Esarhaddon

Esarhaddon was not meant to be king. His eldest brother had been captured and killed in 694 BC, the second eldest named heir - until their father Sennacherib abruptly chose Esarhaddon instead in 684 BC. The passed-over brothers responded by murdering Sennacherib in 681 BC and attempting to seize power, forcing Esarhaddon into a six-week civil war he won but never forgot. He ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC mistrustful of officials and male relatives, living in high-security fortifications and elevating women like his mother Naqiʾa to unprecedented political power. Sick, depressed, and paranoid, he nonetheless rebuilt Babylon after his father's destruction of it, campaigned across Media, Persia, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, Anatolia, and the Caucasus, crushed the Kushite Empire, and in 671 BC took Egypt and Libya. He died having secured succession for two sons, the empire larger than any before it.