baltil), named after the oldest portion of the city of Assur.

Background and origin [WIP]
The Adaside dynasty was founded in the Old Assyrian period by Bel-bani ((r. undefined – undefined)c. 1700–1691 BC).

after a six-year period following the end of the preceding Shamshi-Adad dynasty when seven different claimants had competed for power, including Bel-bani's own father Adasi (from whom the dynasty gets its name). Later Assyrian monarchs, Bel-bani's descendants, would revere Bel-bani as a restorer of stability and as the founder of a dynasty that endured for countless centuries and he in time became an almost mythical ancestor figure.

End of the Adaside dynasty
The son and successor of Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmaneser V ((r. undefined – undefined)727–722 BC) was an unpopular king, owing to his poor military and administrative skills and his overtaxation of the peoples of the empire. After a reign of only five years, Shalmaneser was replaced as king, probably being deposed and assassinated in a palace coup by Sargon II ((r. undefined – undefined)722–705 BC), who founded the Sargonid dynasty. Though Sargon II would be connected to previous kings in king lists through a claim that he was the son of Tiglath-Pileser III, this claim is not presented in most of his own inscriptions, where he is also described as being called upon and personally appointed as king by Ashur. Modern historians are divided on whether Sargon was Tiglath-Pileser's son or not, but he is generally believed at the very least not to have been the legitimate heir of Shalmaneser. Sargon's claims to royal ancestry are as such also at times treated with caution. Sargon's name was a regnal name, assumed upon his accession, and among the possible translations are "legitimate king", which means it may have been taken in an effort to portray himself as legitimate. In Babylonian king lists, the Adaside and Sargonid kings are separated into two distinct dynasties; Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser are grouped into the "Baltil dynasty" (Baltil being the oldest portion of the city of Assur) and Sargon and his successors are grouped into the "Hanigalbat dynasty", perhaps connecting them to the Adaside princes who had ruled as viceroys in Hanigalbat.

Though no non-Sargonid royal would succeed in taking power after Shalmaneser's deposition and death, the Adaside dynasty survived 722 BC and members are attested later. Notably, Ashur-dain-aplu, who was likely one of Shalmaneser's sons, appears to have served as a high-ranking palace official, with the title ša pān ekalli, as late as the reign of Esarhaddon ((r. undefined – undefined)681–669 BC). Documents from Esarhaddon's time allude to the threat that "descendants of former royalty" could try to seize the Assyrian throne, perhaps indicating that an Adaside restoration was a real threat. In 671–670 BC, Esarhaddon had to contend with an usurper named Sasî, who swiftly rallied support throughout Assyria, even getting Esarhaddon's chief eunuch Ashur-nasir to join him. Sasî, who must have been connected to Assyrian royalty in some capacity to claim the throne, had been proclaimed as the 'destroyer of the seed of Sennacherib', indicating that he was a descendant of one of the kings before Sennacherib ((r. undefined – undefined)705–681 BC), meaning either Sargon II or one of the Adaside kings.

The Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley believes that it is possible that one of the branches of the family established at Hanigalbat lasted until the 7th century BC. In 622 BC, Assyrian records tell that a "general" in the empire's western provinces, i.e. the region around Hanigalbat, whose name is not recorded, took advantage of the war between Sinsharishkun of Assyria and the Babylonian rebel Nabopolassar and seized Nineveh, the Assyrian capital under the Sargonids, ruling there for a hundred days before Sinsharishkun returned and defeated him. The general had taken the city without fighting since the Assyrian army had surrendered before him, indicating that he might have been a member of the royal family (either the Sargonids or the Adasides), or at least a person that would be acceptable as king.

Family tree
Though all kings of Assyria from Bel-bani down to the Sargonids were seen in later Assyrian tradition as belonging to the same royal dynasty, the sources corroborating the Adaside dynasty's continuity are few, consisting of inscriptions and the Assyrian King List itself. As usurpations, ostensibly by relatives, are recorded at several points in the sequence of kings, it is possible that there were unrecorded dynastic breaks. Officially, however, there was only a single, continuous royal dynasty.

The genealogical relationships of the Old Assyrian kings of the Adaside dynasty (Adasi to Eriba-Adad I) follows Newgrosh (1999). The genealogical relationships of later kings follows Chen (2020). Regnal dates follow the Middle Chronology and are approximate up until the reign of Ashur-dan I. Kings indicated with bold text, women indicated with italics.

Web sources