* The time of the war against Urtaku and the expedition against Tanuatamanu is indicated by a passage in a cylinder as yet unedited. There we read that the invasion of Urtaku took place at the moment when Tanuatamanu ascended the throne. These preliminary difficulties with Elam would thus have coincided with the two years which elapsed between the accession of Tanuatamanu and his conquest of Memphis, up to the third year mentioned in the Berlin inscription; the testimony of the Egyptian monuments would thus be in almost complete accord with the Assyrian documents on this point.

As a matter of fact, Tanuatamanu did not risk the defence of Memphis, but concentrated his forces at Thebes. Once more the Assyrian generals ascended the Nile, and, after a voyage lasting six weeks, at length reached the suburbs of the great city. Tanuatamanu had fled towards Kipkip, leaving Thebes at the mercy of the invaders. It was given up to pillage, its population was carried off into slavery, and its temples and palaces were despoiled of their treasures—gold, silver, metals, and precious stones, broidered and richly dyed stuffs, and horses of the royal stud.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph by Petrie.

Two of the obelisks which adorned the temple of Amon were taken down from their pedestals and placed on rafts to be transported to Nineveh, and we shall perhaps unearth them some day from its ruins. This work of reprisal accomplished, the conquerors made their way northwards, and the bulk of the army recrossed the isthmus: Ethiopian rule had ceased north of the cataract, and Egypt settled down once more under the Assyrian yoke (663-662 B.C.).*

* The dates which I have adopted follow from the date of 666 B.C. given for the death of Taharqa and the accession of Psammetichus I. The expedition against Thebes must have taken place at the end of the third or beginning of the fourth year of the reign of Tanuatamanu, shortly after the inscription of the third year, and was engraved either in 663 or 662 B.C. at the latest.

Impoverished and decayed as Thebes had now long since become, the nations whom she had afflicted so sorely in the days of her glory had retained for her feelings of respect and almost of awe: the rumour of her fall, spread through the Eastern world, filled them with astonishment and pity. The Hebrews saw in it the chastisement inflicted by their God on the tyrant who had oppressed their ancestors, and their prophets used it to impress upon the minds of their contemporaries the vanity of human prosperity. Half a century later, when Nineveh, menaced in her turn, was desperately arming herself to repel the barbarians, Nahum the Elkoshite demanded of her, amid his fierce denunciations, whether she vaunted herself to be better than "No-amon (city of Amon), that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about her; whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite. Put and Lubim (Libya and the Nubians) came to her succour. Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains." Assur-bani-pal, lord of Egypt and conqueror of Ethiopia, might reasonably consider himself invincible; it would have been well for the princes who trembled at the name of Assur-bani-pal, if they had taken this lesson to heart, and had learned from the downfall of Tanuata-manu what fate awaited them in the event of their daring to arouse the wrath of Assyria by any kind of intrigue. Unfortunately, many of them either failed to see the warning or refused to profit by it. The Mannai had quickly recovered from the defeat inflicted on them by Esarhaddon, and their king, Akhsheri, in spite of his advancing years, believed that his own energy and resources were sufficient to warrant him in anticipating a speedy revenge. Perhaps a further insight into the real character of Assur-bani-pal may have induced him to venture on hostilities. For the king's contemporaries had begun to realise that, beneath his apparent bravery and ostentation, he was by nature indolent, impatient of restraint, and fond of ease and luxury. When not absorbed in the routine of the court and the pleasures of the harem, he spent his leisure in hunting on the Mesopotamian plains, or in the extensive parks which had been laid out by himself or his predecessors in the vicinity of their summer palaces. Urus-stalking had become merely a memory of the past: these animals had been so persistently hunted for centuries that the species had almost become extinct; solitary specimens only were occasionally met with in remote parts of the forest or in out-of-the-way marshes. The wild ass was still to be found in large numbers, as well as the goat, the ostrich, and small game, but the lion was now rarely met with, and the beaters were no longer sure of finding him in his ancient haunts. Specimens had to be sought by the royal gamekeepers in the provinces, and when successfully trapped were forthwith despatched to one or other of the king's country seats. The beast was often kept for several days in a cage while preparations were made for a fete, at which he was destined to form one of the chief attractions, and when the time came he was taken to the appointed place and let loose; the sovereign pursued him either in a chariot or on horseback, and did not desist from the chase till he had pierced his quarry with arrows or lance.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken from the original in the British Museum.

Frequently the beast would be turned loose in the park, and left there till accustomed to his surroundings, so that later on he might be run down under conditions somewhat resembling his native freedom. Assur-bani-pal did not shun a personal encounter with an infuriated lion; he displayed in this hazardous sport a bravery and skill which rivalled that of his ancestors, and he never relegated to another the task of leading the attack or dealing the final death-blow. This, however, was not the case when it was a question of starting on some warlike expedition; he would then leave to his Tartans, or to the Eabshakeh, or to some other chosen officer, the entire conduct of all operations.*

* We have seen, for example, that after the death of Esarhaddon, the Egyptian campaign was conducted by one of the Tartans and the Eabshakeh.

