fomenting rebellion among numerous towns under Sar-
gon’s control, and he decided to end this uprising. His
army attacked the Urartan army in a mountain pass, and
a source later wrote that Urartan “blood run [sic] down
the ravines like a river.” Unstoppable, Sargon’s army
neared the Urartan capital of Tushpa, forcing the Urar-
tan king, Rusas I (also known as Ursa I), to flee. The As-
syrian troops looted Urartu, which allegedly contained
some 334,000 precious objects, including more than 1
ton of gold. Accounts of this period of warfare history
come from Sargon himself, who penned a lengthy “let-
ter” about his military expeditions—in fact, a clay tab-
let later found by archaeologists in the town of Assur
and now in the Louvre in France—to the god Ashur.
It is known as the “8th campaign” of Sargon, and in it
Sargon claims that he lost only six troops in the entire
Urartan campaign.
Sargon’s forces moved back to the west, conquering
the city of Ashdod (now in modern Israel) and annexing
the city of Philistia. It was during this period (ca. 710
b.c.) that Sargon moved against his old enemy Marduk-
apla-Iddin, besieging Babylon and forcing the leader to
flee and go into exile in Elam. Babylon capitulated to
Sargon, and he was proclaimed as its king in 710 b.c.
For the next five years he held the emperorships of As-
syria and Babylon.
Sargon’s final campaign was against the Cimme-
rians, a nomadic tribe from Russia who were rampag-
ing westward. Historians believe that Sargon was killed
during the Cimmerian invasion of Assyria (705 b.c.),
although this cannot be verified. A written chronicle
from the period states that “the king was killed [and]
the camp of the king of Assyria [was defeated].” Sargon’s
son, Sin-ahhe-eriba (also known as Sennacherib), be-
came the leader of Assyria in 704 b.c.
Historian James Orr writes of Sargon: “Ancient
writers knew nothing of him. He was a mystery: some
did not hesitate to deny that he ever existed.” Nonethe-
less, evidence of his existence does survive, including his
letter to Ashur and a stele (descriptive column) found at
Ashdod, Israel, and now in an Israeli museum dedicated
at some early period to Sargon’s defeat of Ashdod.
References: Lie, A. G., The Inscriptions of Sargon II of
Assyria (Paris, France: Librarie Orientaliste P. Guenther,
1929); Luckenbill, Daniel David, Ancient Records of As-
syria and Babylonia, 2 vols. (New York: Greenwood Press,
1968); Olmstead, Albert Ten Eyck, History of Assyria
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923); Orr, James,
The Problem of the Old Testament Considered with Refer-
ence to Recent Criticism (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1906), 399.Saxe, Hermann Maurice, comte de (Maurice
de Saxe, Mauritz de Saxe, Moritz-Hermann
de Saxe) (1696–1750) German-born military
commander
Maurice de Saxe was born in Goslar, Saxony (now in
Germany), on 28 October 1696, the illegitimate son of
the elector Frederick Augustus I of Saxony (later King
Augustus II of Poland) and his mistress Maria Aurora
von Königsmark. Saxe biographer Jon Manchip White
writes:The birth of Maurice de Saxe occurred in cir-
cumstances wholly cut out of key with the bril-
liant role which he was to play in later life. The
illegitimate son of a great German prince and a
high-born Swedish adventuress, the prodigy, who
was to become one of the outstanding generals
of his age, was brought into the world in secrecy,
shame, and anguish.... In the autumn of 1696
the Lutheran pastor of the city of Goslar, an ob-
scure town in northern Germany, recorded in
his parish register that: “Today, October 28, a
male child was born to a noble and high-born
lady in the house of Heinrich Christoph Winkel,
and was christened Mauritz.” The boy appears
to have been given the dual Christian name of
Moritz-Hermann, and it was under the appropri-
ately bastard style of “Arminius-Maurice de Saxe”
that his name was to be entered forty-seven years
later in the proud roll of the Marshals of France.About 1709, when Saxe was 13, his father sent
him to Flanders, Belgium, to serve in the army under
Prince eugène of Savoy against the French. There he
saw action in several battles, including at Malplaquet
(11 September 1709). In 1711, after two years of mili-
tary service, Saxe was given the title of graf von Sachsen
(count of Saxony; comte de Saxe in French) by his father,
whom he subsequently joined in a war in Pomerania,
taking part in the siege of Stralsund (1712). Five years
later, his father purchased an entire regiment of German
mercenary troops and gave its command to Saxe, whoSAxe, heRmAnn mAuRice, comte De 0