Greco-Roman literary tradition under the name Sardanapalus, erroneously characterized as the effeminate and decadent last king of Assyria and blamed for the fall of his empire. Whether the fall of the Assyrian Empire only two decades after his death is attributable to Ashurbanipal or not is disputed in modern Assyriology. Ashurbanipal is recognized as one of the most brutal Assyrian kings; he was one of the few kings to describe massacres of civilians and the one with the most varied methods in enacting them. His extensive destruction of Elam is regarded by some scholars to amount to a genocide. The Assyrians were militarily successful under Ashurbanipal, campaigning further away from the Assyrian heartland than ever before, but several of his campaigns had little overall effect. Ashurbanipal failed to maintain control of Egypt, his wars in Arabia cost time and resources without leading to the establishment of Assyrian control in the region, and his extensive sack of Babylon after defeating Shamash-shum-ukin fanned anti-Assyrian sentiment in southern Mesopotamia, perhaps contributing to the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire five years after Ashurbanipal's death. Background and accession Becoming the heir to Assyria Born 685 BC, Ashurbanipal was a son of his predecessor Esarhaddon (). Though Ashurbanipal's inscriptions suggest that he was divinely preordained to rule, his accession was far from straightforward, and its political complexities sowed the seeds for later civil war. Ashurbanipal was probably Esarhaddon's fourth eldest son, younger than Esarhaddon's first crown prince Sin-nadin-apli and the other two sons Shamash-shum-ukin and Shamash-metu-uballit. He also had an older sister, Serua-eterat, and several younger brothers. The Assyrian court was thrown into upheaval upon the unexpected death of Sin-nadin-apli in 674. Esarhaddon wished to avoid his eventual death initiating a succession crisis; his own accession had only been accomplished with great difficulty and as such he quickly began drawing up new succession plans. Esarhaddon soon decided upon proclaiming the next eldest son Shamash-shum-ukin as the heir to Babylonia (southern Mesopotamia) and Ashurbanipal as the heir to Assyria, designating the two as "equal brothers". The third eldest son, Shamash-metu-uballit, older than Ashurbanipal, was entirely bypassed, perhaps because he suffered from poor health. Esarhaddon's decision to bypass Shamash-shum-ukin for the Assyrian throne was a remarkable one given that the difficulties with Esarhaddon's own accession were the direct result of his father Sennacherib acting in a similar way. Sennacherib had bypassed the elder son Arda-Mulissu in favor of