This did not preclude the king from taking an interest in what was passing beyond the frontier, nor did he fail in his performance of the various religious duties which custom imposed on an Assyrian sovereign: he consulted the oracles of Shamash or Ishtar, he offered sacrifices, he fasted and humbled himself in the temples to obtain the success of his troops, and when they returned laden with spoil from the campaign, he attributed their victories no less to his prayers than to their courage or to the skill of their leaders. His generals, thoroughly equipped for their task, and well supported by their troops, had no need of the royal presence to ensure their triumph over any foe they might encounter; indeed, in the absence of the king they experienced a liberty of action and boldness in pressing their victories to the uttermost which they would not have enjoyed had he been in command. Foreigners, accustomed to see the sovereigns of Nineveh conduct their armies in person, as long as they were not incapacitated by age, thought that the indolence of Assur-bani-pal was the unconscious expression of weariness or of his feeble control of the empire, and Akhsheri determined to be one of the first to take advantage of it. Events proved that he was mistaken in his calculations. No sooner had his intentions become known, than a division of Assyrian troops appeared on his frontier, and prepared to attack him. Resolving to take the initiative, he fell one night unexpectedly upon the Assyrian camp, but fortune declared against him: he was driven back, and his broken ranks were closely pursued for a distance of twenty-three miles. Eight of his strongholds fell one after the other, and he was at length forced to abandon his capital of Izirtu, and flee precipitately to his fortress of Adrana in the heart of the mountains. Even there he did not find the security he desired, for the conqueror pursued him thither, methodically devastating by the way the districts through which he passed: he carried off everything—men, slaves, and herds of cattle—and he never retired from a city or village without previously setting it on fire. Paddir, Arsiyanish, and Eristiana were thus laid waste, after which the Assyrians returned to their camp, having re-established the authority of their master over several districts which had been lost to them for some generations previously. Akhsheri had shown no sign of yielding, but his people, weary of a hopeless resistance, put him to death, and hurling his corpse over the wall of Adrana, proclaimed his son Ualli as king. The new sovereign hastened to conclude a treaty with the Assyrians on reasonable terms: he gave up his eldest son, Erisinni, and one of his daughters as hostages, and promised to pay the former tribute augmented by an annual present of thirty horses; peace was not again disturbed on this side except by some unimportant skirmishes. In one of these, a Median chieftain, named Biriz-khadri, made an alliance with two princes of the people of the Sakhi, Sarati, and Parikhia, sons of Gagu,* to ravage the marches of the Greater Zab; but their territory was raided in return, and they themselves taken prisoners.

* The name of Biriz-khadri has an Iranian appearance. The first element Biriz recalls the Zend bereza, berez, "tall, large;" the second, which appears in the names Bisi- khadir and Khali-khadri, is of uncertain derivation, and has been connected with atar, "fire," or with Ichwathra, "brilliance." Gagu, which is found as the name of a people (Gagati) in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, has been identified from the first with the name of Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal (Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix.) The name of the country of Sakhi, which has not been met with elsewhere, has been compared with that of the Sacaj, which seems to have existed not only in the name of the province of Sakascno mentioned by the classical geographers, but in that of Shake known to the old Armenian geographers; the country itself, however, as it seems to me, cannot be sought in the direction of Sakaseno, and consequently the proposed identification cannot hold good.

A little later, Andaria, prince of Lubdi, forgetful of his oath of allegiance to the aged Esarhad-don, made a night attack on the towns of Kullimir and Ubbumi: the inhabitants armed in haste, and he was not only defeated, but was taken captive, and his head cut off to be sent to Nineveh. The garrisons and military colonies along the north-east frontier were constantly required to be on the alert; but they usually had sufficient available resources to meet any emergency, and the enemies who molested them were rarely dangerous enough to necessitate the mobilisation of a regular army.

This was not the case, however, in the south-west, where Tiumman, counting on the military strength of Elam, made continual hostile demonstrations. He was scarcely settled on his throne before he hastened to form alliances with those Aramaean states which had so often invoked the aid of his predecessors against the ancestors of Assur-bani-pal. The Kalda rejected his proposals, as did most of the tribes of the littoral; but the Gambula yielded to his solicitations, and their king, Dunanu, son of Bel-ikisha, entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Elam. Their defection left the eastern frontier of Karduniash unprotected, and, by opening to the Elamite the fords of the Tigris, permitted him to advance on Babylon unhindered by any serious obstacle. As soon as the compact was sealed, Tiumman massed his battalions on the middle course of the Uknu, and, before crossing the frontier, sent two of his generals, the Susian Khumba-dara and the Chaldean Nabu-damiq, as the bearers of an insolent ultimatum to the court of Nineveh: he offered the king the choice between immediate hostilities, or the extradition of the sons of Urtaku and Khumban-khaldash, as well as of their partisans who had taken refuge in Assyria. To surrender the exiles would have been an open confession of inferiority, and such a humiliating acknowledgment of weakness promptly reported throughout the Eastern world might shortly have excited a general revolt: hence Assur-bani-pal disdainfully rejected the proposal of the Elamite sovereign, which had been made rather as a matter of form than with any hope of its acceptance, but the issue of a serious war with Susa was so uncertain that his refusal was accompanied with serious misgivings. It needed many favourable omens from the gods to encourage him to believe in his future success. The moon-god Sin was the first to utter his prediction: he suffered eclipse in the month of Tammuz, and for three successive days, at nightfall, showed himself in the sky surrounded by strange appearances which heralded the death of a king in Elam, and foretold calamity to that country. Then Assur and Ishtar struck Tiumman with violent convulsions; they caused his lips and eyes to be horribly distorted, but he despised their warning, and as soon as his seizure had passed, set out to assume command of his army. The news of his action reached Nineveh in the month of Ab, on the morning of the solemn festival of Ishtar. Assur-bani-pal was at Arbela, celebrating the rites in honour of the goddess, when the messenger appeared before him and repeated, together with the terms of the declaration of war, the scornful words which Tiumman had uttered against him and his patroness: "This prince whose wits have been crazed by Ishtar—I will let him escape no more, when once I have gone forth and measured my strength against him!" This blasphemy filled the Assyrian king with horror. That very evening he betook himself to the sanctuary, and there, prostrate before the image of the goddess, he poured forth prayers mingled with tears: "Lady of Arbela, I am Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, the creature of thy hands, the offspring of a father whom thou didst create! Behold now, this Tiumman, the King of Elam, who despises the gods of Assyria, hath sent forth his host and prepared himself for the conflict; he hath called for his arms to rush to attack Assyria. Do thou, O archer of the gods, like a bolt falling in the midst of the battle, overthrow him, and let loose upon him a tempest, and an evil wind!" Ishtar heard his prayer, and her voice sounded through the gloom: "Fear not," said she, comforting him: "since thou hast raised thy hands to me in supplication, and thine eyes are bedewed with tears grant thee a boon!" Towards the end of that night, a seer slept in the temple and was visited by a dream. Ishtar of Arbela appeared to him, with a quiver on either side, a bow in one hand and a drawn sword in the other. She advanced towards the king, and spoke to him as if she had been his mother: "Make war boldly! whichever way thou turnest thy countenance, there will I go!" And the king replied to her, "Where thou goest, will I go with thee, sovereign lady!" But she answered, "Stay thou here. Dwell in this home of Nebo, eat thy food and drink thy wine, listen to joyful songs and honour my divinity, until I have gone and accomplished this work. Let not thy countenance grow pale, nor thy feet fail under thee, and expose not thyself to the danger of battle." "And then, O king," added the seer, "she hid thee in her bosom as a mother, and protected thy image. A flame shall spring forth before her, and shall spread abroad to destroy thine enemies: against Tiumman, King of Elam, who has angered her, has she set her face!" Like Minephtah of old, in the days of the Libyan invasions of Egypt, Assur-bani-pal allowed himself to be readily convinced by the decision of the gods; he did not quit Arbela, but gave orders to his troops to proceed to the front. His generals opened the campaign in the month of Em, and directed the main body of their forces against the fortress of Durilu, at the point on the frontier nearest to Susa. Tiumman was not expecting such a prompt and direct attack: he had reckoned doubtless on uniting his forces with those of Dunanu with a view to invading Karduniash, and suddenly realised that his adversary had forestalled him and was advancing on the heart of his empire. He slowly withdrew his advanced guard, and concentrated his forces round the town of Tulliz, a few leagues on this side of Susa, and there awaited the enemy's attack.*

