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PART VII
STORIES GIVEN TO AID THE PERSECUTED JEWS
21
ESARHADDON, KING OF ASSYRIA[1]
The Assyrian King, Esarhaddon, had conquered the kingdom of King Lailie, had destroyed and burnt the towns, taken all the inhabitants captive to his own country, slaughtered the warriors, beheaded some chieftains and impaled or flayed others, and had confined King Lailie himself in a cage.
As he lay on his bed one night, King Esarhaddon
- ↑ In this story Tolstoy has used the names of real people. Esarhaddon (or Assur-akhi-iddina) is mentioned three times in the Bible (2 Kings xix. 37; Isaiah xxxvii. 38, and Ezra iv. 2), and is also alluded to in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, as, 'the King of Assyria, which took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.' His son, Assur-bani-pal, whom he promoted to power before his own death, is once mentioned in the Bible, under the name of Asnapper (Ezra iv. 10). Of Lailie history does not tell us much; but in Ernest A. Budge's History of Esarhaddon we read: 'A King, called Lailie, asked that the gods which Esarhaddon had captured from him might be restored. His request was granted, and Esarhaddon said, "I spoke to him of brotherhood, and entrusted to him the sovereignty of the districts of Bazu."'
