151. ABOUT the year 1000 B. C. a strange and well-nigh unaccountable state of things confronts the student of the empires of the Mesopotamian valley. For a scene of vigorous activity is substituted a monotonous vacancy. Aggressive expansion yields to inertness. In place of the regal personalities whose words proclaim their achievements in sonorous detail, appear mere names, scattered here and there over the wider spaces of the years, that tell nothing of import or interest concerning the progress of the states over which these phantom rulers held feeble sway. The sources of knowledge have slowly dried up or have been cut off by the accidents to which historical memorials are always subject. Here and there a brick inscribed with a king's name, or an occasional reference in later inscriptions to some otherwise unknown rulers of the time, is all that remains of Assyrian material. The Babylonian kings' lists and chronicles are confused or discordant, and at a critical point, where they are practically the only source, are quite broken away, leaving the whole chronological structure hanging in the air. Such facts carry their own important lesson. They speak of decay or downfall, and invite inquiry into its causes.

152. The information directly gleaned from these scanty memorials may be briefly stated. Three Assyrian rulers are known to belong somewhere within the period. Ashurkirbi (?) is said by Shalmaneser II., who ruled Assyria two centuries later, to have left a memorial of himself at the Mediterranean, presumably in token of a western expedition, and also to have lost to the Arameans the two cities on opposite sides of the Euphrates, captured and probably fortified by Tiglathpileser I. to guard Assyrian ascendancy at that point (sect. 146). On the so-called broken obelisk of Ashurnaçirpal III. are mentioned kings Irba Adad and Ashurnadinakhi II,, who, probably in these days, built at the city of Assur. In Babylonia the dynasty of Pashe came to an end about 1007 B. C., and was followed by three dynasties in rapid succession, The fifth in the order of the kings' list consisted of three kings who ruled between twenty-one and twenty-three years, and was called the "Dynasty of the Sea." The sixth, the "Dynasty of Bazi," also of three kings, endured for but twenty years. An Elamite followed, reigning for six years, constituting by himself alone the seventh dynasty. The names of the kings of the eighth dynasty are quite broken away on the list, and apparently the sum of their regnal years also. How long they ruled, therefore, is quite uncertain, and, when the gap closes, the kings that begin the new series belong to the eighth century. Half a dozen names, found in other documents, occupy the vacant space over against Assyrian kings of the ninth century, from whom ampler information has come down,

153. While only a broken and baffling story of the course of these kingdoms can be drawn from such sources, it does not follow that the years gathering about the beginning of the first millennium B. C. were not of real significance to the history of Babylonia and Assyria. The kingdoms themselves pass for the time into eclipse, and the centre of interest is shifted from their capitals to the lands that hitherto have been the scene of their aggression. In those lands, however, are to be found the causes of the decline, and there a veritably new political world was forming in those years, — a world in which the leaders of the Assyrian renaissance were later to carry their arms to wider and more splendid victories.

154. It may be correct to ascribe the decline of Assyria, at least in part, to internal exhaustion, due to the tremendous strain of the numerous and costly campaigns of Tiglathpileser I. Vigorous citizens had been drafted for the armies, many of whom perished on distant battlefields. The economic resources of the land absorbed in military campaigns were by no means compensated for by the inflowing of treasure from the conquered lands, most of which went into the royal coffers. These losses could not but disable the national strength. Yet the great king seems to have sought to guard against this danger by the statesmanlike measures already described (sect. 148), and during the reigns of his two sons some opportunity for recuperation was afforded. The prime fact was that, coincident with this period of internal decline, a series of mighty movements of peoples took place in the world without, which swept away Assyria's authority over her provincial districts, encroached upon her territory, threw Babylonia into civil war, paralyzed all foreign trade, and afforded opportunity for the consolidation of rival powers on the borders of both nations. The most important of these movements was a fresh wave of Aramean migration, which welled up in resistless volume from the Arabian peninsula. At various periods during preceding centuries, these nomads had crossed the Euphrates, and roamed through the middle Mesopotamian plain as far as the Tigris. At times they were a menace to the commerce of the rivers, but usually were held in check by the armies of the great states, driven back by systematic campaigns, or absorbed into the settled population. But in these years they came in overwhelming multitudes. Apparently by the mere force of numbers they crowded back the Assyrians and Babylonians and occupied the entire western half of the plain. They poured over into Syria as well, until stopped by the sea and the mountains. At the first they may have moved to and fro, fighting and plundering, and not without reason has it been held (Tiele, BAG, pp. 167, 178) that they carried fire and sword into the heart of Assyria itself. In course of time they yielded to the influences of civilization, and began to settle down in the rich country of upper Mesopotamia around the Euphrates, where their states are found a century after. The causes of such a movement are difficult to determine. In this case something more than the ordinary impulse to migration seems to be required. May it not he found in the rise of the kingdoms of southern Arabia which, whether Minean or Sabean, seem to have reached the acme of their prosperity just before this period? Their extension toward the north and east may have driven the Bedouin upward and precipitated the onward movement which forced the Arameans out into Mesopotamia and Syria.

155. Such a cause would account also for the other irruption from the same Arabian region, which in this period brought confusion to Babylonia. It has already been remarked (sect. 69) that Babylonian trade with southern Arabia centred about the border city of Ur near the mouth of the rivers. Along this open and attractive highway came a new horde that fell upon the coast-lands and river-bottoms, and appear henceforth in Babylonian history as the Kaldi. They pressed forward up the river, ever falling back, when defeated, into their almost inaccessible fastnesses in the swamps of the coast, and ever reappearing to contest the sovereignty of the land. The kings that followed the dynasty of Pashe were called Kings of the Sea Land; the name suggests that they may have belonged to the Kaldi. At any rate, they felt the influence of the troubles occasioned by the Arameans to the north, for an inscription of Nabu-abal-iddin of the ninth century, mentions the plundering of Akkad by the Suti, and the failure of two of the kings of the dynasty in an endeavor properly to restore the worship of the god Shamash in Sippar (KB, III. 1, p. 174), The rapid succession of dynasties in Babylonia from about 1000 to 950 B. C. is naturally explained in view of a series of incursions such as this inscription mentions and other facts suggest.

156. In the northern regions, also, the scene of the victories of Tiglathpileser, Assyrian ascendancy appears early to have been swept away. The facts are much more obscure and indecisive, but the entrance of new peoples on the scene seems fairly certain. Somewhere about or just before this time, the Phrygians entered Asia Minor from Europe, and, like a wedge, forced apart the peoples of the east and west. Vague traditions exist of a Cilician kingdom, which rivalled that of the earlier Khatti, and united the peoples to the north and east of the gulf of Issus as far as Armenia (Maspero, SN, p. 668). It may be that the assaults of the Assyrian king, coupled with the Phrygian invasion, had resulted in welding these tribes into a semblance of unity under some powerful chieftain, before whom the authority of Assyria speedily disappeared, and the mountain passes were closed to her trade. Even more significant for the later history of Assyria was the advance from the northeast to the shores of the "Upper Sea" (Lake Van) of a new people, the Urarti, who were to exercise a predominating influence in these regions. Their advent was followed by great confusion. The northern tribes were pressed down to the south and southwest, and thereby the Assyrian ascendancy in the eastern and northern mountains was broken.

157. Behind these obstructions which effectually closed in around the Mesopotamian kingdoms, the opportunity was given for the formation of new nationalities, or the larger development of those already in existence. Especially on the Mediterranean coast was the opportunity improved. Here the warlike people known as the Philistines had established themselves as lords in the cities on the southeast coast, where the roads run up from Egypt into Syria, and were pressing up into the hill country behind. On these plateaus the Hebrews had been feeling after that national organization to which their worship of Jehovah led the way and gave the inspiration. By the impact of Philistine aggression the nation was brought into being, and sprang into full vigor under the genial lcadership of David and the wise statesmanship of Solomon (about 1000-930 B. C.). Higher up along the coast the aggressive activity of the royal house of Tyre, and especially the reign of Hirom I., so strengthened and enriched that city as henceforth to make it the centre of the Phoenician communities, the commercial mart of the eastern and western worlds. In the interior of Syria, city-states, like Hamath and Khalman, Patin and Samal, grew prosperous and warred with one another and with the encroaching Arameans. The latter, while settling down in states on either side of the Euphrates, had pushed over into Syria as far as Zobah, and laid the foundations of the kingdom of Damascus, the famous trading-post and garden spot of eastern Syria. As for Egypt, she was broken by internal conflict; and though the Pharaohs of Tanis were fairly vigorous kings, and from time to time even ventured into southern Palestine, to check and dominate the Philistines (Milner, Asien and Europa, p. 389), these kings were not masters of all Egypt, and could do little to support their claims upon the Asiatic provinces possessed by the earlier dynasties. Thus the new states grew and older communities put on new life, under the impulse of the fresh masses of population, now that there was freedom from the pressure of the powers on the Tigris and the Nile. The whole face of the oriental world was changed and the centre of gravity seemed to have moved beyond the western bank of the Euphrates. By the middle of the tenth century the movement was at its height, and Syria appeared to be about to take the place of pre-eminence in the historical period that was to follow.

158. THE year 950 B. C., by which date the confusion of the past century had spent itself and in the various districts bordering on the Mesopotamian valley was beginning to yield to order and progress, affords a convenient point from which also to observe the revival of the ancient kingdoms whose activity had been so suddenly interrupted during the preceding years, In Egypt a Libyan general, Sheshonk, high in position at the court, had usurped the throne and founded the twenty-second dynasty. His accession was soon followed by a forward movement into Palestine and an attack upon the Hebrew kingdoms. In Babylonia the eighth dynasty (sect. 152) ruled under a king of unknown name and origin, who remained on the throne for thirty-six years and was followed by ten or eleven rulers of the same line. Assyria, however, showed most clearly the beginnings of recovery. There also a new dynasty occupied the throne, and thenceforth the crown descended in the same family, from father to son, through at least ten generations. Of Tiglathpileser II., the founder of the line, nothing is known. His son, Ashurdan II. about 930 B. C., comes forward somewhat clearly as a canal-builder, a rounder of fortresses, and a restorer of temples in Assur. With Adadnirari II. his son (911-890 B. C.), the upward movement was accelerated. The Assyrian limu list (sect. 38), that invaluable document of ancient chronology, begins with him, as though the compiler regarded his reign as a new epoch in the national history. He built upon the walls of Assur, and, according to one of his descendants, "overthrew the disobedient and conquered on every side." No record has been preserved of any of his wars except that with Babylonia. A difficulty about boundaries between the countries seems to have brought on the conflict. A forward movement by the Babylonian king Shamash-mudammiq was met by Adadnirari near Mount Yalman (Holwan) in the eastern mountains. The Babylonians were driven back, and the defeat apparently cost their king his life, for he was immediately succeeded on the throne by a usurper, Nabushumishkun. Adadnirari advanced against him, defeated his army, spoiled several cities, and brought him speedily to terms. A treaty was made in which the kings exchanged daughters, and the boundaries were adjusted, no doubt to the satisfaction of Assyria, The son of Adadnirari II. was Tukulti Ninib II,, in whose case the direct report of a campaign in the north has been preserved. At the sources of the Tigris, where Tiglathpileser I. had recorded his victories (sect. 146), his successor also inscribed his name and exploits, how with the help of his god he traversed the mighty mountains from the rising of the sun to its setting, and reduced their peoples to submission. It is evident that the work of his predecessor of two centuries before had to be done over again, He valiantly undertook the task. It is not probable that his own campaigns extended beyond the valley of the upper Tigris between the first two ranges of mountains. He reigned but six years (890-885 B. C.), giving promise of what Assyria was about to achieve and winning from his successors characteristic appreciations of his valor; his son asserted that he "laid the yoke on his adversaries and set up their bodies on stakes," and his grandson, that "he subjugated all his enemies and swept them like a tempest."