* The site of Tulliz is unknown. Billerbock considers, and with reason, I think, that the battle took place to the south of Susa, on the river Shavur, which would correspond to the Ulai, on the lowest spurs of the ridge of hills bordering the alluvial plain of Susiana.

His position was a strong one, flanked on the right by a wood and on the left by the Ulai, while the flower of the Elamite nobility was ranged around him. The equipment of his soldiers was simpler than that of the enemy: consisting of a low helmet, devoid of any crest, but furnished with a large pendant tress of horsehair to shade the neck; a shield of moderate dimensions; a small bow, which, however, was quite as deadly a weapon as that of the Assyrians, when wielded by skilful hands; a lance, a mace, and a dagger. He had only a small body of cavalry, but the chariotry formed an important force, and presented several original features. The chariot did not follow the classic model, rounded in front and open at the back; it was a kind of light car, consisting of a square footboard placed flat on the axle of the wheels, and furnished with triangular side-pieces on two sides only, the vehicle being drawn by a pair of horses. Such chariots were easier to manage, better adapted for rapid motion, and must have been more convenient for a reconnaissance or for skirmishes with infantry; but when thrown in a mass against the heavy chariotry of the peoples of the Euphrates, they were far too slightly built to overthrow the latter, and at close quarters were of necessity crushed by the superior weight of the adversary.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken from the original in the British Museum.



Tiumman had not succeeded in collecting all his forces before the first columns of the Assyrian army advanced to engage his front line, but as he was expecting reinforcements, he endeavoured to gain time by despatching Ituni, one of his generals, with orders to negotiate a truce.

The Assyrian commander, suspecting a ruse, would not listen to any proposals, but ordered the envoy to be decapitated on the spot: Ituni broke his bow with a blow of his sword, and stoically yielded his neck to the executioner. The issue of the battle was for a long time undecided, but the victory finally remained with the heavy regiments of Assyria. The left wing of the Susians, driven into the Ulai, perished by drowning, and the river was choked with the corpses of men and horses, and the debris of arms and broken chariots. The right wing took to flight under cover of a wood, and the survivors tried to reach the mountains.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the British Museum.

Urtaku, the cousin of Tiumman, was wounded by an arrow; perceiving an Assyrian soldier coming up to him, he told him who he was, and recommended him to carry his head to the general: "He will pay you handsomely for it," he added. Tiumman had led in person several charges of his body-guard; and on being wounded, his son Tammaritu had succeeded in rescuing him from the thick of the fight: both seated together in a chariot, were in full flight, when one of the wheels caught against a tree and was shattered, the shock flinging the occupants to the ground. A large body of Assyrians were in close pursuit, led by one of the exiled Susian princes, a second Tam-maritu, son of Urtaku.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British Museum.

At the first discharge an arrow wounded Tiumman in the right side, and brought him to his knee. He felt that all was over, and desiring at all events to be revenged, he pointed out the deserter prince to his companion, crying indignantly, "Let fly at him." The arrow missed its mark, and a flight of hostile darts stretched the young man on the ground: the traitor Tammaritu dealt the son his death-blow with his mace, while an Assyrian decapitated the father. The corpses were left on the field, but the head of the king, after being taken to the general in command, was carried through the camp on one of the chariots captured during the action, and was eventually sent to the palace of Arbela by the hand of a well-mounted courier.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British Museum.

The day concluded with the making of an inventory of the spoil, and by an enumeration of the heads of the slain: prisoners from the rank and file were beaten to death according to custom, and several of the principal officers had their tongues torn out or were flayed alive. The news of the disaster was brought to Susa towards evening by the fugitives, and produced a revolution in the city. The partisans of the exiled princes, seizing the adherents of Tiumman, put them in chains, and delivered them up to the conqueror. The shattered remnants of the army rallied round them, and a throng of men and women in festal garb issued forth along the banks of the Ulai to meet the Assyrians. The priests and sacred singers marched to the sound of music, marking the rhythm with their feet, and filling the air with the noise of their harps and double flutes, while behind them came a choir of children, chanting a hymn under the direction of the consecrated eunuchs. The Tartan met them, and, acting in accordance with the orders of Assur-bani-pal, presented to the multitude Khumban-igash, the eldest son of Urtaku, as their king. The people joyfully hailed the new sovereign, and the Assyrians, after exacting tribute from him and conferring the fief of Khaidalu on his brother Tammaritu, withdrew, leaving to the new princes the task of establishing their authority outside the walls of Susa and Madaktu. As they returned, they attacked the Gambula, speedily reducing them to submission. Dunanu, besieged in his stronghold of Shapibel, surrendered at discretion, and was carried away captive with all his family.



Thus Assur-bani-pal had scrupulously obeyed the orders of Ishtar. While his generals were winning his victories he had been eating and drinking, hunting, dallying with his wives, and living in the open air. He was taking his pleasure with the queen in the palace garden when the head of Tiumman was brought to him: he caused it to be suspended from the branch of a pine tree in full view of the whole court, and continued his banquet to the sound of harps and singing. Rusas III., King of Urartu, died about this time, and his successor, Sharduris III., thought it incumbent on him to announce his accession at Nineveh. Assur-bani-pal received the embassy at Arbela, with the graciousness befitting a suzerain whom a faithful vassal honours by his dutiful homage, and in order to impress the Urartians still further with an idea of his power, he showed them the two Elamite delegates, Khumba-dara and Nabu-damiq, in chains at his feet.*

* Belck and Lehmann have very ingeniously connected the embassy, mentioned in the Assyrian documents, with the fact of the accession of the king who sent it.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British Museum. The chariot speeding along at a gallop in the topmost series of pictures carries a soldier bearing the head of Tiumraan in his hand; behind him, under a tent, scribes are registering the heads which are brought in. In the two lower bas-reliefs are displayed the closing scenes of the battle.

