Shalmaneser IV was king of Assyria (783 - 772 BC). He succeeded his father Adad-nirari III, and was succeeded by his brother Ashur-Dan III. Very little information about his reign has survived, and as a result, some early histories of Assyria (when the evidence was not as fully understood as it is today) misidentify the various king Shalmanesers.
As Shalmaneser was not a successful leader, we can easily understand that the allies may have cherished a hope that the heavy yoke of Assyria might be shaken off.
And for this silence, or even the ascription of this campaign wholly to Shalmaneser, there may be reasons, unknown to us, connected with the relation between Sargon and Shalmaneser, and the part which the former may have taken in the military operations or the conduct of the siege.
Certain it is that Sargon was not the son of Shalmaneser, although apparently of princely descent - perhaps the scion of a collateral branch of the royal family.
It is ShalmaneserIV who is mentioned in the Biblical history (2 Kings 17:3; 2 Kings 18:9).
There is reason to believe that, as the siege of Samaria was proceeding, Shalmaneser retired to Nineveh and died, for, when the city was taken in 722 BC, it is Sargon who claims, in his copious annals, to have captured it and carried its inhabitants into captivity.
It is just possible that Shalman (Hosea 10:14) is a contraction for Shalmaneser, but the identity of Shalman and of Beth-arbel named in the same passage is not sufficiently made out.
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