The Assyrians were hardly isolated. Their tributaries in Sidon and Tyre were sailing to Iberia, while the Ionians robbed their subjects or enlisted in Assyrian armies. But today it often happens that one group of scholars thinks about what was happening in the cuneiform world, another about the Greek Aegean, and a third about illiterate areas such as the Black Sea steppes.
The Neo-Assyrian army is not the easiest to get to know. We have reliefs, documents, royal inscriptions, the ruins of cities, and the remains of weapons. Foreigners from Judeans to Babylonians give their own perspective. But it is hard to focus and turn this kaleidoscope of sources into a clear and sharp picture. Archaeologists, art historians, and philologists each have different viewpoints. Time has not left us a Polybius or a Josephus who describes the Assyrian army from the outside looking in. All of those carefully labelled reliefs and the tablets thrown from their tidy shelves by