These wretched men had a more cruel ordeal yet in store for them: when the Assyrian army re-entered Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal placed them on the route along which the cortege had to pass, and made them realise to the full the humiliation of their country. Dunanu walked at the head of the band of captive chiefs, with the head of Tiumman, taken from its tree, suspended round his neck. When the delegates perceived it, they gave way to despair:

Khumba-dara tore out his beard by handfuls, and Nabu-damiq, unsheathing the dagger which hung from his belt, plunged it into his own breast.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the British Museum The head of Tiumman hangs on the second tree on the left-hand side.

The triumphal entry was followed by the usual tortures. The head of Tiumman was fixed over the gate of Nineveh, to rot before the eyes of the multitude. Dunanu was slowly flayed alive, and then bled like a lamb; his brother Shamgunu had his throat cut, and his body was divided into pieces, which were distributed over the country as a warning. Even the dead were not spared: the bones of Nabu-shumirish were disinterred and transported to Assyria, where his sons were forced to bray them in a mortar.* We may estimate the extent of the alarm which had been felt at Nineveh by the outburst of brutal joy with which the victory was hailed.

* The fullest text of all those which narrate the campaign against Tiumman and Dunanu is that on Cylinder B of the British Museum. It pretends, as usual, that the king led the army in person, but the words which the seer places in the mouth of Ishtar prove that the king remained at Arbela by divine command, and the inscription on one of the bas- reliefs, as well as Tablet K 2674, mentions, without giving his name, the general who was sent against Susa.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the British Museum.

The experience of the past showed what a terrible enemy Assyria had in Elam, and how slight was the chance of a successful issue in a war against her. Her kings had often invaded Chaldaea, and had more than once brought it directly under their sway; they had ravaged its cities and pillaged its temples, and the sanctuary of Susa were filled with statues of the gods or with bas-reliefs which they had dedicated after their campaigns on the Euphrates. Although they had not been successful against Assyria to the same extent, they had at least always victoriously repelled her attacks: they had held their own against Sargon, given much trouble to Sennacherib, and defied the power of Esarhaddon with impunity. Never till now had an Assyrian army gained such an important victory over Elam, and though it was by no means decisive, we can easily believe that Assur-bani-pal was filled with pride and delight, since it was the first time that a king of Nineveh had imposed on Elam a sovereign of his own choice.

Since homage was voluntarily rendered him by the rulers of foreign nations, Assur-bani-pal doubtless believed that he might exact it without hesitation from the vassal princes dependent on the empire; and not from the weaker only like those who were still to be found in Syria, but also from the more powerful, not excepting the lord of Karduniash. Shamash-shumukin had fully risen to his position as King of Babylon, and the unbroken peace which he had enjoyed since the death of Urtaku had enabled him almost to complete the restoration of the kingdom begun under Esarhaddon. He had finished the rebuilding of the walls of Babylon, and had fortified the approaches to the city, thus rendering it capable of withstanding a long siege; he had repaired the temple of Sippara, which had never recovered from the Elamite invasion; and while unstintingly lavishing his treasures in honour of the gods and for the safety of his capital, he watched with jealous care over the interests of his subjects. He obtained for them the privilege of being treated on the same footing as the Assyrians throughout his father's ancestral domains; they consequently enjoyed the right of trading without restriction throughout the empire, and met with the same degree of protection from the officials of Nineveh as from the magistrates of their own country. Assur-bani-pal had at the outset furthered the wishes of his brother to the utmost of his power: he had granted the privileges demanded, and whenever a Chaldaean of noble birth arrived at his court, he received him with special marks of favour. The two states enjoyed a nearly absolute equality during the opening years of his reign, and though the will of Esarhaddon had made Babylon dependent on Assyria, the yoke of vassalage was far from heavy. The suzerain reserved to himself the honour of dedicating the mighty works begun by his father, the restoration of the temple of Bel-Marduk and of the double wall of fortification; he claimed, in his inscriptions, the whole merit of the work, but he none the less respected his brother's rights, and in no way interfered in the affairs of the city except in state ceremonies in which the assertion of his superior rank was indispensable. But with success his moderation gradually gave place to arrogance. In proportion as his military renown increased, he accentuated his supremacy, and accustomed himself to treat Babylon more and more as a vassal state. After the conquest of Elam his infatuated pride knew no bounds, and the little consideration he still retained for Shamash-shumukin vanished completely. He thenceforward refused to regard him as being more than a prefect bearing a somewhat higher title than his fellows, a viceroy owing his crown, not to the will of their common father, but to the friendship of his brother, and liable to be deprived of it at any moment through the caprice of the sovereign. He affected to consider all that took place at Babylon as his own doing, and his brother as being merely his docile instrument, not deserving mention any more than the ordinary agents who carried out his designs; and if, indeed, he condescended to mention him, it was with an assumption of disdainful superiority. It is a question whether Shamash-Shumukin at this juncture believed that his brother was meditating a design to snatch the reins of government from his hand, or whether he merely yielded to the impulse of wounded vanity in resolving to shake off a yoke which had become intolerable. Knowing that his power was not equal to that of Assur-bani-pal, he sought to enter into relations with foreign allies who shared the same fears, or nursed a similar feeling of bitterness. The nobles and priests of the ancient Sumerian and Accadian cities were already on his side, but the Aramaeans had shown themselves hostile at his accession, and had brought down on him the forces of Elam. He found means, however, to conciliate them, together with the tribes which dwelt on the Tigris and the Uknu, as well as those of the lower Euphrates and the Arabian desert. He won over to his projects Nabu-belzikri, the chief of the Kalda—grandson of that Merodach-baladan who had cherished invincible hatred against Sargon and Sennacherib—besides the lords of the Bit-Dakkuri and Bit-Amukkani, and the sheikh of the Pukudu. Khumban-igash ought to have remained loyal to the friend to whom he owed his kingdom, but he chafed at the patronage of Assyria, and Assur-bani-pal had just formulated a demand to which he, not unreasonably, hesitated to accede. The archaic statue of Nana, stolen from Uruk by Kutur-nakhunta sixteen centuries before, and placed by that prince in one of the temples of Susa, had become so naturalised in its new abode that the kings of Elam, not content with rendering it an official cult, were wont to send presents to Babylonia, to the image which had replaced it in its original sanctuary. Assur-bani-pal now required Khumban-igash to give back the original statue, but the Elamite could not obey this mandate without imperilling both his throne and his person: he would thereby have risked incurring the displeasure both of the nobles, whose pride would have suffered at the loss of so precious a trophy, and of the common people, who would have thus been deprived of one of their most venerable objects of devotion. The messengers of Shamash-shumukin, arriving at the moment when this question was agitating the court of Susa, found the way already prepared for a mutual understanding. Besides, they held in their hands an irresistible argument, the treasures of Bel-Marduk of Babylon, of Nebo of Borsippa, and of Nergal of Kuta, which had been confided to them by the priests with a view to purchasing, if necessary, the support of Elam. Khumban-igash thereupon promised to send a detachment of troops to Karduniash, and to invade the provinces of Assyria the moment war should be declared. The tribes of Guti were easily won over, and were followed by the kings of Phoenicia and the Bedawin of Melukhkha, and perhaps Egypt itself was implicated in the plot. The Prince of Kedar, Amuladdin, undertook to effect a diversion on the frontiers of Syria, and Uate, son of Layali, one of the Arab kings who had paid homage to Esarhaddon, was not behindhand in furnishing his contingent of horsemen and wild native infantry. The coalition already extended from the shores of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf before Assur-bani-pal became aware of its existence. An unforeseen occurrence suddenly broke in upon his peace and revealed the extent of the peril which threatened him.*

