Argishti II was

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

of Urartu from 714 BC to 680 BC. He succeeded his father, King Rusa I. During the Urartu-Assyria War, Argishti was responsible for orchestrating major Urartian counter-offensives against the invading

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

ns. His forces drove the Assyrians back across the pre-war border and deep into the Assyrian heartlands, reconquering major towns and cities around Lake Urmia, including Mushashir, Ushnu, and Tepe, and conquering the territory as far south as the city of Nimrud on the Tigris River. These victories forced the Assyrians to accept a lengthy peace and cede large tracts of territory north of the Tigris. The remainder of Argishti's lengthy reign was characterized by a " Golden Age", a period of lengthy peace and economic prosperity, which carried into the reigns of Argishti's two successors, his son Rusa II and his grandson Sarduri III. Although the region of Urartu had been controlled by the Assyrians following conflicts, Argishti II was still able to expand his influence further east, as inscriptions in Iranian Azerbaijan have shown.

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