Sargon II (Akkadian Šarru-ukin "he [= the god] made firm the king"; reigned 722 – 705 BC) was an Assyrian king. Sargon II became the ruler of the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC after the death of Shalmaneser V. In his inscriptions, he styles himself as a new man, rarely referring to his predecessors; however he took the name Sharru-kinu ("true king"), after Sargon of Akkad — who had founded the first Semitic Empire in the region some 16 centuries earlier. Sargon is the Biblical form of the name.