* The chronology of this war has been determined by G. Smith from the dates attached to the documents in the British Museum, which give the names of three limmi, Assur- durnzur, Zagabbu, and Bel-kharran-shadua: these he assigned respectively to the years 650, 649, and 648 B.C. Tiele has shown that these three limmi must be assigned to the years 652-650 B.C. Though these dates seem in the highest degree probable, we must wait before we can consider them as absolutely certain till chance restores to us the missing parts of the Canon.

Kudur, the Assyrian prefect of Uruk, learnt from Sin-tabni-uzur, the governor of Uru, that certain emissaries of Shamash-shumukin had surreptitiously entered that city and were secretly fomenting rebellion among the people. Sin-tabni-uzur himself had been solicited to join the movement, but had absolutely refused to do so, and considering himself powerless to repress the disaffection with the few soldiers at his disposal, he had demanded reinforcements. Kudur first furnished him with five hundred men of his own troops, and subsequently sent some battalions which were under the command of the governors of Arrapkha and Amidi, but which were, for some unknown reason, encamped in the neighbourhood. It would appear that Shamash-shumukin, finding his projects interfered with by this premature exposure, tried to counteract its effects by protestations of friendship: a special embassy was despatched to his brother to renew the assurances of his devotion, and he thus gained the time necessary to complete his armaments. As soon as he felt himself fully prepared, he gave up further dissimulation, and, throwing away the mask, proclaimed himself independent of Assyria, while at the same moment Khumban-igash despatched his army to the frontier and declared war on his former protector. Assur-bani-pal was touched to the quick by what he truly considered the ingratitude of the Babylonians. "As for the children of Babylon, I had set them upon seats of honour, I had clothed them in robes of many colours, I had placed rings of gold upon their fingers; the children of Babylon had been established in Assyria, and were admitted into my presence. But Shamash-shumukin, the false brother, he has not observed my ordinances, but has raised against me the peoples of Akkad, the Kalda, the Aramaeans, the peoples of the country of the sea, from Akabah to Bab-salimeti!" Nineveh was at first in a state of trepidation at this unexpected blow; the sacred oracles gave obscure replies, and presaged evil four times out of five. At last, one day, a seer slept and dreamed a dream, in which he saw this sentence written on the ground in the temple of Sin: "All those who are meditating evil against Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria, and who are preparing themselves to fight with him, I will inflict on them a terrible death: by the swift sword, by flinging them into fire, by famine and by pestilence, will I destroy their lives!" The courage of the people being revived by this prophecy, Assur-bani-pal issued a proclamation to the Babylonians, in which he denounced his brother's treason, and commanded them to remain quiet as they valued their lives, and, having done this, he boldly assumed the offensive (652 B.C.).*

* The proclamation is dated in the eponymous year of Assur- duruzur, corresponding to 652 B.C.; the events which immediately preceded the proclamation ought, very probably, to be assigned to the same year.

The only real danger came from the side of Elam; this state alone was in a condition to oppose him with as numerous and determined an army as that which he himself could put into the field; if Blam were disabled, it would be impossible for Babylon to be victorious, and its fall would be a mere question of time. The opening of the campaign was a difficult matter. Khumban-igash, having sold his support dearly, had at all events spared no pains to satisfy his employer, and had furnished him with the flower of his nobility, comprising Undashi, one of the sons of Tiumman; Zazaz, prefect of Billate; Parru, chief of Khilmu; Attamitu, commanding the archers; and Nesu, commander-in-chief of his forces. In order to induce Undashi to serve under him, he had not hesitated to recall to his memory the sad fate of Tiumman: "Go, and avenge upon Assyria the murder of the father who begat thee!" The two opposing forces continued to watch one another's movements without any serious engagement taking place during the greater part of the year 651 B.C.; though the Assyrians won some slight advantages, killing Attamitu in a skirmish and sending his head to Nineveh, some serious reverses soon counterbalanced these preliminary successes. Nabo-bel-shumi had arrived on the scene with his Aramaean forces, and had compelled the troops engaged in the defence of Uruk and Uru to lay down their arms: their leaders, including Sin-tabni-uzur himself, had been forced to renounce the supremacy of Assyria, and had been enrolled in the rebel ranks.*

* The official accounts say nothing of the intervention of Nabo-bel-shumi at this juncture, but the information furnished by Tablet K 159 in the British Museum makes up for their silence. The objection raised by Tielo to the interpretation given by G. Smith that this passage cannot refer to Assyrian deserters, falls to the ground if one admits that the Assyrian troops led into Elam at a subsequent period by Nabo-bel-shumi, were none other than the garrisons of the Lower Euphrates which were obliged to side with the insurgents in 651 B.C. The two despatches, K 4696 and K 28 in the British Museum, which refer to the defection of Sin-tabni-uzur, are dated the 8th and 11th Abu in the eponymous year of Zagabbu, corresponding to the year 651 B.C., as indicated by Tiele with very good reason.

