Wasusarmas

Wasusarmas was a Luwian king of the Syro-Hittite kingdom of Tabal proper in the broader Tabalian region who reigned during the mid-8th century BC, from around c. 740 BC to c. 730 BC.

Pronunciation
The Luwian name was pronounced as Wassusarmas, although another possible pronunciation of this name might however have been Wassu-Sarrumas.

Etymology
The name Wassusarmas was theophoric in nature, and was composed of the name of the Hurrian god Šarruma, to which was prefixed the Luwian term wāšu, meaning lit. 'good', and which was itself a cognate of Palaic wāsu-, meaning lit. 'well', and of Sanskrit vásu- and Avestan vohu- , both also meaning lit. 'good'.

However, it was proposed in 2020 on phonetic grounds that the name should instead be interpreted as Wasu-Armas, containing the name of the Luwian Moon-god Armas.

In Akkadian
Wasusarmas is referred to in Neo-Assyrian Akkadian sources as or.

Life
Wasusarmas was the son of the previous king of Tabal, Tuwattīs II. Both Wasusarmas and Tuwattīs II may have been part of a dynasty which had ruled Tabal for much of the 1st millennuum century BC, with an earlier king, Tuwattīs I, having ruled Tabal in the late 9th century BC, and who might have been an ancestor of Tuwattīs II and Wasusarmas.

Subjection to the Neo-Assyrian Empire
By c. 738 BC, the Tabalian region, including Tabal proper under the reign of Tuwattīs II, had become a tributary of the Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III ((r. 745 – 727 BCE)), either after his conquest of Arpad over the course of 743 to 740 BC caused the states of the Tabalian region to submit to him, or possibly as a result of a campaign of Tiglath-pileser III there.

Reign
Wasusarmas had styled himself using the prestigious titles of "Great King" and "Hero". Along with the revival of this title by the possibly contemporary king Ḫartapus who ruled a state further to the west, this was the first time that a Luwian ruler had adopted these titles after the end of their use by the rulers of Karkamiš in the 10th century BC, thus making Wasusarmas the first king in Central Anatolia to have used them after the fall of the Hittite Empire.

Wasusarmas's Topada inscription also arranged the hieroglyphic signs in which it was written into a royal aedicula, which was the first use of this practice since the Late Bronze Age.

Thus, like the king Ḫartapus who ruled a kingdom further west to the Tabalian region, Wasusarmas also used traditional Hittite name and titles, showing that, despite Tabal and the kingdom of Ḫartapus being located in the western peripheries of the post-Hittite world, they were still fully culturally part of the heritage of the Hittite Empire.

Expansionism
During the century which followed the first attestation of the kingdom of Tabal in 837 BC, it had grown from a small city-state into the largest and strongest of the states of the Tabalian region through aggressive expansionism.

The location of Wasusarmas's inscriptions, especially the ones located at Suvasa, Topada and Göstesin, suggest that Tabal was consolidating its power in northwestern Cappadocia from a base located either in the north-east of the region around the cities corresponding to present-day Kululi and Sultanhan, or in the region to the north of the Halys river.

The kings Warpalawas II of Tuwana and Kiyakiyas of Šinuḫtu might also have been vassals of Wasusarmas.

War against Phrygia
Wasusarmas's continuation of these expansionist ventures brought him into a four year-long conflict with a coalition of eight enemy rulers led by the king of Phrygia that was itself attempting to encroach on the Tabalian region.

Wasusarmas claimed to have defeated this rival coalition with the help of Warpalawas II of Tuwana, Kiyakiyas of Šinuḫtu, and the otherwise unknown king Ruwandas who might possibly have been identical with the king Ruwas who was a vassal of Tuwattīs II. These conflict of Wasusarmas against Phrygia and the conflict opposing the contemporary king Ḫartapus might have been different conflicts within the same war opposing an eastern Syro-Hittite coalition to a western Phrygian coalition.

This Tabalian coalition successfully crossed the Halys river and invaded Phrygia, where it burnt the Phrygian capital of Gordion and deported most of its civilian population to the Tabalian region. Later, while Wasusarmas was campaigning elsewhere, Phrygia counter-attacked the Tabalian region with the help of the Phrygians who had previously been deported there after the attack on Gordion. Wasusarmas claimed in his inscription at Topada that this Phrygian attack was deflected due to divine intervention, resulting in a victory for the Tabalian coalition.

This victory allowed Wasusarmas to expand his borders to the west of the Nevşehir region as part of a project of his to turn Tabal into a significant power in Central Anatolia, thus turning Wasusarmas into the most prominent king of the Tabalian region, after which he appears to have regarded himself as its local hegemon.

Deposition
Despite being Neo-Assyrian tributary, Wasusarmas continued using the titles of "Great King" and "Hero," and he started taking hostages as slaves and collecting tribute from his enemies, leading to Tiglath-pileser III accusing him of acting as his equal and of imitating the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After he withheld his tribute to Tiglath-pileser III and failed to respond to his overlord's summons, some time between c. 732 to c. 739 BC the Neo-Assyrian king finally decided to put an end to the ambitions of Wasusarmas by sending a eunuch to depose him and replace him as king of Tabal with an individual named Ḫulliyas.

Although Neo-Assyrian sources referred to Ḫulliyas with descriptor "son of a nobody" usually denoting commoners, his identity is still uncertain, and he could possibly have been identical with a certain Ḫulis who was the nephew of the king Ruwas who was a vassal of Wasusarmas's father Tuwattīs II.

The deposition of Wasusarmas led to a power vacuum in the Tabalian region, and other local ruler ever claimed the title of "Great King" again after him.

Inscriptions
One inscription of Wasusarmas is known from the site of Topada. This inscription makes use of a very original form of archaising or uncommon Anatolian hieroglyphic signs, as well as of a royal cartouche topped by a winged disc meant to create a connection with the Hittite imperial family, which is a feature it shares with the inscriptions of the king Ḫartapus. The Topada inscription commemorates a war waged by Wasusarmas against a coalition led by the king of Phrygia, and it names Tuwattīs II as Wasusarmas's father.

The Topada inscription of Wasusarmas might contain the only reference to the name of Phrygia outside of Graeco-Roman sources. This name, rendered in the inscription as Prizundas, that is a contracted form of Prizuwandas, itself formed from the term Priz-, which was a cognate of the Ancient Greek stem Phrug-, as found in the ethnonym Phrugia (Φρυγια), of which the Macedonian variant was Brig-, as found in the ethnonym Briges (Βριγες).

Three inscriptions by servants of Wasusarmas are also attested from the sites of Sultanhan, Kayseri and Suvasa.