ISRAeLITe eMBASSIeS To ASSyRIA 191 and ensuring that these territories were governed by individuals loyal to the empire. Jeroboam’s rule of this territory was similar to allowing the magnates to control territories, while preserving the overlordship of the Assyrian king. By means of the tribute remitted by the emis- saries, and the communication to the emissaries of Assyrian imperial ideology, Israel’s loyalty to Assyria would have been assured, like the loyalty of the magnates. The feast whose wine rations are recorded in nWL 4 grouped together emissaries from conquered kingdoms and palace officials, the loyalty of whom the king required. vII. Communicating Assyrian royal ideology to Israel The evidence from nWL 4 shows, therefore, that the foreigners listed were almost certainly emissaries of their kingdoms, each of which appears to have been subservient to Assyria in the early eighth century. emissaries of the kingdom of Israel visited Assyria perhaps as early as 791, but certainly by 779. In Assyria, they participated in the annual visit of the foreign ambassadors, at which they were ex- posed to the full range of Assyrian claims of empire. During the reign of Joash or that of Jeroboam, or of both, Israelite emissaries visited Assyria, were issued wine rations, learned of Assyrian claims of em- pire, and brought this knowledge home to the Land of Israel. nWL 4 attests only to a single event of Israelite ambassadors, in a single year, but it is highly unlikely that this was a one-time occurrence. The am- bassadors may well have brought a tāmartu, or “seeing” gift, brought as an expression of political amity, or maddattu, tribute brought by vassals 60. either way, it is unlikely that Assyria would have acquiesced to a single unrepeated payment, since, as Siddall demonstrates, no real evidence exists of Assyrian weakness at the end of Adad-nirari’s rule or in the period immediately following 61. on the contrary, Siddall argues that the extension of the Assyrian empire following the accession of Tiglath- Pileser III in 745 was based on the provincial structure and administrative system established by Adad-nirari III and his sons and successors 62. on the different types of gifts offered by foreign states to Assyria, see RAD- 60 neR, “Abgaben an den könig von Assyrien”, 214-215. The imbalance of power between Israel (strong as it may have been in the days of Jeroboam II) and Assyria supports the latter possibility. 61 SIDALL, The Reign of Adad-Nirari III, 100-133. 62 “The period from 810-730 was a period of gradual, and at times problematic, administrative expansion” (SIDALL, The Reign of Adad-Nirari III, 131).