Operations seemed likely to be indefinitely prolonged, and Assur-bani-pal, anxious as to the issue, importunately besought the gods to intervene on his behalf, when discords breaking out in the royal family of Elam caused the scales of fortune once more to turn in his favour. The energy with which Khumban-igash had entered on the present struggle had not succeeded in effacing the disagreeable impression left on the minds of the majority of his subjects, by the fact that he had returned to his country in the chariots of the stranger and had been enthroned by the decree of an Assyrian general. Tammaritu, of Khaidalu, who had then fought at his side in the ranks of the invaders, was now one of those who reproached him most bitterly for his conduct. He frankly confessed that his hand had cut off the head of Tiumman, but denied that he did so in obedience to the hereditary enemies of his country; he had but avenged his personal injuries, whereas Khumban-igash, following the promptings of ambition, had kissed the ground at the feet of a slave of Assur-bani-pal and had received the crown as a recompense for his baseness. Putting his rival to death, Tammaritu seized the throne, and in order to prove that he was neither consciously nor unconsciously an instrument of Ninevite policy, he at once sent reinforcements to the help of Babylon without exacting in return any fresh subsidy. The Assyrians, taking advantage of the isolated position of Shamash-shumukin, had pressed forward one of their divisions as far as the districts on the sea coast, which they had recovered from the power of Nabo-bel-shumi, and had placed under the administration of Belibni, a person of high rank. The arrival of the Elamite force was on the point of further compromising the situation, and rekindling the flames of war more fiercely than ever, when a second revolution broke out, which shattered for ever the hopes of Shamash-shumukin. Assur-bani-pal naturally looked upon this event as the result of his supplications and sacrifices; Assur and Ishtar, in answer to his entreaties, raised up Indabigash, one of the most powerful feudal lords of the kingdom of Susa, and incited him to revolt. Tarnmaritu fled to the marshes which bordered the Nar-marratum, and seizing a vessel, put out to sea with his brothers, his cousins, seventeen princes of royal blood, and eighty-four faithful followers: the ship, driven by the wind on to the Assyrian shore, foundered, and the dethroned monarch, demoralised by sea-sickness, would have perished in the confusion had not one of his followers taken him on his back and carried him safely to land across the mud. Belibni sent him prisoner to Nineveh with all his suite, and Assur-bani-pal, after allowing him to humble himself before him, raised him from the ground, embraced him, and assigned to him apartments in the palace and a train of attendants befitting the dignity which he had enjoyed for a short time at Susa. Indabigash was too fully occupied with his own affairs to interfere again in the quarrel between the two brothers: his country, disorganised by the successive shocks it had sustained, had need of repose, for some years at least, before re-entering the lists, except at a disadvantage. He concluded no direct treaty with the Assyrian king, but he at once withdrew the troops which had entered Karduniash, and abstained from all hostile demonstrations against the garrisons of the border provinces: for the moment, indeed, this was all that was required of him (650 B.C.).

Deprived of the support of Elam, Babylon was doomed to fall. The Aramaeans deserted her cause, and Nabu-bel-shumi, grandson of Merodach-baladan, despairing of ever recovering the heritage of his family, withdrew to his haunts among the reed beds of the Uknu, taking back with him as hostages the Assyrians whom he had forced to join his army at the beginning of the campaign. Shamash-shumukin, however, was not disconcerted: he probably hoped that his distant allies might yet effect a diversion in his favour, and thus oblige his brother to withdraw half of the forces employed against him. Indeed, after the blockade had already begun, a band of Arabs under the two sheikhs Abiyate and Aamu forced a way through the besieging lines and entered the city. This was the last succour which reached Babylon from without: for many long months all communication between her citizens and the outer world was completely cut off. The Assyrians laid waste the surrounding country with ruthless and systematic cruelty, burning the villages, razing to the ground isolated houses, destroying the trees, breaking down the dykes, and filling up the canals. The year 649 B.C. was spent in useless skirmishes; the city offered an energetic and obstinate resistance, and as the walls were thick and the garrison determined, it would not have succumbed had not the supply of provisions finally failed. Famine raged in the city, and the inhabitants devoured even their own children, while pestilence spreading among them mowed them down by thousands.



The Arab auxiliaries at this juncture deserted the cause of the defenders, and their sheikhs surrendered to Assur-bani-pal, who received and pardoned them; but the Babylonians themselves, knowing that they could expect no mercy, held out some time longer: at length, their courage and their strength exhausted, they rose against their chiefs, whose ambition or patriotic pride had brought them to such a pass, and determined to capitulate on any terms. Shamash-shumukm, not wishing to fall alive into the hands of his brother, shut himself up in his palace, and there immolated himself on a funeral pyre with his wives his children, his slaves, and his treasures at the moment when his conquerors were breaking down the gates and penetrating into the palace precincts.*

* G. Smith thought that the Babylonians, rendered furious by their sufferings, had seized Shamash-shumukin and burnt him to death. It is, however, certain that Shamash-shumukin killed himself, according to the Eastern custom, to escape the tortures which awaited him if he fell alive into the hands of his enemies. The memory of this event, transferred by the popular imagination to Assur-bani-pal, appears lu the concluding portion of the legendary history of Sardanapalus.

