Yarim-Lim I

Who is Yarim-Lim I?

Yarim-Lim I, also given as Yarimlim, was the second king of the ancient Amorite kingdom of Yamhad in modern-day Aleppo, Syria. Yarim-Lim was the son and successor of the first king Sumu-Epuh. The kingdom of Yamhad was being threatened by the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I who had surrounded Yamhad through his alliance with Charchemish and Urshu to the north, Qatna to the south, and conquering Mari to the east. Yarim-Lim ascended the throne after his father was killed in 1780 during his campaigns against Shamshi-Adad. He was able to stand up to Shamshi-Adad by surrounding him with deft alliances with Hammurabi of Babylon and Ibal-pi-el II of Eshnunna. His alliance with Hammurabi was credited with saving Babylon from an Assyrian attack by attacking their rear.

There is no king who is mighty by himself. Ten or fifteen kings follow Hammurabi the ruler of Babylon, a like number of Rim-Sin of Larsa, a like number of Ibal-pi-el of Eshnunna, a like number of Amud-pi-el of Qatanum, but twenty follow Yarim-Lim of Yamhad.

In 1777 Yarim-Lim conquered the city of Tuttul, on the confluence of the rivers Balikh and Euphrates. He appointed his ally, Zimrilim, the heir to the throne of Mari who was living in exile at his court, as king. When Shamshi-Adad died in 1776, he helped Zimrilim regain his throne in Mari and oust Yasmah-Adad. The alliance between Mari and Yamhad was cemented with the royal marriage between Zimrilim and Yarim-Lim's daughter, Shibtu. Yarim-Lim extended his influence to several other important city-states in Syria through alliance and vassalage, including the rich kingdom of Ugarit. The relationship between Qatna and Yamhad seems to have improved during Yarim-Lim's reign as well. By the time of his death in 1764, Yarim-Lim, had more than twenty kings as vassals and allies. According to Historian William J. Hamblin he was at the time the "mightiest ruler in the Near East outside of Egypt."