159. With Ashurnaçirpal III. (885-860 B. C.), the son and successor of Tukulti Ninib II., dawns the bright morning of the Assyrian revival. The brief reign of his father brought him to the throne at an early age, and, like Tiglathpileser I., he plunged immediately into a series of warlike activities. Of the eleven campaigns recorded in his inscriptions, out of his twenty-four full years on the throne, seven were carried through before the first quarter of his reign was over. His first concern was with the north, whither his father had already led the way. There important changes had taken place since Tiglathpileser had made his campaigns. The commotions in the far north had pushed the tribes and peoples out of their old seats, crowded them together, or brought new peoples on the scene. The Nairi (sect. 144) were now to the southwest of Lake Van, and partly within the southern valley to the east of the sources of the Tigris. The Kirkhi had been pressed together and lay toward the south of the same valley. On the western side Aramean tribes had crowded up on the east of the Qummukhi, and formed several communities about Amid and to the west of the upper Tigris, pushing the Qummukhi back towards the mountains through which the Euphrates flows. Several tribes about the upper Tigris had retired into Kashiari, and there occupied the passes and valleys on the border of the Mesopotamian plain. On the east and northeast the mountain peoples had been thrown forward to the ridges overlooking the valley, and constituted a new problem for the Assyrian rulers. Ashurnaçirpal marched into the very centre of the disturbed region to check the advance of the Nairi, found their easternmost tribe (the Nimme) already to the couth of Lake Van, and crushed them, A dash over the mountains to the east brought the Kirruri to terms, and secured the homage of peoples to the far east in the upper valleys of the greater Zab (Gilzan and Khubushkia).

160. The western plateau south of the Armenian Taurus was then entered. Back and forth and up and down from the Bitlis to Qummukh and from Tauru to Kashiari, he marched and fought in the four campaigns of the years 885, 884, 883, and 880 B. C. The upper Tigris was first cleared by the overthrow of the Kirkhi, and the tribute of Qummukh was gathered. At this time apparently the Aramean communities of that valley submitted. Then followed the recovery of the southwestern part of the plateau, where vigorous opposition had developed under the leadership of a city which had once been an Assyrian outpost. The trouble was spreading northward among the Aramean cities. Reaching the sources of the Tigris, where he set up his image by the side of those of his predecessors, Ashurnaçirpal marched southward along the ridge overlooking Qummukh to Kashiari, on whose southwestern flanks were the strongholds of the enemy. Here the cities of the Nirbi were destroyed, and a fortified post on the right bank of the Tigris was established in the city of Tushkha, as the centre of Assyrian influence in the southwestern plateau. The reduction of the Nairi in the northern valleys was undertaken in the campaign of 880 B. C., and their tribute brought to Tushkha. With this the conquest of the various peoples of these districts was completed. A governor was appointed for the whole region, with his seat in that city.

161. The king's movement into the north, in the beginning of his reign, seems to have been regarded by the hill peoples of the eastern border as a menace, against which it behooved them to prepare. That they were growing into a sort of confederacy is shown in the common name attached to the region — Zamua. A chieftain whose tribe occupied the outermost fringe of mountains at the head of the pass of Babite, succeeded after two years in uniting all Zamua in an alliance. The united tribes presented an independent front to Assyria and proceeded to fortify the pass. To Ashurnaçirpal this move was equivalent to rebellion. Besides, it threatened the security of his eastern border as well as the control of the trade with the hinterland. He withdrew, therefore, from active operations in the northwest, and for two years (882-881 B. C.) campaigned among these eastern mountains. His first attack had for its purpose the opening of the pass. The struggle was a severe one, and the summer was gone before the first line of defences was pierced. The king then withdrew to the Assyrian border. Winter came on early in the high mountain valleys, and the inhabitants must have felt secure for the time, but in September the Assyrian army appeared again within the mountain barrier. A fortified camp was established, and expeditions sallied out in all directions into the heart of the enemy's country, striking hard blows, and retiring swiftly on their base of operations. All Zamua was terrified and hastened to do homage. The next year's campaign was in the southeast, where some Zamuan chiefs continued in rebellion. A rapid march to the sources of the Turnat brought the king into the centre of the disaffected region, which was laid waste; thence the army turned northward, burning and plundering through the upper valleys, and descended to the fortified camp of the previous winter. A second time all the chieftains of Zamua came and kissed the king's feet. While the leading rebels had escaped the vengeance of the king, the confederacy had been broken up, and the country severely punished. From the northern border were brought down the gifts of Gilzan and Khubushkia, lands which had tendered their submission in his opening year. Fortified posts were established in Zamua, and a governor was appointed with his seat at Kalkhi.

162. These six years of campaigning (885-880 B. C.) make up a cycle of vigorous achievement of which any warrior might be proud. From the head-waters of the river Turnat on the southeast, to the northwestern mountains through which the Euphrates flowed, the long arc of mountain borderland had been brought under Assyrian authority. The advancing tribes had been repressed and Assyria's borders relieved. A change of capital followed, possibly was occasioned by this extension of territory. In connection with his eastern wars the attention of Ashurnaçirpal had been directed to Kalkhi. Its favorable situation, in the angle where the greater Zab falls into the Tigris, and equidistant from the eastern and northern mountain borders, may have been the ground which induced him to remove the seat of government thither. His first work was piously to rebuild the temple of his patron god, Ninib, and place in it a colossal statue of that divinity, to set up his shrine and appoint his festal seasons, Building went forward from this time upon the various edifices which were to adorn the site, while the king himself turned to a new field of warfare, and undertook a series of expeditions that occupied him for at least four years.

163. While in Quinmukh, on the expedition of 884 B. C., word was brought to Ashurnaçirpal that the communities on the Khabur River were in commotion. The Arameans had already established petty principalities in the rich plains bordering on the Euphrates from the Khabur to the mountains (sect. 154). One of these states was aspiring to something more than local supremacy. This community, to the north of the Balikh, and situated in a fertile region, the seat of an ancient civilization, and an immemorial centre of trade, was called by the Assyrians Bit Adini from a certain Adinu, probably the founder of a dynasty of ambitious chiefs. How far it had extended its influence by this time cannot be determined, but its interference in the affairs of Suru on the Khabur had brought about a revolution there, whereby a chief from Bit Adini was raised to the throne. When the king heard of it, he at once recognized the gravity of the situation. A union of these communities was a serious danger to Assyria, and, as in the case of the tribes of the eastern mountains, he regarded it as an act of "rebellion," warranting immediate action on his part. Marching southward to the upper waters of the Khabur, he descended along the river bank to the scene of disturbance. A portion of the inhabitants of Suru submitted. The remainder, showing resistance, were cruelly punished, and their new chief carried off to be flayed alive at Nineveh. The neighboring tribes up and down the Euphrates brought tribute.

164. The four years following saw the completion of the work undertaken in the north and east (sects. 160, 161). Not till 879 B. C. did the king undertake another western expedition. Unfortunately, the three expeditions that follow 879 B. C. are left undated in his inscriptions, and it is uncertain whether these occupied the years immediately following (i. e. 878-876 B. C.), though it is usually assumed that they did. In the first two campaigns (879-878) he took Suru on the Khabur as a base of operations, and chastised the tribes north and south on either bank of the Euphrates. The southern tribes, the Sukhi, were supported by Babylonian troops under the command of Zabdanu, the brother of Nabupaliddin, king of Babylonia, and Ashurnaçirpal proudly claims to have stricken with terror "the land of Babylonia and the Kaldi, by taking prisoner the Babylonian general and three thousand of his troops. He obtained boats, and, sailing across and down the Euphrates, plundered the villages, burned the grain-fields, and marched into the desert. Somewhere in the region between the Khabur and the Balikh he built two fortresses on either side of the Euphrates, called Kar Ashurnaçirpal and Nibarti Ashur. The third expedition (877?) was aimed directly at Bit Adini, and the resistance offered by Akhuni, its king, collapsed with the storming of his citadel of Kaprabi. With the submission of this Aramean kingdom Ashurnaçirpal was in control of all upper Mesopotamia.

165. The last western campaign (876?) had the Mediterranean for its objective point. From Bit Adini the Euphrates was crossed, and Karkhemish, the capital of Sangara, king of the Khatti, surrendered without fighting. Ashurnaçirpal now had before him the plateau of upper Syria, which, lying behind the Euphrates hills, stretched away westward to the mountains and the seacoast in a series of fruitful plains, filled with inhabitants. Petty city-states divided the land between them and occupied themselves in perpetual warfare. At this time the leading state was that of Patin, which, under its king Lubarna, controlled the country about the lower Orontes and its northern affluents. Ashurnaçirpal marched directly on Patin. Lubarna offered no resistance, and was left in possession of his kingdom as an Assyrian vassal. The march led across the orontes southward through the mountains. The city of Aribua was selected as an Assyrian outpost and base of supplies. From thence the march may be told in the king's own words:

Then I approached the slopes of Lebanon. To the great sea of Akharri [i. e. the Mediterranean] I ascended. In the great sea I purified my weapons and offered sacrifices to the gods. Tribute of the kings on the shores of the sea, of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Makhallata, Maiça, Kaiça, Akharri, and Aramada [Arvad] in the midst of the sea, silver, gold, lead, copper, copper vessels, variegated and linen garments, a large and small pagutu, ushu and ukarinu wood, tusks of the nakhiri, the sea monster, I received in tribute, They embraced my feet (Standard Inscr., col. iii. 84-88).

 Returning northward, he went up into the Amanus mountains to cut choice timber for his palaces and temples, and, after setting up the usual image of himself with a memorial of his deeds, made his way back to Assyria.

166. The chronicle of these conquests naturally suggests comparison with those of Tiglathpileser I, That warrior undoubtedly extended Assyria's fame and influence more widely than did Ashurnaçirpal, whose campaigns did not carry him beyond the upper Euphrates, or the boundaries of Babylonia. In many of his measures the later king imitated the earlier, — in the personal leadership of his troops, in the imposition of tribute upon conquered countries and the requirement of hostages, in the deportation of subdued populations, and in the treatment of enemies. On the other hand, in some respects, Ashurnaçirpal shows himself in advance of his predecessor. His army was improved by the addition of a cavalry squadron, supplementing the infantry and chariots. This first appears in the Zamuan campaigns, and is developed in the western wars, where it may have been modelled after the Aramean cavalry. It was certainly useful in following up the Bedouin when foot-soldiers and chariots would have been useless; it formed thenceforth a constantly enlarging division of the Assyrian force. Another measure of the king was the incorporation of the troops of subject peoples in his army. This appears on the largest scale in his Syrian expedition, in which he added, successively, the soldiers of the Aramean communities on the Euphrates, of Karkhemish, and of Patin. While the desire to leave no enemies in his rear may have been a partial ground of this action, it is probable that these detachments continued to remain under his control and were carried with him to Kalkhi. There he seems to have established a great military centre, where these and other troops were maintained and drilled. In this procedure he solved a standing problem of Assyrian politics, namely, how to continue the wars without drawing too heavily on Assyria's citizens. While thereby introducing elements of serious danger into the state, he was, nevertheless, enabled thus to hand down to his successor an undiminished power, and make it possible for him to undertake an even greater series of military operations.