The city presented a terrible spectacle, and shocked even the Assyrians, accustomed as they were to horrors of this sort. Most of the numerous victims to pestilence or famine lay about the streets or in the public squares, a prey to the dogs and swine; such of the inhabitants and of the soldiery as were comparatively strong had endeavoured to escape into the country, and only those remained who had not sufficient strength left to drag themselves beyond the walls. Assur-bani-pal pursued the fugitives, and, having captured nearly all of them, vented on them the full fury of his vengeance. He caused, the tongues of the soldiers to be torn out, and then had them clubbed to death. He massacred the common folk in front of the great winged bulls which had already witnessed a similar butchery half a century before, under his grandfather Sennacherib; the corpses of his victims remained long unburied, a prey to all unclean beasts and birds. When the executioners and the king himself were weary of the slaughter, the survivors were pardoned; the remains of the victims were collected and piled up in specified places, the streets were cleansed, and the temples, purified by solemn lustrations, were reopened for worship.* Assur-hani-pal proclaimed himself king in his brother's room: he took the hands of Bel, and, according to custom, his Babylonian subjects gave him a new name, that of Kandalanu, by which he was henceforth known among them.**

* The date of 648-647 B.C. for the taking of Babylon and the death of Shamash-shumukin is corroborated by the Canon of Ptolemy and the fragments of Berosus, both of which attribute twenty or twenty-one years to the reign of Saosdukhm (Sammughes). Lehmann points out a document dated in the XXth year of Shamash-shumukin, which confirms the exactitude of the information furnished by the Greek chronologists.

** The Canon of Ptolemy gives as the successor of Saosdukhm a certain Kineladan, who corresponds to Kandalanu, whose date has been fixed by contemporary documents. The identity of Kineladan with Assur-bani-pal was known from the Greek chronologists, for whereas Ptolemy puts Kineladan after Saosdukhm, the fragments of Berosus state that the successor of Sammughes was his brother; that is to say, Sardanapalus or Assur-bani-pal. This identification had been proposed by G. Smith, who tried to find the origin of the form Kineladan in the name of Sinidinabal, which seems to be borne by Assur-bani-pal in Tablet K 195 of the British Museum, and which is really the name of his elder brother; it found numerous supporters as soon as Pinches had discovered the tablets dated in the reign of Kandalanu, and the majority of Assyriologists and historians hold that Kandalanu and Assur- bani-pal are one and the same person.

Had he been wise, he would have completed the work begun by famine, pestilence, and the sword, and, far from creating, a new Babylon, he would have completed the destruction of the ancient city. The same religious veneration which had disarmed so many of his predecessors probably withheld him from giving free rein to his resentment, and not daring to follow the example of Sennacherib, he fell back on the expedient adopted by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon, adhering to their idea of two capitals for two distinct states, but endeavouring to unite in his own person the two irreconcilable sovereignties of Marduk and Assur. He delegated the administration of Babylonian affairs to Shamash-danani, one of his high officers of State,* and re-entered Nineveh with an amount of spoil almost equalling that taken from Egypt after the sack of Thebes.

* Tin's Shamash-danani, who was limmu in 644 B.C., was called at that date prefect of Akkad, that is to say, of Babylon. He probably entered on this office immediately after the taking of the city.

Kuta, Sippara, and Borsippa, the vassal states of Babylon, which had shared the misfortune of their mistress, were, like her, cleared of their ruins, rebuilt and repeopled, and were placed under the authority of Shamash-danani: such was their inherent vitality that in the short space of ten or a dozen years they had repaired their losses and reattained their wonted prosperity. Soon no effect of their disaster remained except an additional incentive for hating Nineveh, and a determination more relentless than ever not to spare her when the day of her overthrow should come and they should have her in their power.

It was impossible for so violent and so prolonged a crisis to take place without in some degree injuring the prestige of the empire. Subjects and allies of long standing remained loyal, but those only recently subjugated by conquest, as well as the neighbouring independent kingdoms, without hesitation threw off the yoke of suzerainty or of obligatory friendship under which they had chafed. Egypt freed herself from foreign domination as soon as the possibilities of war with Elam had shown themselves, and it was Psammetichus of Sais, son of Necho, one of the princes most favoured by the court of Nineveh, who set on foot this campaign against his former patron. He expelled the Assyrian garrisons, reduced the petty native princes to submission, and once more set up the kingdom of the Pharaohs from Elephantine to the Syrian desert, without Assur-bani-pal having been able to spare a single soldier to prevent him, or to bring him back to a sense of his duty. The details of his proceedings are unknown to us: we learn only that he owed his success to mercenaries imported from Asia Minor, and the Assyrian chroniclers, unaccustomed to discriminate between the different peoples dwelling on the shores of the AEgean, believed that these auxiliaries were supplied to the Pharaoh by the only sovereign with whom they had had any dealings, namely, Gyges, King of Lydia. That Gyges had had negotiations with Psammetichus and procured assistance for him has not yet been proved, but to assert that he was incapable of conceiving and executing such a design is quite a different matter. On the contrary, all the information we possess concerning his reign shows that he was daring in his political undertakings, and anxious to court alliances with the most distant countries. The man who tried to draw Assur-bani-pal into a joint enterprise against the Cimmerians would not have hesitated to ally himself with Psammetichus if he hoped to gain the least profit from so doing. Constant intercourse by sea took place between Ionia or Caria and Egypt, and no event of any importance could occur in the Delta without being promptly reported in Ephesus or Miletus. Before this time the Heraclid rulers of Sardes had lived on excellent terms with most of the AEolian or Ionian colonies: during the anxious years which followed his accession Gyges went still further, and entered into direct relations with the nations of Greece itself. It was no longer to the gods of Asia, to Zeus of Telmissos, that he addressed himself in order to legitimatise his new sovereignty, but, like Midas of Phrygia, he applied to the prophetic god of Hellas, to the Delphian Apollo and his priests.



Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.

