The Destruction of Sennacherib is a short narrative poem retelling a Biblical story from the Old Testament (2 Kings, chapter 19) in which God destroys King Sennacherib’s Assyrian army as they attack the holy city of Jerusalem. It is probably as well-known for the way in which the poem is constructed as it is for its subject matter.
The speaker sets out events in chronological order. He seems impressed by the might and splendour of the Assyrian army when describing their appearance in the first six lines. However, halfway through the second stanza comes a turning point as he realises the Assyrians’ strength is short-lived. He then goes on to tell how the Angel of Death has passed through their camp wiping them out. Although the Assyrians may have been mighty, the speaker realises that the power of God is even mightier.
Lord Byron, Napoleon & The Destruction of Sennacherib
Byron was one of the leading poets of a group known as the Romantics. Romanticism was a general artistic movement (literature, music, the visual arts, etc.) which dominated European culture from the last part of the 18th century until the mid-19th century. Romanticism had many key features, including:
an interest in the cultures and history of the Middle East and Far East
the importance of liberty and freedom
a fascination with mystical and supernatural events
All of these are features of Byron’s poem.
Byron was one of the most notorious men in England: “mad, bad and dangerous to know” and often is unconventional in his approaches.
The poem was originally published as part of a collection called Hebrew Melodies in April 1815. This was a time when the subject of war was of great concern throughout Europe.
The wars against Napoleon had been going on for sixteen years and were quickly reaching a climax. The Battle of Waterloo, which ended the war, took place just two months after the poem’s publication.
Just like Sennacherib and the Assyrians in the poem, Napoleon and the French had carved out a huge empire and nothing seemed capable of stopping them. It is estimated that the war resulted in approximately 3.5-5 million casualties. It must have seemed to Byron’s original readers that only a miracle could stop the destruction.
King Sennacherib
Sennacherib was the king of Assyria from 107 BCE to 681 BCE, who was primarily remembered for his campaigns against Babylon and Judah, and for his assassination, in 681 BCE, by his own son. At the time, Babylonians refused to accept Assyrian rule, which led Sennacherib to attack and demolish the city, an event recorded in the Bible’s Book of Kings. This was, however, not the only time that Sennacherib was noted, as most of the Book of Kings is about his campaigns against Syria, Anatolia, and the Arabs of the northern Arabian deserts.
That being said, Assyrian art is considered to have peaked during his rule, with such buildings such as Nineveh, a would-be prototype for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or for the ‘palace without a rival’, which comprised of at least 80 rooms practically dominated by sculpture, built out of limestone blocks and mud brick, the doors of which were flanked by huge figures.
With Sennacherib being a figure of such alternate personalities, it is easy to see why Lord Byron has chosen to immortalize him in a poem; Byron himself is a man noted for his contradictions, being both a gentleman with a ferocious temper, as well as a gifted poet, who had both fought in wars as well as written about them. One can assume that Byron saw a lot of himself in Sennacherib, and though the episode he has chosen to immortalize may be considered one of the darkest periods of Sennacherib’s life, it is still nonetheless an homage to the man himself, a standing ovation to a brutal warrior who lived a tumultuous life.
"In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. 14 And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents[b] of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15 And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. 16 At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. 17 And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer’s Field. 18 And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder."
2 Kings, 18:13
Extract taken from the Old Testament, The Bible