167. In organizing his conquered territory the king made a distinct advance. A line of Assyrian outposts was established. Some of these guardeal exposed districts; others formed the central points of regions more or less geographically compacted. Of the former class were Atlila, called Dur Assur, in Zamua on the Elamite-Babylonian border, the fortified post of Tukulti-ashur-açbat among the eastern mountains, the city of Ashurnaçirpal at the sources of the Tigris, the "royal cities" Damdamusa in the northwest and Uda in Kashiari, the two fortresses on opposite sides of the Euphrates (sect. 164), and Aribua in Patin, apparently guarding the Orontes valley. To the latter type belonged Kakzi, in the eastern Assyrian plain, the starting-point of the Zamuan campaigns, and Tushkha in Kirkhi, where the king built a palace and granaries. Various officials represented Assyria in these districts. Their names and jurisdiction are not altogether clear. Sometimes the former rulers were confirmed in their dignities on submission to the conqueror, or native nobles were chosen, whose exaltation to posts of honor and influence would be expected to insure their fidelity. Thus, the zabil kuduri, stationed among the northern peoples, had charge of the collection and delivery of tribute to the king. The exact duties of a qipu, the honorable title given to local chiefs, are not defined. An office of higher and wider jurisdiction is that of shaknu, which may be held by a native chief or, in some cases apparently, by an Assyrian noble who, in important territories like those of the Kirkhi and Nairi, is responsible directly to the king. The position of the urasi, another personage mentioned in the inscriptions, may have been hardly more than that of "resident" in cities under Assyrian control. The placing of Assyrian colonists in some of the cities, though not a new measure, is with all the rest a significant indication of the new beginning of systematic endeavors toward close supervision and control of the subjugated lands.

168. The method of Ashurnaçirpal in reducing many of these regions to subjection was so severe as potently to aid in holding them to Assyrian allegiance,

One illustration, drawn from the conqueror's own account of the overthrow of Tela on the slopes of Kashiari, is sufficient:

I drew near to the city of Tela, The city was very strong; three walls surrounded it. The inhabitants trusted to their strong walls and numerous soldiers; they did not come down or embrace my feet. With battle and slaughter I assaulted and took the city. Three thousand warriors I slew in battle. Their booty and possessions, cattle, sheep, I carried away; many captives I burned with fire. Many of their soldiers I took alive; of some I cut off hands and limbs; of others the noses, ears, and arms; of many soldiers I put out the eyes. I reared a column of the living and a column of heads, I hung up on high their heads on trees in the vicinity of their city. Their boys and girls I burned up in the flame. I devastated the city, dug it up, in fire burned it; I annihilated it (Standard Inscr., col. i. 113-118).

Such punishment was reserved for those communities which once under Assyrian authority now offered opposition. This was regarded as rebellion and punished by extermination, or by penalties which rendered the unhappy survivors a warning to their neighbors. Native officials, once trusted by their Assyrian masters, but afterwards rebellious, were, when captured, flayed alive and their skins hung upon the city walls. Communities for the first time summoned to submit to Assyria, if they resisted, were subject to the ordinary fate of the conquered, but not otherwise treated with special cruelty. The opposition encountered by Ashurnaçirpal was usually not very strong; the cities were beaten in detail; they had not yet learned how to unite against the common enemy. The numbers definitely mentioned in the inscriptions indicate a total of less than thirty thousand soldiers slain by the Assyrians in all these campaigns, but this estimate does not probably include more than a third of the persons who perished in the storming of the cities. Without doubt the stress of suffering fell upon the northern mountaineers, for more than half of the slain recorded by the king belong to this region, which evidently had caused the chief trouble and required the most strenuous efforts to keep under control. In fact, the last campaign of Ashurnaçirpal, in his eighteenth year (867 B. C.), directed against the districts to the northwest, was something of a failure. The city of Amid seems to have held out, and further trouble was promised for the future.

169. The importance of the conquests is shown in the long lists of the spoil and tribute obtained, beside which the booty of Tiglathpileser I. seems insignificant. Least productive were the lands of Zamua, yet they had one important and indispensable product, the splendid horses raised on their plateaus and famed throughout the Orient. From all the mountain regions came cattle and sheep in countless numbers, besides wine and corn. Of precious metals, these districts produced copper, which was manufactured in various forms, and gold and silver. The Aramean communities of the western Mesopotamian plain were the most remunerative, and their spoil reveals the wealth and civilization of that region. Even the Aramean states to the west of the sources of the Tigris contributed, besides horses, cattle, and sheep, chariots and harness, armor, silver, gold, lead, copper, variegated garments and linen cloths, wood and metal work, and furniture in ivory and gold. To these the chief of Bit Adini added ivory plates, couches and thrones, gold beads and pendants and weapons of gold; the king of Karkhemish, cloths of purple light and dark, marvellous furniture, silver baskets, precious woods and stones, elephant tusks and female slaves; and Syria, her fragrant cedars and the other woods of her mountain-forests.

170. Abundant opportunity for the use and bestowment of these spoils of war was given in the king's building enterprises at his capital of Kalkhi. Besides the temple already referred to (sect. 162), his crowning work was his magnificent palace. This stood on the western side of a rectangular platform which was reared along the east bank of the Tigris from north to south. Around its base to the north and east lay the city. The palace itself was about three hundred and fifty feet square; its entrances looked northward upon the great temple structure that occupied the northwestern corner of the platform and overhung the city and the river. A series of long narrow galleries, lined with sculptured alabaster slabs, surrounded a court in size one hundred and twenty-five by one hundred feet. The chief of these rooms, probably a throne chamber, one hundred and fifty-four by thirty-three feet, still contains at its eastern end the remains of a dais which once may have supported the throne. On the slabs were wrought, in low relief, scenes from the life and experiences of the king. Now he offers thanksgiving for the slaying of a wild ox or a lion; now he pursues the fleeing enemy in his chariots; now his army besieges a city, or advances to the attack across a river, or, led by the king, marches through the mountains. Everywhere inscriptions commemorate his achievements and recite his titles. At the doorways stood the monstrous man-headed bulls, or lions, only head and shoulders completely wrought out, as if leaping forth from the wall, the rest still half sculptured in the stone, — divine spirits guarding the entrances. Scenes of religious worship abound, gods, spirits, and heroes engaged in exercises of which the meaning is not yet clear. Everywhere is the combination of energy with repose, of massive strength with dignity; though crude and imperfect in the technique of the sculptor, the reliefs are the most vivid and lifelike achievements of Assyrian art, the counterpart in stone of the grandiose story of the king's campaigns, which is written above and on either side of them. The narrow galleries were spanned with cedar beams and decorated with silver and gold and bronze. The priceless ivories of the west, showing by subject and style the unmistakable influence of Egypt, have been picked up from the palace floors by modern explorers. All was a wonderful commentary upon Ashurnaçirpal's own words:

"A palace for my royal dwelling-place, for the glorious seat of my royalty, I founded for ever and splendidly planned it. I surrounded it with a cornice (?) of copper. Sculptures of the creatures of land and sea carved in alabaster," I made and placed them at the doors. Lofty door-posts of… wood I made, and sheathed them with copper and set them up in the gates. Thrones of "costly" woods, dishes of ivory containing silver, gold, lead, copper, and iron, the spoil of my hand, taken from conquered lands I deposited therein. (Monolith Inscr., concl. 12-24).

The king had a palace in Nineveh also, and built temples there and elsewhere. The evidence of his having contributed to the inner development of his country is not abundant. An aqueduct to supply Kalkhi with water drawn from the upper Zab was referred to; it brought fruitfulness to the surrounding country, as its name "producer of fertility" proves. The rebuilding of Kalkhi, and the wealth in cattle and sheep, as well as other property, brought in by the successful wars, must be regarded as most important contributions to Assyrian economic resources.

171. Varying judgments have been passed on the character of Ashurnaçirpal. Of his energy there can be no question. As hunter and warrior he was untiring and resistless. But to some he is chiefly a monster of remorseless cruelty, whose joy it was to maim, flay, burn, or impale his conquered enemies. If this verdict is finally to be rendered, he will be convicted out of his own mouth, for the evidence is derived solely from his frank, unsoftened narrative of his own ruthless barbarities. But while they are not to be palliated, it must be remembered that war has since engendered even more hideous crimes, of which his narrative shows him to be guiltless; that in an iron age, when Assyria was recovering from a century of dishonor and collapse, fierce and bloody vengeance had come to be the rule; and that in almost every instance these last penalties were inflicted upon communities which, from the Assyrian point of view, had violated their pledges to God and man. It is evident, moreover, that the statements of the king are not inspired by the lust of cruelty and blood, but have been inscribed with the same purpose as that with which the punishments were inflicted, — to strike terror into the heart of the opposer and to warn the intending rebel of his fate. That this verdict is more reasonable is strengthened by the probability that, with the sole exception of the campaign of 867 B. C., the king's wars ceased before his reign was half over. The lesson had been learned, and the king, having taught it in this savage fashion, was well content to turn his energies to the pursuits of. peace. Of these latter years there is but scanty record. Wisely to govern a peaceful empire had not yet come to stand among the glories of monarchs. Nevertheless in the remarkable statue of Ashurnaçirpal found in the temple of Ninib, not far from his palace, "the only extant perfect Assyrian royal statue in the round," a suggestion is given of the statesman as well as the warrior. A rude heroic figure, he stands upright before tle god, looking straight forward, his brawny arms bare, the left hand holding to his breast the mace, weapon of the soldier, but the right dropped by his side, grasping the sceptre, emblematic of the shepherd of his people.

172. FOR more than a century after the death of Ashurnaçirpal (860 B. C.) his descendants occupied the throne of Assyria. The period is one of great variety in details; new peoples come upon the scene as the empire widens; new political problems appear for solution in the increasing complexity of the field and the factors involved; inner difficulties arise the presence of which is not easily to be accounted for, though of obvious significance; the dynasty at last gives way to a successful revolution. But, in the main features, the historical development of Assyria continues as before, with the same lines of policy, the same unwearied military activity, the same unceasing effort after expansion, the same methods of government, the same relations to peoples without. Accordingly, to trace in repetitious detail the campaigns of the several kings in turn, would be wearisome and unprofitable. Their work may be considered as a whole, its general features described, and its results summarized, while the special achievements of each ruler are properly appreciated. Ashurnaçirpal was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser II., whose thirty-five years of reigning (860-825 B. C.) were one long military campaign. Either under his own leadership, or that of his commanding general, the Turtan, his armies marched in all directions, coercing rebellious vassals, and collecting their tribute, or seeking new peoples to conquer. An obelisk of black basalt records in brief sentences, year by year, thirty-two of these expeditions, and its testimony is supplemented on the other monuments of the king by fuller accounts of particular achievements. His son, Shamshi Adad IV., reigned less than half as long as his father (825-812 B. C.), and has left, as his memorial, a monolith, the inscription of which covers only half of his years. Adadnirari III. followed (812-783 B. C.), ascending the throne of his father, apparently, in early youth, but ruling with great energy and splendor for nearly thirty years. Unfortunately, no satisfactory annals of his reign have been preserved. Royal inscriptions from the next three kings utterly fail. Shalmaneser III. (783-773 B. C.), Ashurdan III. (773-755 B. C.), and Ashurnirari II. (755-745 B. C.) are known to us from the limu list alone, where the brief references to years without campaigns, to pestilence and revolt, tell the melancholy story of imperial decay, until, with the last of the three, the dynasty fell, and a usurper seized the crown.

