The Age of Sargon II - A short history of Assyria from 722-705 B.C‪.‬

Sargon the Younger, the man who formed the central object of one of the most brilliant periods of ancient Oriental history, might well boast himself a self-made man, for in spite of his boasts of the three hundred and fifty kings who ruled Assyria before him, and of his mention of the kings his fathers, it is certain that he was not of the blood royal. What his real ancestry was we do not know. He himself keeps a discreet silence on the subject. His son, Sennacherib, secured a splendid ancestry, for he claimed descent from the old mythical heroes, Gilgamish, Eabani, Humbaba, and the like. This was evidently felt to be going too far, for Esarhaddon already as crown prince gives the more modest genealogy which became standard. According to this, Sargon was a scion of the old half mythical house of Bel ibni, son of Adasi. 

As we do not know his family, so we do not know his real name. On his accession he assumed that of Sharrukin, better known to us, from its Biblical form, as Sargon. The reason for this is clear. Two thousand years before there had ruled in Agade a mighty monarch, Shargani by name, whose power and wealth were still evidenced by the inscriptions in the temples he had erected. Originally the name seems to have meant "A god has established him as king". A later age had forgotten this meaning, and it had, by a process of folk etymology, come to mean "The established king". It was in this latter sense that the usurper assumed it, and by the plays upon it in his own records showed to the world his well-established rule. 

Shargani thus became a sort of patron saint to his name-sake. He did not, it is true, claim descent from him. But we do see a sort of a Sargon renaissance, a renewed interest in everything touching the older monarch. For instance, there had come down a great astronomical treatise, the "Illumination of Bel", which was ascribed to Shargani. This was introduced into Assyria and frequently copied in this and succeeding reigns. To the same influence must no doubt be ascribed the well-known archaism in art and in religion, the care for Babylonia, perhaps even the foundation of a new Dur Sharrukin in imitation of the earlier one which had borne Shargani's name. 

Perhaps the most artistic and interesting result was the production of the Sargon legends, which, in all probability, had long floated about in popular story and were now retouched for the glory of the usurper king. Of this literature, two specimens have come down to us. One is an omen tablet which reports the deeds done by Sargon or his son Naram Sin under such and such a sign of the heavens, how three years were spent in the land of the setting sun, how the sea of the setting sun was crossed and his image erected, how Kastubilla of Kagala was defeated and the land of Surri, and how a great city was built in his honor...