Sennacherib

sen-nak'e-rib, a king of Assyria (705-681 B. C.). He was the son and successor of Sargon, the same who planted the Babylonian colony in Samaria. He was a great builder and conqueror. He contended with Egypt for the supremacy of the countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean. Sennacherib made Nineveh his capital. Our principal sources of information are the Greek historians and the cuneiform inscriptions found in Mesopotamia. Palestine and Phoenicia, having formed a league with Egypt, provoked a descent of an army led by the great Assyrian, resulting in the disastrous defeat of the latter. According to the Egyptian account as related by the Greek historian, Herodotus, Sennacherib's defeat was incurred by an invasion of field mice that devoured the quivers and bowstrings of his archers and ate the thongs with which they bound their shields. The cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria make no mention of defeat. According to the Hebrew account, a pestilence fell on the conqueror's forces and 180,000 troops perished in a single night. This is the version referred to in Byron's familiar lines:

See Samaria; Nineveh