173. Beyond a few facts, little is known of the political organization and economic development of Assyria during this century. In the time of Shalmaneser II. and his two successors, the spoil of subject peoples continued to flow in abundantly, precious metals and manufactured articles from the west, corn, wine, and domestic animals from the north and east. Among the latter, two-humped dromedaries, received from the far northeast, obtained special mention as novelties, and point to the control of a trade route from the upper Iranian plateau. Shalmaneser seems to have taken a step forward, in the imposition of a regular and definite yearly tribute upon certain communities. Thus the kingdom of Patin paid one talent of silver, two talents of purple cloth, and two hundred (?) cedar beams; another king, at the foot of Mount Amanus, ten mina of silver, two hundred cedar beams, and other products of cedar; Karkhemish paid sixty mina of gold, one talent of silver, and two talents of purple cloth; Qummukh, twenty mina of silver, and three hundred cedar beams. A prescribed number of horses broken to the yoke was required from the northern tribes. These requisitions are more moderate than were the spoils gained in the descents of the armies upon the various subject regions, and indicate that already the Assyrian kings perceived the wisdom of adjusting their demands to the resources of the lands under their sway. Much less harshness in the wars is recorded. Measures like those of Ashurnaçirpal were reserved for the few peoples whose rebellious spirit or persistent hostility seemed to justify extreme penalties. Indeed, revolts became less frequent, because during this period the empire was becoming more compact by the direct incorporation of regions long subject to Assyrian authority. A striking illustration of this fact is found in the limu list, in which a regular order in the succession of officials seems to be established. In it appear governors of cities and districts along the borders, such as Raçappa (Reseph) on the right bank of the Euphrates, Arpakha on the Elamite border, Naçibina (Nisibis) in northern Mesopotamia, Amid and Tushkha in the northern mountains, Guzana (Gozan) in western Mesopotamia, Kirruri, and Mazamua, in the northeastern mountains. To have occupied places in this honorable list, the occupants of such posts must have been in intimate association with the court, and their administrative activity in immediate dependence on the central power.

174. The usual internal troubles that beset oriental monarchies appeared in this century in Assyria, Family difficulties in the reigning house broke out in the rebellion of Shalmaneser's son Ashurdaninpal in the thirty-third year of his father's reign. The cause is not difficult to comprehend. Six years before, Shalmaneser had handed over the leadership of his military expeditions to his Turtan, Damn Ashur. To this evidence of his own growing weakness, and the natural fear, on the part of his sons, of the usurpation of the throne by this general, is, perhaps, to be added a palace intrigue, which threatened the future accession of Ashurdaninpal by the putting forward of another son of Shalm aneser, Shamshi Adad, as a candidate for the throne. The rebellion was a very serious one, involving twenty-seven cities of the empire, among which were Nineveh, Assur, Arbela, Imgur Bel, Amid, and Til-abni. Kalkhi and, apparently, the army were, however, faithful to the king. In the midst of this civil war Shalmaneser died, and, only after it had endured six years, was Shamshi Adad able to bring it to a close and make sure his title to the crown. The blow inflicted upon the centres of Assyrian life must have been very severe.

Sixty years after this, another revolt is chronicled, the causes of which are to be found in the foreign politics of Assyria. The rising kingdom of Urartu was steadily encroaching upon Assyria all along the northern border as far as the Mediterranean, and the kings were being forced into a defensive attitude in spite of all their efforts. Thus Assyrian military pride was wounded, and mercantile prestige was crippled. A total eclipse of the sun occurring on June 15, 763 B. C., was thought the favorable moment for raising the standard of rebellion in the city of Assur. A line drawn across the limn list at this year suggests the setting up of a rival king in that city. The revolt spread to Arbakha in the east, and Gozan in the west, but was finally subdued. In 746 B. C., however, another insurrection broke out in the imperial military city of Kalkhi. Ashurnirari II. had been satisfied to spend more than half his regnal years without making any military expeditions, and, though in itself the fact does not account for the revolt, since the latter half of the great Ashurnaçirpal's reign is likewise unmarked by wars, it reveals the manifest inability of this ruler to cope with the threatening foreign difficulties. The attitude of the army was decisive, and Ashurnirari disappeared before a military leader who became king in 745 B. C. under the title of Tiglathpileser III.

175. While in these last troubled years the prosperity of the state must have been severely shaken, the earlier and more successful kings show, in their inscriptions and public works, that they were not behind Ashurnagirpal in the development of the higher life of the nation. Shalmaneser II. seems to have resided at Assur and Nineveh in his early years, and in each of these cities traces of his building operations remain. Kalkhi, however, was his real capital, and here, in the centre of the great mound (sect. 170), he built his palace, of which, unfortunately, but few remains have been found. In it stood the "Black Obelisk" (sect. 172), and two gigantic winged bulls carved in high relief on slabs fourteen feet square, inscribed with accounts of the royal campaigns (Layard, N. and R., I. pp. 59, 280 ff.). Toward the close of his reign the king rebuilt the wall of Assur in stone, and left there a statue of himself seated on his throne. At Imgur Bel, nine miles east of Kalkhi, were found the most splendid remains of the artistic skill of his reign, the bronze sheathings of what seems to be a wooden gate with double doors, twenty-seven feet in height. These bronze plates were ornamented with scenes done in repoussé work, representing events in the various expeditions of the king. A sacrifice on the shores of Lake Van, the storming of a fortress in Nairi, the receipt of tribute from Syria, the burning of a captured city — are some of the subjects, the treatment of which is bold and spirited, and differs from the work of the earlier period chiefly in the variety of detail, suggestive of the different localities in which the scenes are placed. Skill in the handling of the metal, sharpness of observation, and an artistic eye in the choice of scenes testify to the remarkable attainments of the royal artists. The inscriptions of the several kings do not differ largely from the conventional form adopted from earlier models. That of Shamshi Adad, indeed, evinces a certain freedom of characterization, indicating some independence in the details of literary expression, but otherwise the same annalistic form and traditional figures of speech prevail. Few other literary remains have survived. To Shalmaneser II. is ascribed the foundation at Kalkhi of the royal library. It had a librarian who cared for its collections. The works were chiefly Babylonian classical religious texts, either in originals brought from the south as the spoil of war, or copies made by scribes. The stock of books was still further increased under Adadnirari III. and Ashurnirari II. Under the former king was produced the diplomatic document known as the "Synchronistic History of Assyria and Babylonia," a summary of the political relations between the kings of these countries from the earliest period (sect. 30). The influence of Assyrian culture of the time on its environment is illustrated by the royal inscriptions of the kings of Urartu, who at first write in the Assyrian language, and later employ the Assyrian script for their native speech.

176. The religious life of the times receives light from several sides. The inscriptions of the kings, while still emphasizing the warlike side of religion and glorifying the gods of war, reveal a tendency to exalt the ethical element. Particularly the ranging, of the sun-god Shamash alongside of the national deity Ashur as the guide and inspirer of the king, and the epithets applied to him such as "judge of the world," "ordainer of all things," "director of mankind," and — though this is uncertain — "lord of law," suggest the development of a sense of order and justice in the government (Jastrow, Rel. of Bab. and Assyr., p. 210). A new emphasis on culture is indicated by the high place ascribed in the reign of Adadnirari III. to the Babylonian god of wisdom and learning, Nabu. A temple was built for him on the mound of Kalkhi, and his statues were placed within it. On one of them, prepared in honor of the king and the queen, an inscription, glorifying the god as the clear-eyed, the patron of the arts, the holder of the pen, whose attribute is wisdom, whose power is unequalled, and without whom no decision in heaven is made, closes with the exhortation "O Posterity, trust in Nabu; trust not in any other god!" Whatever may have been the occasion to make so much of this god at this time, it is clear that he represented to the Assyrians an ideal of life never before so attractive to them and suggestive of their higher aspirations.

177. Turning to the first of those fields of aggressive activity in which Assyria made distinct advance, it appears that in the year 852 B. C. Babylonia engaged the attention of Shalmaneser II. Nabupaliddin, its king, a vigorous defender of his state against the Arameans, had succeeded in keeping free from hostilities with Ashurnaçirpal and had even made alliance with Shalmaneser II. After a long reign of at least thirty-one years, his people deposed him, and his son Marduknadinshum succeeded to the throne, which was contested by his brother, Mardukbelusate. The latter, having his strength in the eastern provinces with their more vigorous population, was pressing hard upon his brother, who held Babylon and the other cities of western and middle Babylonia. Marduknadinshum appealed to Shalmaneser II. for aid, which was promptly granted. In the two campaigns of 852-851 B. C. the Assyrian king overthrew and killed the usurper, and restored the kingdom to Marduknadinshum, who naturally became a vassal. As a sign of supremacy and with the customary reverence of an Assyrian king for the shrines of Babylonia, Shalmaneser visited the temples of Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha, and made rich offerings to the gods. Two hundred and fifty years had passed since an Assyrian king had entered Babylon, and now the Assyrian suzerainty was acknowledged by the legitimate Babylonian king, of his own accord. Shalmaneser found the kingdom beset by its southern neighbors, the Kaldi (sect. 155), who had organized petty kingdoms and were constantly pushing up from the coast. He advanced against them, defeated one of their kings, and laid tribute upon them. The suzerainty of Assyria was thrown off by Babylon, possibly in the time of the rebellion of Ashurdaninpal, and was reestablished by Shamshi Adad in 818 B. C., who, however, according to the limu list, occupied the last five years of his reign in expeditions to Babylonian cities, and bequeathed the problem to his successor. Adadnirari III., after an expedition in his first years, in which he fully restored Assyrian, supremacy, appears to have entered into very close relations with the southern kingdom. The completion of the so-called "Synchronistic History" in his reign marks a final stage in the boundary dispute between the two states, The building of the Nabu temple at Kalkhi is an evidence of his regard for things Babylonian. The mention in the inscription on the statue of Nabu (sect. 176) of the Queen Sammuramat, the "lady of the palace," to whom, together with the king, the statue is dedicated, has given rise to a variety of interesting comment. That she should be named in this connection suggests that she was active in the new Babylonian worship, and that, therefore, she may have been herself a Babylonian princess, either wife or mother of the king. The similarity of the name Semiramis, the famous queen mentioned by Herodotus (I. 184) as ruling over Babylon, has suggested the identity of the two royal ladies, but without much gain to history thereby. The activity of the three last kings of the family, so far as Babylonia was concerned, was consumed in expeditions against the Ituha, Aramean tribes in lower Mesopotamia, who evidently interfered with the communications between the two countries. Adadnirari had already found them troublesome. Whether the later kings of the dynasty exercised supremacy over the southern kingdom is uncertain with the probabilities against it in view of the growing weakness of the royal house. A remarkable and as yet inexplicable fact is that with Nabunaçir, who became king in Babylonia in 747 B. C., the famous Canon of Ptolemy begins, as well as the Babylonian Chronicle, as though the accession of this ruler marked an epoch in the development of the state. Yet no historical memorials in our possession suggest any special change in Babylonian affairs.

