Rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

The Neo-Assyrian Empire emerged as the dominant power of the ancient Near East beginning with the reign of Adad-nirari II starting in 911 BCE, whose military campaigns began a sustained period of Assyrian territorial expansion from its Mesopotamian heartland along the upper Tigris River. Successive kings, most notably Tiglath-Pileser III in the eighth century BCE, transformed Assyria into history's first empire to systematically administer a vast multiethnic territory, developing an extensive road and messenger network, a professional standing army, and a policy of mass deportation of conquered populations to suppress rebellion and integrate new territories. Under kings including Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, the empire reached its greatest extent in the seventh century BCE, briefly controlling Egypt and stretching from the Persian Gulf to Anatolia, before a rapid collapse under the combined assault of the Medes and Babylonians culminated in the fall of the capital Nineveh in 612 BCE and the empire's final extinction by 609 BCE.