纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 021拉吉浮雕（5）

（单词翻译）

"And the Lord was with him: and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not." (II Kings, 18, v. 2)

The Bible understandably glosses over the disagreeable fact that Sennacherib responded by brutally seizing the cities of Judah - until Hezekiah was crushed, gave in, and paid up. An Assyrian account of the episode, also here in the British Museum, gives us Sennacherib's view of what happened, allegedly in his own words:

"Because Hezekiah, King of Judah, would not submit to my yoke, I came up against him, and by force of arms and by the might of my power I took 46 of his strong-fenced cities; and of the smaller towns which were scattered about, I took and plundered a countless number. From these places I took and carried off 200,156 persons, old and young, male and female, together with horses and mules, asses and camels, oxen and sheep, a countless multitude."

These are the people that we see on the relief - the victims of war, who pay the price of their ruler's rebellion. Families with carts packed high with bundles are being led into exile, while Assyrian soldiers carry their plundered spoils towards the image of the enthroned King Sennacherib. An inscription credits the king himself with the victory: 'Sennacherib King of the World, King of Assyria, sat on a throne and watched the booty of Lachish pass before him.' He presides over the sacked city and its defeated inhabitants as an almost divine overlord, watching the citizens as they're deported to another part of the Assyrian empire.