178. The Babylonian problem was neither so serious nor so insistent as those of the west and the north. Ashurnaçirpal had subdued the west Mesopotamian states up and down the Euphrates, and, in his one Syrian expedition, had made the Assyrian name known as far as the Mediterranean. His successors proceeded to make that name supreme between the great river and the sea, from the Amanus to the Lebanons. Before advancing thither, however, Shalmaneser had to make good his title to the Aramean states which had yielded to his father. Upon his accession Akhuni of Bit Adini (sects. 163 f.) rebelled, and four years (859-856 B. C.) were needed to subjugate him. With great ability he had formed a league of states on either side of the Euphrates, as far as Patin, to repel the Assyrian advance, — a method of resistance in which the southern Syrian states were soon to imitate him with greater success. Unfortunately the league fell to pieces on its first defeat. Akhuni fought on alone desperately for three years, but was finally captured and taken to the city of Assur. Northern Syria as represented in the states of Karkhemish, Samal, and Patin, had already done homage. The way was open to the south. Planting Assyrian colonists at important centres and leaving garrisons in the chief cities of Bit Adini to which he gave Assyrian names, the king marched to the southwest in 854 B. C. A new country lay before him, as yet untrodden by an Assyrian army.

179, Three leading states divided the region between them; namely, Hamath, Damascus, and Israel. Eighty miles south of Khalman, the southern border of Assyrian authority in Syria, lay Hamath, at the entrance to Coele Syria; one hundred miles farther south was Damascus; the border of Israel met the confines of Damascus yet fifty miles west of south. Each state controlled the country round about it. Israel dominated Judah, Moab, and Edom; Damascus and Ha-math were in treaty relations with the Phoenician ports on the coast near to them. With one another they were in more or less continuous war, the outcome of which at any particular time might be the temporary suzerainty of the one or the other. Ever since Asa of Judah had made the fatal blunder of inviting the king of Damascus to attack Baasha of Israel in his interest, Damascus had been involved with Israel. Omri, founder of a new dynasty and of a new capital of his country at Samaria, had been worsted in the war. His son, Ahab, seems also to have reigned under Damascene influence. In the face of Shalmaneser's advance and in imitation of the example of Akhuni, a coalition was made under the leadership of the three kings, Irkhuleni of Hamath, Benhadad II. of Damascus, and Ahab of Israel, to which the kings of nine other peoples contributed troops. With an army of nearly four thousand chariots, two thousand cavalry, one thousand camel riders, and sixty-three thousand infantry, they met the Assyrian king at Qargar on the Orontes, twenty miles north of Hamath (854 B. C.). The Assyrian won the battle, no doubt, as he claims, but the victory was indecisive, and he retired beyond the Euphrates without capturing any of the capitals of his enemies or receiving their tribute. Indeed, his own domains in Syria withheld tribute, and in 850 B. C. he was compelled to chastise the kings of Karkhemish and Bit Agusi, In the next year, 849 B. C., he encountered the southern coalition again, and again withdrew. In 846 B. C. he called out the militia of Assyria and attacked the twelve allied kings with an army of one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers, but without any recorded success in the form of tribute. The situation was critical. Three years later (843 B. C.) he visited his Syrian provinces, marching to the Amanus without venturing southward. Meanwhile, either his intrigues or the inconstancy of Syrian princes had been working for him. Revolutions had taken place in Damascus and Israel. Benhadad II. had been overthrown by Hazael, and the house of Omri by Jehu. Shalmaneser II. developed new tactics. Marching westward, in 842 B. C., as though making for the sea at the mouth of the Orontes, he suddenly turned southward, leaving Khalman, Hamath, and Damascus on his left. He thus took the allied states unprepared and divided. Hazael was isolated, but met the Assyrians on the eastern slopes of Mount Hermon. They drove him back to Damascus and ravaged the territory down into the Hauran, but could not capture his city. The cities of Tyre and Sidon "sent tribute." Hamath appears to have submitted, though the fact is not mentioned. More significant still was the attitude of Israel, "whose king Jehu sent tribute," "silver, gold, golden bowls, golden chalices, golden cups, golden buckets, lead, a royal sceptre and spear shafts (?)." Yet so long as Hazael remained unsubdued, these gifts were empty. A last expedition against him in 839 B. C. was equally unsuccessful in subjugatiug him, though the Phoenician cities again sent prcsents. Assyria had been virtually halted. Shalmaneser's armies never again marched south of Hamath. Hazael was free to take vengeance on his recreant southern allies, and soon was lord of the south; as far as the Egyptian border. Israel was humiliated; Jehu and his son Jehoahaz became vassals. Shalmaneser II. was forced to be content with northern Syria; but with the southern trade routes cut off, he must find new outlets for Assyrian commerce. He therefore turned toward the northwest where Tiglathpileser I. had warred with the same purpose (sect, 144). Three campaigns are recorded against Qui (Cilicia), where he reached Tarzi (Tarsus) in the rich Cilician plain (840, 835, 834 B. C.); in 838 B. C. Tabal, in the vicinity of the modern Marash, was his objective point; in 837 B. C. he renewed Assyrian authority over Milid (sect. 144). In 832 B. C. his Turtan put down a rebellion in Patin. Thus the land route to the west and with it the rich trade of Asia Minor were secured for Assyria, and the civilization of the Tigris began directly to affect the less advanced peoples of these regions.

180. The civil war in Assyria was not without influence in the west. Khindanu, on the western bank of the Euphrates, and Hamath are mentioned among the rebellious cities. Shamshi Adad gives no indication that he ever crossed the Euphrates, and the presumption is that Assyrian authority in these districts was at a discount. Adadnirari, however, has another story to tell. In the summary of his achievements he says, "From above the Euphrates, Khatti, Akharri to its whole extent, Tyre, Sidon, the land of Omri, Edom, Palastu as far as the great sea of the setting sun I brought to submission, [and] taxes and tribute I laid upon them" (see ABL, p. 52). Special mention is made of an expedition to Damascus, where a certain Mari (Benhadad III.?), who had succeeded to Hazael, was shut up in his capital, and compelled to submit and pay .tribute. In the limu list the objective points of attack are Arpad (806 B. C.), Azaz (805 B. C.), Sahli (804 B. C.), the seacoast (803 B.C.) that is, the Mediterranean (?), Alauvate (797 B. C.). The two former cities are in northern Syria, the others in the central region. It is impossible, therefore, to date the victory over Damascus, and to determine whether the king ever traversed Israel and Palestine with his armies, or merely received "tribute" from them. The latter is more probably the case. The situation suggested is the breaking down of the dominance of Damascus in the south, and the practical recovery of independence on the part of the southern communities, by the easy method of sending gifts to the Assyrian conqueror. The subjugation of Damascus would signify to the king authority over all the regions owning Damascene supremacy. It is thought that some indication of what this victory meant for Israel still lingers in the late passage of 2 Kings xiii. 5, where the "saviour" may be identified with the Assyrian king. At any rate, as no expedition of Adadnirari after 797 B. C. is recorded, and Mancçuate, situated not far from Damascus, was the objective point of that year, Israel, with its northern enemy weakened, was able to recover strength, and, unmolested by Assyrian authority, make headway against its foes. Nor did the Assyrian kings that belong to the following years of decline disturb the southern states. A new centre of opposition to Assyria developed at Hatarika (Hadrach), south of Hamath, against which Ashurdan is said to have marched in 772 B. C. and 765 B. C. Either he or his successor attacked it again in 755 B. C., and one expedition of Ashurnirari against Arpad took place the next year (754 B. C.). It is evident that, if northern Syria remained faithful, the central and southern regions were practically free from Assyrian control after the reign of Adadnirari III. It is easy to understand, therefore, how in this period so brilliant a reign as that of Jeroboam II. of Israel was possible (2 Kings xiv. 23-29).

181. The relations to the peoples of the northern and eastern frontier form a not less important phase of Assyrian history during this period. The mountain valleys through which the upper Tigris flows had been subjugated and brought under direct Assyrian control by Ashurnaçirpal (sects. 159 f.) These gave the later kings little trouble. But the movements of peoples to the east and north of this district, already in progress in his time (sect. 159), had produced a remarkable change in the political situation. In the mountains from the southern slopes of which the Euphrates takes its rise, peoples were forming into a nation calling itself Khaldia, after the name of its god Khaldis, but to the Assyrians known as Urartu. They appear in history as they come down from the flanks of Ararat in the far northeast, or from homes on the banks of the Araxes, and move toward the southwest in the direction of Lake Van, attracted by the rich valleys on its eastern shore. Ashurnaçirpal is the first to mention them as in this region, but does not fight with them. The first kings of the new nation were Lutipris and Sarduris I., followed — whether immediately or not is uncertain — by Arame. Under this ruler the state made great strides westward and southward, controlling the valley north of the Taurus almost to Maid, and the eastern shores of Lake Van. Young, vigorous, aggressive, and eager for progress, Urartu was ready to take part in the larger life of the world. Already it had borrowed from Assyria its alphabet (sect. 175), and was preparing to dispute the older nation's pre-eminence in the northern lands.

182. Disturbances in the northeast brought Shalmaneser II., in the year of his accession (860 B. C.), into conflict with this new state. He traversed the land of Khubushkia, lying to the southwest of Lake Urmia, and thence fell upon Urartu. In 857 B. C., after defeating Akhuni on the Euphrates (sect. 178), he suddenly turned northward and marched along the western slope of Mount Masius over the Taurus to the upper waters of the Euphrates. Laying waste this region, he faced eastward and made for Urartu. Far up on the slopes of Ararat he destroyed Arzashku, Arame's capital, devastated the land and returned through Gilzan (Kirzan), on the northwestern shores of Lake Urmia, whence came the two-humped dromedaries, and through Khubushkia, coming out of the mountains above Arbela, a march of nearly a thousand miles. Similar expeditions from the sources of the Tigris to those of the Euphrates are recorded for 845 B. C. and 833 B. C. The latter was under command of the Turtan. In the interval Arame had been succeeded by Sarduris II., whom the Turtan of Shalmaneser II. attacked again in 829 B. C, In the Ushpina of "Nairi," with whom the general of Shamshi. Adad fought in 819 B. C., has been recognized Ishpuinis, successor of Sarduris II. The steady expansion of Urartu toward the south and west in these years caused uneasiness among the peoples already settled along the Assyrian border, and compelled the kings to make many expeditions into districts which hitherto had not come within the range of Assyrian aggression. A large extension of Assyrian territory, therefore, is traceable, although the royal authority was not at all times very insistent. Thus appear the Mannai, to the west and northwest of Lake Urmia; Mazamua and Parsua, to the south of the same lake, and the Madai, or Medians, further to the east. In these latter people is to be recognized the first wave of that Indo-European migration which was to exercise so important an influence upon the later history of Western Asia. It has been plausibly conjectured that the movement of the Medes from the steppes of central Asia had forced the advance of Urartu toward the south, and that, swinging off to the southeast, they were pressing on along the mountain barrier that overlooks the eastern Mesopotamian plain. As in the case of Urartu, so with them, the Assyrian kings, without being conscious of the magnitude of the interests involved, felt that they must be stopped, if Assyria was to keep its position in the oriental world. Adadnirari III. marched against them in not less than eight campaigns. From him, indeed, they received more attention than did Urartu. The latter under the son of Ishpuinis, Menuas, pushed east, west, and north, from the Araxes to the land of the Khatti (Hittites) and Lake Urmia. His son Argistis I. passed beyond the Araxes in the north; in the west he conquered Milid, and in the southeast overran the Mannai, Khubushkia, and Parsua. Shalmaneser III. for more than half his years fought with him without success, The Assyrians were compelled to see their northern and eastern provinces torn away by this vigorous rival, whose intrigues in the west were also threw en ing their possessions there. It was in this fierce storm of assault upon the outworks of the empire that the house of Ashurnaçirpal III. and Shalmaneser II. fell.

