The third king of the Sargonid dynasty, Esarhaddon is most famous for his conquest of Egypt in 671 BC,[5] which made his empire the largest the world had ever seen, and for his reconstruction of Babylon, which had been destroyed by his father.

[b] The murder, and Arda-Mulissu's aspirations of becoming king himself, made Esarhaddon's rise to the throne difficult and he first had to defeat his brothers in a six-week long civil war.

His brothers' attempted coup had been unexpected and troublesome for Esarhaddon and he would be plagued by paranoia and mistrust for his officials, governors and male family members until the end of his reign.

Despite a relatively short and difficult reign, and being plagued by paranoia, depression and constant illness, Esarhaddon remains recognized as one of the greatest and most successful Assyrian kings.

He quickly defeated his brothers in 681, completed ambitious and large-scale building projects in both Assyria and Babylonia, successfully campaigned in Media, Persia, Elam, the Arabian Peninsula, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Levant, defeated the Kushite Empire and conquered Egypt and Libya, enforced a vassal treaty upon the Medes and Persians and ensured a peaceful transition of power to his two sons and heirs Ashurbanipal as ruler of the empire and Šamaš-šuma-ukin as king of Babylonia after his death.

Although Esarhaddon had been the crown prince of Assyria for three years and the designated heir of King Sennacherib, with the entire empire having taken oaths to support him, it was only with great difficulty that he successfully ascended the Assyrian throne.

[10] Shortly thereafter, Sennacherib attacked the land of Elam (modern day southern Iran) in order to defeat the Elamites and some Chaldean rebels which had fled there.

But Ashur, Shamash, Bel, Nabu, Ishtar, all the gods looked with wrath on the deeds of these scoundrels, brought their strength to weakness and humbled them beneath me.

Continually [missing portion] and gave my heart courage.The soldiers, the rebels who had fomented the plot to seize the rulership of Assyria for my brothers, their ranks I examined to the last man and I laid a heavy penalty upon them, I destroyed their seed.

During his reign his wife Ešarra-ḫammat, his mother Naqiʾa and his daughter Šērūʾa-ēṭirat all wielded considerably more influence and political power than women during earlier parts of Assyrian history.

One of his main residences was a palace in the city of Nimrud originally constructed as an armory by his predecessor Shalmaneser III (r. 859–824 BC) almost two hundred years earlier.

[23] Other scholars have refrained from using this label, instead simply characterizing him as "mistrustful" and noting that paranoia is "by definition delusional and irrational" while Esarhaddon is likely to have had many real opponents and enemies.

Exactly how much of the reconstruction was done during the reign of Esarhaddon is uncertain, but stones with his inscriptions are found in the ruins of the city's temples, suggesting that a substantial amount of work had been completed.

Because Esarhaddon had marched his army at great speed, the Assyrians were exhausted once they arrived outside the Egyptian-controlled city of Ashkelon, where they were defeated by the Kushite Pharaoh Taharqa.

[21]Notes and letters preserved from those at the royal court, including Esarhaddon's physicians, describe his condition in some detail, discussing violent vomiting, constant fever, nosebleeds, dizziness, painful earaches, diarrhea and depression.

[47] Seeing as he himself had only acquired the Assyrian throne with great difficulty, Esarhaddon took several steps in order to ensure that the transition of power following his own death would be a smooth and peaceful one.

[49] In order to avoid a civil war upon his death, Esarhaddon appointed his eldest son Sin-nadin-apli as crown prince in 674, but he died just two years later, again threatening a succession crisis.

[55] The army assembled for this second Egytian campaign was considerably larger than the one Esarhaddon had used in 673 and he marched at a much slower speed in order to avoid the problems that had plagued his previous attempt.

In his victory stele, erected to commemorate the defeat of Egypt, Esarhaddon is depicted in a majestic pose with a war mace in his hand and a vassal king kneeling before him.

[58] In an excerpt from the text inscribed on his victory stele, Esarhaddon describes the conquest with the following words: I slew multitudes of his [e.g. Taharqa's] men and I smote him five times with the point of my javelin, with wounds from which there were no recovery.

His queen, his harem, Ushanahuru, his heir, and the rest of his sons and daughters, his property and his goods, his horses, his cattle, his sheep, in countless numbers, I carried off to Assyria.

For a while, Esarhaddon simply gathered information on the activities of the conspirators and fearing for his life, performed the "substitute king" ritual for a second time in 671 BC, just three months after he had previously completed it.

Around this time, the defeated Pharaoh Taharqa appeared from the south and, perhaps combined with the chaotic political situation within Assyria, inspired Egypt to attempt to free itself from Esarhaddon's control.

Despite this, Yauta eventually tried to ditch his connections with the Neo-Assyrian Empire again, which prompted Ashurbanipal to invade his territory, capture him and take him to Nineveh where he was publicly shamed.

Esarhaddon also successfully appointed a woman who had been raised at the Assyrian royal palace, Tabua, as "queen of the Arabs" and allowed her to return to and govern her people.

In another episode, Esarhaddon invaded the country of "Bazza" in 676 (assumed to be located in the east of the Arabian Peninsula) after being petitioned for aid by a local king of a city called Yadi.

As a result of this victory, many of the Medes willingly swore allegiance to Assyria and brought gifts to Nineveh and allowed Esarhaddon to appoint Assyrian governors to their lands.

[47] Contemporary letters by Esarhaddon's subjects discussing the king's "numerous children" confirm that his family was viewed as large by ancient Assyrian standards.

In his 667 campaign, Ashurbanipal marched as far south as Thebes, plundering on his way, and upon his victory he left the joint Pharaohs Psamtik I (who had been educated at Esarhaddon's court) and Necho I as vassal rulers.

[83] After Ashurbanipal's death, his sons Ashuretillilani and Sinsharishkun retained control of his empire for a time,[85] but during their reigns many of Assyria's vassals seized the opportunity to declare themselves independent.