The Middle East: 741–730 BCE

Assyrian Dominance and Regional Subjugation

The period from 741 to 730 BCE witnesses Assyria firmly reasserting its imperial strength under the vigorous rule of Tiglath-Pileser III. Following his earlier restoration of internal stability, Tiglath-Pileser embarks on expansive military campaigns aimed at decisively subduing regional opposition and expanding Assyrian territory.

In 740 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser III captures the strategically important city of Arpad in northern Syria. This victory marks a pivotal moment, significantly weakening a northern Syrian coalition that had sought to resist Assyrian dominance. By 738 BCE, the relentless Assyrian king compels various Syrian princes and smaller states scattered throughout eastern Anatolia into submission, extracting heavy tribute and converting many of these vassal states into formal Assyrian provinces. This administrative reorganization reinforces Assyria’s direct control over crucial areas and trade routes, ensuring sustained economic and military dominance.

Meanwhile, Assyrian influence expands further into the southern Levant through alliances and military conquest. Between 735 and 732 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser allies with the kingdom of Judah, conducting extensive warfare across West Asia. These campaigns decisively weaken the kingdom of Israel, resulting in significant territorial losses for the Israelites. The culmination of Tiglath-Pileser’s western campaigns occurs in 732 BCE with the dramatic sack of Damascus, the once-prosperous capital of the Aramaean kingdom. He forcibly deports large populations from both Damascus and northern Israel, systematically breaking local resistance and reshaping the ethnic and political landscape of the region.

Extending Assyrian reach southward, Tiglath-Pileser also successfully forces the Arabian kingdoms into tributary relationships, securing additional wealth and establishing Assyria’s dominance far beyond its traditional Mesopotamian heartland.

Thus, by 730 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser III’s relentless military and administrative reforms have fully revived Assyrian power, firmly establishing it as the dominant force across the Middle East. This period significantly alters the geopolitical dynamics of the region, embedding Assyrian influence deeply into both western Syria and the southern Levant, and solidifying the empire’s legacy of expansion and ruthless governance.

Tiglath Pileser, after taking Arpad in 740 BCE and defeating a northern Syrian coalition two years later, compels all Syrian princes and the small states of eastern Anatolia to pay tribute.

Annexing vassal states, he makes them into Assyrian provinces.

Tiglath-Pileser has warred in West Asia in an alliance with the kingdom of Judah from 735 to 732, defeating Israel and taking considerable territory.

He defeats various coalitions of western states in Syria, and, in 732 BCE, sacks Damascus, the capital of the Aramaean kingdom, and deports its population (and that of northern Israel) to Assyria.

He forces Arabia to pay tribute.

The kings of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt are a series of Meshwesh Libyans who rule from circa 943 BCE until 720 BCE, having settled in Egypt since the Twentieth Dynasty.

Manetho states that the dynasty originated at Bubastis, but the kings almost certainly ruled from Tanis, which was their capital and the city where their tombs have been excavated.

The so-called Twenty-third Dynasty is an offshoot of this dynasty perhaps based in Upper Egypt, though there is much debate concerning this issue.

All of its kings reigned in Middle and Upper Egypt including the Western Desert Oases.

Rudamen, a poorly attested king, is the younger brother and successor of Takelot III.

The kingdom of the Upper Egyptian Libyan dynasty quickly fragments after Rudamun's death with the rise of local city states under kings such as …

…Peftjaubast of Herakleopolis, …

…Nimlot of Hermopolis, and …

…Ini at Thebes.

Corinthians send out agricultural settlers in about 734 BCE to Corfu (Kérkira), a Greek island of two hundred and twenty-nine square miles (five hundred and ninety-three square kilometers) that lies in the Ionian Sea, just off the coast of Epirus in northwest Greece, thereby supplanting a settlement of Eretrians from Euboea, who retire to the Albanian coast.

The island derives its name from the Greek word “coryphai,” meaning "crests" (the fertile island, flat in the south, has mountain ranges in its northern and central regions).

According to legend, the island was Scheria, home of the Phaeacians in Homeric epic.

Greece, having become stable and prosperous, begins to see a great growth in population, spurring a great wave of colonization.

The earliest known inscriptions in the Greek alphabet date to around 730, around the time Hesiod writes his “Theogeny.”

The Messenians, not wanting to experience another battle such as the one fought in the vicinity of Ampheia, had fallen back to the heavily fortified Mount Ithome, guarding the entrance to the rich Stenyclarus plain, their center of resistance.

This is when the Messenians first send for help from the Oracle at Delphi.

They are told that a sacrifice of a royal virgin is the key to their success and the daughter of Aristodemus, a Messenian hero, is chosen for the sacrifice.

Upon hearing of this, the Spartans hold off from attacking Ithome for several years, before finally making a long march under their kings and killing the Messenian leader.

Aristodemus is made the new Messenian king and leads an offensive, meeting the enemy and driving them back into their own territory.