183. In summing up this epoch of Assyrian history, the first impression created is that of intense and superabounding energy. The long roll of military expeditions is kept up almost to the end. Where details are given, as in the reign of Shalmaneser II., these campaigns are seen to involve long marches, often in mountainous countries, and frequent battles with not insignificant antagonists. Both method and design in the expeditions are traceable, revealing the fact that they were planned in advance and with a broad outlook. The outcome of the whole was twofold. On the one hand, was a significant extension of Assyrian territory. New regions were opened up. Thus Shalmaneser II. made Assyria dominant on Lake Urmia. It is inferred, from hints in the inscriptions of Adadnirari III., that he reached the Caspian sea. Indeed, a remarkable summary of the wide range of Assyrian predominance is given in the laudatory inscription of the latter king:

Who conquered from the mountain Siluna, toward the rising sun . . as far as the great sea of the rising of the sun; from above the Euphrates, Khatti, Akharri to its whole extent, Tyre, Sidon, the country of Omri, Edom, Palastu as far as the great sea of the setting of the sun, I brought to submission, (and) taxes and tribute I placed on them....The kings of Kaldu, all of them, became servants. Taxes (and) tribute for the future I placed on them. Babylon, Borsippa (and) Kutha supported the decrees of Bel, Nabu (and) Nergal (Slab Iosc., 5-24; see ABL, pp. 51 f.).

184. On the other hand, obstacles of a character not hitherto encountered and, in part, rising out of the very policy of Assyria, confronted these kings. Nations, contemplated in their plans of conquest, began to unite for self-defence. To overcome this concentration of opposition called forth might and skill never before required. Assyrian pressure combined with movements of peoples as yet without the zone of historical knowledge, moulded border tribes into nations with national impulses and aspirations that rivalled those of the Assyrians themselves. New and vigorous tribes were at the same time brought upon the horizon of Assyrian territory. In grappling with such problems, the royal family, which had contributed so many warriors and statesmen to the throne of Assyria, found its strength failing and was constrained to disappear. Would the state itself go down before the same combination of difficulties, or would it regather its energies, and, under other and abler leaders, rise superior to opposition and hold its place of predominance for years to come? The next century contains the answer to this question.

185. THE gloomy outlook for the future of the Assyrian state, consequent upon the encroachments of hostile peoples from without and the inner convulsions that shook the government and overthrew the ruling dynasty, was speedily transformed upon the accession of the new king. With him opens an inspiring chapter of splendid Assyrian success. This sudden change makes it likely that the causes of disaster were due, not so much to decline in the energies of the body politic, as to the weakness or unwisdom of the later members of the ruling dynasty. It has been plausibly conjectured that these rulers identified their interests with the priestly class, the centre of whose power was the city of Assur and who dominated the commercial activities of the realm. As in Babylonia, the temple was the bank and the trading centre of every community as well as the seat of the divine powers. Over against these heads of the spiritual and mercantile world stood the army, recruited chiefly from the free peasantry, and led by their local lords, as royal officers. The disasters on the frontiers brought commercial stringency, which, as in every ancient state, bore most heavily, not upon the men of wealth, but upon the poorer classes. The king unwisely threw himself into the hands of the priests. Sooner or later this attitude was bound to antagonize the army. King, priestly lords, and merchant princes went down before a rebellion, starting from Kalkhi, the seat of the army. The new king represented, therefore, the reassertion of the strongest forces in the state, the native farmers and soldiers, led by the ablest general among them (Peiser in MVAG, I. 161 f.; KAT 3, 50 f.).

186. It is significant that in his inscriptions no stress is laid by the new king upon his ancestral claims to the throne. In a popular leader this would be natural. Among his building activities no temples figure, and the long lists of gods who presided over the careers of his predecessors do not appear on his monuments. Ashur, the representative of the state as a conquering power, is his hero and lord, whose cult he established in the cities subjugated by him. His throne name was Tiglathpileser, chosen, presumably, for its historical suggestions of the first great king of that name, rather than for its theological significance. In military vigor he was a worthy follower of his brilliant predecessor, and surpassed him in statesmanlike foresight and achievement. Cinder his direction the tendencies and measures hitherto observed, looking to the incorporation of the subject peoples, were intensified and consummated. The Assyrian state was revived; the Assyrian empire was founded.

187. The memorials of the king consist of annals, which were written on the slabs adorning the walls of his palace at Kalkhi, and of laudatory inscriptions, containing summary records of his campaigns arranged geographically. All were found in the royal mound at Kalkhi, with the exception of a few bricks from Nineveh which testify to the erection of a palace there. The palace at Kalkhi and its contents suffered a strange fate. To build it the king seems to have removed a smaller structure of Shalmaneser II., which stood in the centre of the terrace, and to have greatly increased the size of the mound toward the south and west by extending it out into the Tigris. On the river side the mound was faced with alabaster blocks. The palace looked toward the north, where it had a portico in the Syrian style with pylons flanking the entrance. In construction it was distinguished from former structures by a predominance of woodwork of cedar and cypress. Double doors with bands of bronze, like those of Shalmaneser II. at Imgur Bel (sect. 175), hung in carved gateways. "'Palaces of joy, yielding abundance, bestowing blessing upon the king, causing their builder to live long,' I called their names. 'Gates of righteousness, guiding the judgment of the prince of the four quarters of the world, making the tribute of the mountains and the seas to continue, causing the abundance of the lands to enter before the king their lord,' I named their gates" (ABL, p. 58). Whether on account of its rapid decay or to do despite to the usurper, a later king of another line, used the materials of this structure for his own palace on the southwestern corner of the mound (sect. 236). The latter, however, was never finished, and to this fact is due the preservation of the fragments of the annals of Tiglathpileser III. on the slabs which had been removed and redressed, preparatory to their use in the walls of the later building. This fragmentary and confused condition of his inscriptions makes the task of reconstructing the historical order and the details of his activities difficult. No certain conclusions can in some instances be attained. Happily, the limu list for the king's reign is complete, and its brief notes form a basis for arranging the rest of the material. The contributions of the Old Testament, also, become now of special value.

188. Nearly all of the eighteen years of the king's reign (745-727 B. C.) were marked by campaigns on the various borders of the realm. These expeditions were characterized, even more clearly than those of his predecessors, by imperial purposes. The world of Western Asia, in expanding its horizon, had become at the same time more simple in its political problems, owing to the disappearance of the multitudinous petty communities before the three or four greater racial or political unities that had come face to face with one another. In the south the Kaldi were becoming more eager to lay hold on Babylon. In the north Urartu was spreading out on every side to absorb the tribes that occupied the mountain valleys, and even to reach over into northern Syria. In the west the tendency to unification brought this or that state to the front, as the suzerain of the lesser cities of a wider territory, and the representative of organized opposition to invasion. Egypt was preparing again to appear on the scene and to recover its place as a world-power west of the Euphrates. Thus, everywhere, with the exception of the eastern mountain valleys where the Medes had not yet realized that nationality the advent of which was to mark the new order, the movement toward a larger unity, based on political rather than on racial grounds, was growing stronger. The politics of the day were international in a new and deeper sense, and the ideal of world-empire was appearing more and more distinctly, as the controlling powers assumed more concrete and imposing forms. Thus, while the details of Assyrian activities are more complex, the main issues in them are more easily grasped and followed.

189. Tiglathpileser III. ascended the throne toward the last of April 745 B. C. Six months were occupied in establishing himself in his seat, and late in the year (September–October) he took an army to the south. Aramean tribes, forever moving restlessly across the southern Mesopotamian plain from the Euphrates to the Tigris, had grown bolder during these years, and, in spite of the endeavors of the Assyrian kings (sect. 177), had entered Babylonia, occupied the Tigris basin from the lower Zab to the Uknu, and were in possession of some of the ancient cities of Akkad. Aramean states were forming, similar to those of western Mesopotamia which had been overcome with so much difficulty by Ashurnaçirpal III. and Shalmaneser II. The king fell upon the tribes furiously, blockaded and stormed the cities, drove the intruders from Dur Kurigalzu, Sippar, and Nippur, and deported multitudes to the northeastern mountains; he also built two fortresses, dug out the canals, and organized the country under direct Assyrian rule. From Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha came the priests of the supreme divinities, offering their rikhat ("gifts of homage"?) to the deliverer, who returned to Assyria, claiming the ancient and proud title of "King of Shumer and Akkad."

190. A natural corollary of this campaign was the expedition of the second year (744 B. C.) to the southeast, which, with the expedition of 737 B. C. to Media, completed the operations in the east. In this direction the Assyrian armies reached Mount Demavend, which overlooks the southern coast of the Caspian sea. Fortresses were built, Assyrian rule established among the Namri, the restless Medes chastised, and made temporarily at least to respect the Assyrian power.

191. The four years (743-740 B. C.) following the first eastern campaign were occupied in the west, where a striking illustration was given of the new international situation. All the region west of the Euphrates had practically been lost to Assyria in the last years of the house of Ashurnaçirpal. The centre of reorganization in northern Syria was the city-state of Arpad, lying a few miles north of Khalman (Aleppo), the capital of King Mati'ilu of Agusi. That state had apparently succeeded in breaking up the formerly strong kingdom of Patin (sect. 165), the western part of which formed a separate principality called Unqi (Amq), and was, with the other contiguous districts, under the suzerainty of Aipad. The work of his predecessors must apparently be done over again by Tiglathpileser. But that was not all. Hardly had he reached the scene of operations, when he learned that he must confront a more formidable antagonist in the king of Urartu. Not contented with robbing Assyria of her tributaries on the northern frontier from Lake Urmia to Cilicia, the armies of Urartu had descended through the valleys along the upper Euphrates, overran Qummukh, and were supporting the north Syrian states in opposition to Assyria. The Urartian throne was occupied at this time by Sarduris III., successor of the brilliant conqueror, Argistis I. (sect. 182). He had advanced over the mountains into the upper Euphrates valley as the Assyrian king moved westward into Syria.

Whether Tiglathpileser III. had already reached Arpad is not clear, but, if so, he retraced his steps, and crossing again the Euphrates, marched northward into Qummukh, where his unexpected arrival and sudden attack threw the army of Sarduris III. into confusion. The king himself barely escaped and, with the relics of his force, ignominiously fled northward over the mountains, pursued by the Assyrians as far as the "bridge of the Euphrates." This defeat effectually cured Sarduris of meddling in Syrian politics, but by no means crippled the resistance of the Syrian states under Mati'ilu. Three years longer the struggle went on before Arpad. It must have fallen in 740 B. C. The fragments of the annals give only scattered names of kings and states that hastened to pay their homage after its overthrow. Qummukh, Gurgum, Karkhemish, Qui, Damascus, Tyre, are mentioned in the list, to which in all probability should be added Milid, Tabal, Samal, and Hamath. Tutammu of Unqi held out and was severely punished. His kingdom was made an Assyrian province, as was doubtless the former state of Agusi. Thus all of northern Syria again became Assyrian territory, and the chief states of the central region paid tribute.

192. In 738 B. C. the king made another step forward in the west. Middle Syria, about Hamath, became involved in trouble with Assyria. Just how this arose it is very difficult to understand, owing to the confused and fragmentary condition of the inscriptions. They mention a certain Azriyau of Jaudi, as inciting these districts to rebellion against the king. At first thought, this personage would seem identical with Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah; but chronological and historical obstacles outweigh the probability of this view, and serve, with other more positive considerations, to lead to the conclusion that the state of Jaudi was situated in northern Syria, adjoining and at times a part of Samal. A prince of this state, Panammu, the son of Karal, had already headed an uprising against the reigning king, Bar-çur, and cut him off with seventy of his house, though, unfortunately, as it proved for the new ruler, a son of Bar-çur, also called Panammu, succeeded in making his escape. It is not unlikely that Azriyau was a successor of the ambitious usurper and, as lord of Jaudi and Samal, was seeking, like so many other princes, to make his principality the centre of a larger Syrian state. This would inevitably bring him into hostility to Assyria. But, with considerable shrewdness, he sought to avoid conflict as long as possible by intriguing with cities of middle Syria as yet unvisited by Tiglathpileser III., among which the most prominent was the city of Kullani. The Assyrian king overthrew the rebel leader, devastated the districts about Hamath, and placed them under an Assyrian governor. Subject states hastened to pay tribute. Among them, besides the rulers of northern and central Syrian states already mentioned (sect. 191), appeared Menahem, king of Israel, and Zabibi, queen of Arabia. Panammu of Jaudi and Samal, the second of that name, had, it seems, fled to Tiglathpileser, and now reaped his reward in being placed upon his father's throne as a vassal of Assyria. His name appears on the tribute list. This was also in all probability, the occasion referred to in 2 Kings xv. 19, 20, where Tiglathpileser is called; by his Babylonian throne name, Pul (sect. 198). The acceptance of Menahem's gift by the Assyrian, as recorded in that passage, may well have been regarded in Israel as "confirming" him in the kingdom, and as a deliverance of the land from the presence of the Assyrian army.

193. With the western states thus pacified, Tiglathpileser turned his attention to his northern enemy whom he had so vigorously ejected from Qummukh in 743 B. C. The campaigns of 739 B. C. and 736 B. C. in the Nairi country may have been intended as preparatory essays in this direction, re-establishing, as they did, Assyrian authority as far as the southern shores of Lake Van. The expedition of 735 B. C. made straight for the heart of Urartu. There is no definite indication as to the route taken, whether the Assyrian came in from the west or from the southeast. The capital of Urartu, by this time pushed forward to the eastern shore of the lake in the vicinity of the present city of Van, was called Turuspa. It consisted of a double city, the lower town spread out along the rich valley, and the citadel perched upon a lofty rock that jutted out into the lake. The Assyrians destroyed the lower town, but besieged the citadel in vain. At last, having ravaged and ruined the country far and wide, from the lakes to the Euphrates as far as Qummukh, they retired, leaving to Sarduris III. a desolate land and an impoverished people. The years of Assyrian humiliation were thus amply avenged.

194. After three years of peace in the west, Tiglathpileser III. was again called thither in 734 B. C. The occasion was one of which the Assyrians had elsewhere often taken advantage. In Israel a new king, Pekah, had joined with Rezon, king of Damascus (2 Kings xvi. 5; Isa. vii. 1 f.), and the princes of the Philistine cities (2 Chron. xxviii. 18), chief of whom was Hanno of Gaza, in a vigorous attack upon the little kingdom of Judah. Edom, also, took up arms against her (2 Chron. xxviii. 17). It has been conjectured that these states had organized a league to resist Assyrian aggression, and were seeking to force Judah to join it. But of this there is no evidence. The real purpose seems to have been to take advantage of the weakness of Judah, and of the youth and incapacity of Ahaz its king, to plunder and divide the country among the assailants. In his extremity, Ahaz, in opposition to the urgent advice of Isaiah the prophet (Isa. vii. 3 ff.), determined to appeal to Tiglathpileser III., preferring vassalage to Assyria to the almost certain loss of kingdom and life at the hands of the league. The Assyrian king seems promptly to have responded to so attractive an invitation to interfere in the affairs of Palestine, hitherto undisturbed by his armies. For three years (734-732 B. C.) he campaigned from Damascus to the border of Egypt. The order of events cannot be determined with certainty. The limu list gives for 734 B. C. an expedition against Philistia. This suggests that he made in that year a rapid march to the far south in order to relieve Judah from the immediate and pressing danger of overthrow at the hands of her enemies, and then proceeded at his leisure to punish them, beginning with the nearest, the Philistines. Gaza suffered the most severely; Hanno fled southward to Munri; the city was plundered, but a vassal king was set up, perhaps Hanno himself, on making his submission. The other cities yielded without much resistance.

195. Israel next received attention. The Book of Kings (2 Kings xv. 29) tells how all Israel, north of the plain of Esdraelon, and east of the Jordan, was overrun. Pekah had thrown himself into his citadel of Samaria, where the Assyrian king would have soon beleaguered him and taken possession of the rest of the country, had not a conspiracy broken out in which Pekah was killed, and Hoshea, its leader, made king. His immediate submission to Tiglathpileser III. was accepted, and his position as vassal king confirmed. The northern half of his kingdom remained, however, in Assyrian possession.

196. In dealing with Damascus, Tiglathpileser III. first defeated Rezon in the field, and then shut him up in the city. How long the siege lasted is uncertain. The entire district was mercilessly devastated. During the siege Panammu II. of Samal, who brought his troops to the aid of his Assyrian suzerain, died, and his son and successor, Bar Rekub, thus records the event upon the funeral stele:

Moreover my father Panammu died while following his lord, Tiglathpileser, king of Assyria, in the camp... And the heir of the kingdom bewailed him. And all the camp of his lord, the king of Assyria, bewailed him. And his lord, the king of Assyria, (afflicted) his soul, and held a weeping for him on the way; and he brought my father from Damascus to this place. In my days (he was buried), and all his house (bewailed) him. And me, Bar Rekub, son of Panammu, because of the righteousness of my father, and because of my righteousness, my lord (the king of Assyria) seated upon (the throne) Of my father, Panammu, son of Bar-çur; and I have erected this monument for my father, Panammu, son of Bar-çur.

The Assyrian account of the capture of the city has not been preserved, but the summary statement of 2 Kings xvi. 9 tells what must have been the final result: "The king of Assyria... took it and carried (the people of) it captive to Kir and slew Rezin." The kingdom of Damascus was destroyed, and the district became an Assyrian province.

197. In the course of the three years other states of middle Syria and Palestine came under Assyrian authority. Sainsi, Queen of Arabia, who had withheld her tribute, was followed into the deserts, and, after the defeat of her warriors, paid for her rebellion with the loss of many camels, and the assignment of an Assyrian qipu, or resident, to her court. Other Arabian tribes to the southwest, among whom the Sabeans appear, sent gifts, and, as qipu over the region of Muçri, a certain Idibi'il was appointed. In the tribute list of the years 734-732 B. C. appear the kings of Ammon, Moab, Edom, and various cities of Phoenicia, hitherto independent. Even the king of Tyre, Mitinna, was compelled to recognize Assyrian suzerainty with a payment of one hundred and fifty talents of gold. The authority of Tiglathpileser III. was supreme from the Taurus to the Gulf of Aqaba and beyond. To slight it meant instant punishment. The king of Tabal, in the far north, ventured to absent himself from the king's presence, and was promptly deposed by the royal official. The king of Askalon, encouraged by the resistance of Rezon, suffered his zeal for Assyria to cool, and merely the news of the fall of Damascus threw him into a fit of sickness which forced him to resign his throne to his son whom the Assyrian king graciously permitted to ascend it. Ahaz of Judah, according to 2 Kings xvi. 10 ff.,. paid his homage in person to his lord Tiglathpileser III. in Damascus after the fall of that city, and caused to be built in Jerusalem a model of the Assyrian altar, set up in the Syrian capital for the worship of Assyrian gods. It has been thought, not without reason, that the biblical narrative intimates that this Jerusalem altar was prepared for the use of the Assyrian king himself, who honored his Judean vassal with a personal visit to his capital (Klostermann, Komm. Sam. u. Kön., in loc.). Such a visit was certainly due to that king whose personal appeal to Tiglathpileser III. had opened the way for this unprecedented extension of Assyrian power.

198. It was reserved for the last ycars of this vigorous king to see the crowning achievement of his vast ambitions. Thirteen years had passed since he had entered Babylonia and re-established Assyrian suzerainty over that ancient kingdom. Meanwhile Nabunaçir (sect. 177) had been succeeded (in 734 B. C.) by his son, Nabunadinziri (Nadinu), and he after two years was killed by one of his officials, who became king under the name of Nabushumukin. This usurpation was sufficient pretext for the interference of the Kaldi. Ukinzir, chief of the Kaldean principality of Bit Amukani, swept the pretender out of the way two months after his usurpation, and seated himself on the Babylonian throne (732 B. C.). On Tiglathpileser's return from the west he must needs intervene to restore Assyrian influence. In 731 B. C. he advanced against Ukinzir, moving down the Tigris to the gulf, and attacking Bit Amukani. He shut the Kaldean up in his capital, Sapia, cut down the palm-trees and ravaged his land and that of other neighboring princes. Evidently he found the enterprise a serious one, for he remained in Assyria the next year, preparing, it seems, for a decisive stroke. The campaign of 729 B. C. resulted in the capture of Sapia and the complete overthrow of Ukinzir, who disappeared from the scene. Among the Kaldean princes who offered gifts to the victor was a certain Mardukbaliddin, chief of Bit Jakin, far down on the gulf, who is to be heard of again in the years to come. With the passing of the usurper, the Babylonian throne was vacant, and in 728 B. C. the Assyrian king "took the hands of Bel" as rightful heritor of the prize. Not as Tiglathpileser, but as Pulu, either his own personal name or a Babylonian throne-name, did he reign as Babylonian king. The cause of this change of name is thought by some to be a rescript of Babylonian law, which forbade a foreign king to rule Babylon except as a Babylonian. It may be that the complicated mass of legal and ritual requirements which in the course of the centuries had gathered about the position of the king of Babylon made it necessary, particularly in the case of the Assyrian ruler, to distinguish thus formally between his authority in the two countries. In his native land he was political and military head; in Babylon his authority consisted chiefly in his relation to the gods and their priesthoods. As such, the new position may be considered as much a burden as an honor, and Maspero thinks that this act of Tiglathpileser III. saddled Assyria with a heavy load. On the other hand, it marks the culmination of the centuries of struggle between the motherland of immemorial culture and the younger and more aggressive military state of the north. It was the attainment of the goal toward which, with deep sentiment and inextinguishable expectation, king after king of Assyria had been striving, and which Tukulti Ninib five centuries before had achieved (sect. 121). To rule and guard the ancient home at the mouth of the rivers, as suzerain of its kings, was not enough; it was far worthier to assume in person the holy crown, to administer the sacred laws, to come face to face with the ancestral gods, and to mediate between them and mankind. Something of this feeling may have come to Tiglathpileser III. at this supreme moment. He enjoyed the honor only a little over a year, however, for in 727 B. C. he died, and in his stead Shalmaneser IV. became king in the two lands.

199. Tiglathpileser III., in his eighteen years of ruling, had succeeded in raising Assyria from a condition of degenerate impotence to be the first power of the ancient world, with an extent of territory and an efficiency of administration never before attained. He combined admirable military skill and energy with a genius for organization, to which former kings had not, indeed, been by any means strangers, but which they had not exercised with such ability, or with results so solid. The custom of establishing fortified posts in conquered countries and of appointing military officials to represent Assyrian authority in them was continued by Tiglathpileser III., but it is his merit to have undertaken to attach these subjugated lands much more closely to Assyria, and to give these officials much more significant administrative duties. Taking as a basis the local unit of the city and the land dependent upon it, he united a not too large number of these districts under a single government official, called, ordinarily, the shuparshaku, whose duty it was to administer the affairs of these districts in immediate dependence on the court. As such, he was called bel pikliati, "lord of the districts." In other words, the king introduced a system of provincial government corresponding to the social and political organization of the Semitic world. Of these provinces, two were established in eastern Babylonia, two in the eastern highlands, one in northern Syria out of the kingdom of Unqi (sect. 191), two in central Syria, that of Damascus, and that of the nineteen districts about Hamath, two in Phoenicia, and one in northern Israel. The collection of a regular tribute and the preservation of order were, as before, the chief duties of these provincial officers. They served also as protectors of the districts from attack, and as guardians of Assyrian interests in surrounding tributary states. Such tributary states with their vassal kings were permitted to continue on the same terms as of old. Tiglathpileser III. also followed his predecessors in the custom of carrying away the peoples of conquered lands, but his genius is seen in the system and method introduced. In the first place, the deportations were made on an immensely larger scale, and, second, the majority of those deported were sent, not to Assyria as before, but to other regions already subjugated. In other words, immense exchanges of conquered populations were made by him. Thus, more than one hundred and thirty-five thousand persons were removed from Babylonia, sixty-five thousand from the eastern highlands, seventy thousand from the northern highlands, and thirty thousand from the districts about Hamath, and these are not all that the inscriptions mention. The Syrians were taken to the north and east; the Babylonians to Syria. The result of this policy was to remove the dangers of insurrection arising out of local or national spirit, and to strengthen the Assyrian administration in the provinces. It has been admirably stated by Maspero as follows:

The colonists, exposed to the same hatreds as the original Assyrian conquerors, soon forgot to look upon the latter as the oppressors of all, and, allowing their present grudge to efface the memory of past injuries, did not hesitate to make common cause with them. In time of peace the governor did his best to protect them against molestation on the part of the natives, and in return for this they rallied round him whenever the latter threatened to get out of hand, and helped him to stifle the revolt, or hold it in check until the arrival of reinforcements. Thanks to their help, the empire was consolidated and maintained without too many violent outbreaks in regions far removed from the capital, and beyond the immediate reach of the sovereign (Passing of the Empires, pp. 200, 201).

200. Receiving from the hands of so able an administrator an empire thus organized, Shalmaneser IV. might look forward to a long and successful reign. Certain badly mutilated inscriptions, if they have been read correctly by modern scholars, indicate that he was the son of Tiglathpileser III. and had already been entrusted by him with the governorship of a Syrian province. No inscriptions of his own throwing light upon his reign have been discovered. This is not strange, as the limu list indicates that his reign lasted but five years (727-722 B. C.) The Babylonian Chronicle states that he succeeded to the Babylonian throne, and the Babylonian kings' list gives his throne name as Ulula'a. The limu list, containing the brief references to campaigns, is here badly mutilated and affords little help. All the more important, therefore, are the biblical statements concerning his relations to Israel, and a difficult passage of Menander of Tyre (in Josephus, Ant., IX. 14, 2) in regard to his dealings with that city.

201. The west had been quiet since the decisive settlement of its affairs made by Tiglathpileser III. in 732 B. C. (sect. 197). The accession of Shalmaneser IV. was generally acquiesced in, and tribute was promptly paid. The Babylonian Chronicle mentions the destruction of the city of Sabarahin (in Syria?) Ezek. xlvii. 16), which may have taken place in his first year (727 B. C. fait which time the payment of tribute by Hoshea of Israel (2 Kings xvii. 3) may have been made. The year 726 B. C. was spent by the king at home. The policy of Tiglathpileser III. seemed to insure the fidelity and peace of the empire. Trouble, however, soon appeared among the tributary kings of Palestine, owing to the intrigues of a certain "Sewe (So), king of Egypt (Miçraim)," (2 Kings xvii. 4), the Assyrian equivalent for whose name is probably Shabi. According to some scholars, the trouble was made by the north Arabian kingdom of Muçri over which Tiglathpileser III. had appointed a gipu (sect. 197). Whatever may be the solution of that question, the results of the intrigue were successful. Hoshea of Israel refused to pay tribute, and it is probable that the king of Tyre followed suit. Shalmaneser IV. came upon the ground in 725 B. C. Menander states that he "overran the whole of Phoenicia, and then marched away after he had made treaties and peace with all;" and a broken inscription, containing a treaty of the king of Tyre with a later Assyrian king appears to substantiate this account (Winckler, AOF, II., i, 15) so far as the submission of Tyre is concerned.

202. Israel was not as easily mastered. Hoshea and his nobles saw clearly that no mercy could be hoped for, in the face of their repeated contumacy, and prepared for the worst. They threw themselves into Samaria, hoping to be able to hold out until their allies brought them relief. By 724 B. C. the blockade began. No help came, yet still they defied the Assyrian army. The country must have been utterly laid waste. The siege continued through the year 723 B. C. The next year Shalmaneser IV. died. The circumstances are not known. The rebellious and beleaguered capital was left to be dealt with by his successor, Sargon, who ascended the throne in January of 722 B. C.

203. ALTHOUGH Sargon gives no indication in his inscriptions that he was related by blood to his immediate predecessors, the fact that he ascended the throne without opposition in the month that Shalmaneser IV. died, shows that he was no usurper, but was recognized as the logical successor of that king. In his foreign politics and his administrative activity he followed in the footsteps of Tiglathpileser III., and thereby carried forward the empire to a height of splendor, solidity, and power hitherto unattained. In one respect, indeed, and that a very important one, it is claimed that he reversed the policy of the two preceding kings. He favored the commercial and hierarchical interests as over against the peasantry (sects. 185 f.). I, "who preserved the supremacy of (the city) Assur which had ceased," and "extended" my "protection over Haran and in accordance with the will of Anu and Dagan wrote its charter," — are two statements in his cylinder inscription which, as doing honor to these centres of priestly rule, illustrate his friendly attitude toward the hierarchy and their interests. His name in one of its forms, Sharru-ukin, "the king has set in order," may embody a reference to this policy, which he conceived of as a restoration of the old order, the re-establishment of justice and right, ignored by his predecessors. While the king's opposition to them may not have been so intense or express as to warrant the claim that he deliberately threw himself into the hands of the other party, facts like those already mentioned and others, which will later appear, are explicable from this point of view.

204. The abounding religiosity of his inscriptions is in manifest contrast to the ritual barrenness of those of Tiglathpileser III. Long passages glorify the gods, whose names make up a pantheon surpassing in number and variety those of any preceding ruler. A devotion to ecclesiastical archæology, characteristic of a priestly régime, appears in the resuscitation of old cults like that of Ningal, the recognition of half-forgotten divine names such as Damku, Sharru-ilu, and Shanitka (?). The reappearance of the triad of Anu, Bel, and Ea (sect. 89) suggests a revival of the old orthodoxy. Sin, Shamash, Ninib, and Nergal are honored with temple, festival, or gift. As though in express contrast with Tiglathpileser (sect. 187), though perhaps unconsciously, Sargon, when he built his lordly palace and city, gave its gates names which testified directly to the overmastering power and presence of the gods and illustrate the extent of his pantheon.

In front and behind, on both sides, in the direction of the eight winds I opened eight city-gates: "Shamash, who granted to me victory," "Adad, who controls its prosperity," I named the gates of Shamash and Adad on the east side; "Bel, who laid the foundation of my city," "Belit, who gives riches in abundance," named the gates of Bel and Belit on the north side; "Anu, who gave success to the work of my hands," "Ishtar, who causes its people to flourish," I made the names of the gates of Anu and Ishtar on the west side; "Ea, who controls its springs," "Belit-ilani, who grants to it numerous offspring," I ordered to be the names of the gates of Ea and Belit-ilani on the south side. (I called) its inner wall "Ashur, who granted long reign to the king, its builder, and protected his armies;" and its outer wall "Ninib, who laid the foundation of the new building for all time to come" (Cyl. Inscr., 66-71).

205. The siege of Samaria, a bequest of Shalmaneser IV. (sect. 202), was in its final stage when Sargon became king, and the city fell in the last months of 722 B. C. The flower of the nation, to the number of twenty-seven thousand two hundred and ninety persons, was deported to Mesopotamia and Media. The rest of the people were left in the wasted land, and a shuparshaku (sect. 199) was appointed to administer it as an Assyrian province. Later in the king's reign, captives from Babylonia and Syria were settled there.

206. Sargon could hardly have been present at the fall of Samaria, though, doubtless, the measures connected with its organization into a province were directed by him. The necessary adjustments of his home government and, particularly, the problem of Babylonia would require his presence in Assyria. Three months after his accession in Assyria, he would have to be in Babylon on New Year's day (Nisan) to "take the hands of Bel" as lawful Babylonian king. But what must have been an unexpected obstacle brought his purpose to naught. Tiglathpileser's annihilation of the Kaldean principality of Bit Amukani (sect. 198) had served to consolidate and strengthen the power of another Kaldean prince, Mardukbaliddin, of Bit Jakin, who at that time had paid rich tribute and now pressed forward to seize the vacant throne. He was supported, if not in his claims to the throne, at least in his opposition to Assyria, by Elam, a power which for centuries had not interfered in the affairs of the Mesopotamian valley. The Babylonian kings' list, indeed, records the rule of an Elamite over Babylon somewhere in the eleventh century, but nothing is known of his relation to the Elamite kingdom. Two new forces brought Elam upon the scene, and made it, from this time forth, an important element in Babylonio-Assyrian politics. First, the pressure of the new peoples from the far east, represented by the Medes in the northeastern mountains, was being felt in the rear of Elam, insensibly cramping and irritating the eastern and northern Elamites and forcing them westward. Second, the aggressive campaign of Tiglathpileser III. against the Aramean tribes on the lower Tigris had cleared that indeterminate region between the two countries and brought the frontier of Assyria up to the border of Elam. Collision was, therefore, as inevitable as between Assyria and the Median tribes farther north. Elam entered promptly into the complications of Babylonian politics and naturally took the anti-Assyrian side. While Mardukbaliddin advanced northward, Khumbanigash, the Elamite king, descended from the highlands and laid siege to Dur Ilu, a fortress on the lower Tigris. Sargon moved rapidly down the east bank of the river and engaged the Elamite army before the Kaldeans came up. The result of the battle was indecisive, a fact which practically meant defeat for the Assyrians. After punishing some Aramean tribes that had taken the side of the Kaldi and transporting them to the far west (Samaria), he turned back, leaving Mardukbaliddin to the possession of Babylon and the kingship, which he assumed in the lawful fashion on the first day of the new year (B