He recompensed them lavishly for pronouncing judgment in his favour: beside the silver offerings with which he endowed the temple at Delphi, he presented to it a number of golden vases, and, among others, six craters weighing thirty talents each, which, placed by the side of the throne of Midas, were still objects of admiration in the treasury of the Corinthians in the time of Herodotus. To these he added at various times such valuable gifts that the Pythian priestess, who had hitherto been poor, was in later times accounted to have owed to him her wealth. Having made sure of the good will of the immortals, Gyges endeavoured to extend his influence among the Greek colonies along the coast, and if he did not in every case gain a footing amongst them, his failure seems to have been due, not to his incapacity, but to the force of circumstances or to the ambiguous position which he happened to occupy with regard to these colonies. Ambition naturally incited him to annex them and make them into Lydian cities, but the bold disposition of their inhabitants and their impatience of constraint never allowed any foreign rule to be established over them: conquest, to be permanent, would have to be preceded by a long period of alliance on equal terms, and of discreet patronage which might insensibly accustom them to recognise in their former friend, first a protector, and then a suzerain imbued with respect for their laws and constitution. Gyges endeavoured to conciliate them severally, and to attach them to himself by treaties favourable to their interests or flattering to their vanity, and by timely and generous assistance in their internecine quarrels; and thus, secretly fostering their mutual jealousies, he was able to reduce some by force of arms without causing too much offence to the rest. He took Colophon, and also, after several fruitless campaigns, the Magnesia which lay near Sardes, Magnesia of Sipylos, tradition subsequently adorning this fortunate episode in his history with various amusing anecdotes. According to one account he had a favourite in a youth of marvellous beauty called Magnes, whom the Magnesians, as an act of defiance to Gryges, had mutilated till he was past recognition; and it was related that the king appealed to the fortune of war to avenge the affront. By a bold stroke he seized the lower quarters of Smyrna, but was unable to take the citadel,* and while engaged in the struggle with this city, he entered into a friendly understanding with Ephesus and Miletus.

* Herodotus mentions this war without entering into any details. We know from Pausanias that the people of Smyrna defended themselves bravely, and that the poet Mimnermus composed an elegy on this episode in their history.

Ephesus, situated at the mouth of the river Oayster, was the natural port of Sardes, the market in which the gold of Lydia, and the commodities imported from the East by the caravans which traversed the royal route, might be exchanged for the products of Hellas and of the countries of the West visited by the Greek mariners. The city was at this time under the control of a family of rich shipowners, of whom the head was called Melas: Gryges gave him his daughter in marriage, and by this union gained free access to the seaboard for himself and his successors. The reason for his not pushing his advantages further in this direction is not hard to discover; since the fall of the kingdom of Phrygia had left his eastern frontier unprotected, the attacks of the Cimmerians had obliged him to concentrate his forces in the interior, and though he had always successfully repulsed them, the obstinacy with which these inroads were renewed year after year prevented him from further occupying himself with the Greek cities. He had carefully fortified his vast domains in the basin of the Ehyndakos, he had reconquered the Troad, and though he had been unable to expel the barbarians from Adramyttium, he prevented them from having any inland communications. Miletus rendered vigorous assistance in this work of consolidating his power, for she was interested in maintaining a buffer state between herself and the marauders who had already robbed her of Sinope; and it was for this reason that Gyges, after mercilessly harassing her at the beginning of his reign, now preferred to enter into an alliance with her. He had given the Milesians permission to establish colonies along the Hellespont and the Propontid at the principal points where communication took place between Europe and Asia; Abydos, Lampsacus, Parium, and Cyzicus, founded successively by Milesian admirals, prevented the tribes which remained in Thrace from crossing over to reinforce their kinsfolk who were devastating Phrygia.

Gryges had hoped that his act of deference would have obtained for him the active support of Assur-bani-pal, and during the following years he perseveringly continued at intervals to send envoys to Nineveh: on one occasion he despatched with the embassy two Cimmerian chiefs taken in battle, and whom he offered in token of homage to the gods of Assyria. Experience, however, soon convinced him that his expectations were vain; the Assyrians, far from creating a diversion in his favour, were careful to avoid every undertaking which might draw the attention of the barbarians on themselves. As soon as Gyges fully understood their policy, he broke off all connection with them, and thenceforth relied on himself alone for the protection of his interests. The disappointment he thus experienced probably stirred up his anger against Assyria, and if he actually came to the aid of Psammetichus, the desire of giving expression to a secret feeling of rancour no doubt contributed to his decision. Assur-bani-pal deeply resented this conduct, but Lydia was too far off for him to wreak his vengeance on it in a direct manner, and he could only beseech the gods to revenge what he was pleased to consider as base ingratitude: he therefore prayed Assur and Ishtar that "his corpse might lie outstretched before his enemies, and his bones be scattered far and wide." A certain Tugdami was at that time reigning over the Cimmerians, and seems to have given to their hitherto undisciplined hordes some degree of cohesion and guidance.*; He gathered under his standard not only the Treres, the Thracian kinsfolk of the Cimmerians, but some of the Asianic tribes, such as the Lycians,** who were beginning to feel uneasy at the growing prosperity of Gyges, and let them loose upon their Lydian quarry.

* The name Tugdami, mentioned in the hymn published by Strong, has been identified by Sayce with the Cimmerian chief mentioned by Strabo under the name of Lygdamis. The opinion of Sayce has been adopted by other Assyriologists. The inscription makes Tugdami a king of the Manda, and thus overthrows the hypothesis that Lygdamis or Dygdamis was a Lycian chief who managed to discipline the barbarian hordes.

** The alliance of the Lycians with the Cimmerians and Treres is known from the evidence of Callisthenes preserved for us by Strabo. It is probable that many of the marauding tribes of the Taurus—Isaurians, Lycaonians, and Painphylians—similarly joined the Cimmerians.

Their heavy cavalry, with metal helmets and long steel swords, overran the peninsula from end to end, treading down everything under their horses' hoofs. Gyges did his best to stand up against the storm, but his lancers quailed beneath the shock and fled in confusion: he himself perished in the flight, and his corpse remained in the enemy's hands (652 B.C.). The whole of Lydia was mercilessly ravaged, and the lower town of Sardes was taken by storm.*

* Strabo states definitely that it was Lygdamis who took the city. The account given by the same author of a double destruction of Sardes in 652 and 682 B.C. is due to an unfortunate borrowing from the work of Caliisthenes.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sarcophagus of Clazomenae.

Ardys, who had succeeded his father on the throne, was able, however, to save the citadel: he rallied around him the remnants of his army and once more took the field. The cities of Ionia made common cause with him; their hoplites issued victorious from more than one engagement, and their dogs, trained to harry fearlessly the horses of the enemy, often took an active part in the battle. City after city was attacked by the barbarians, and the suburbs plundered. Ephesus, on account of the wealth it contained, formed their chief attraction, but their forces dashed themselves fruitlessly against its walls; they avenged themselves for their failure by setting on fire the temple of Artemis which stood in the outskirts. This act of sacrilege profoundly stirred the whole Hellenic world, and when the first fury of pillage was exhausted, the barbarians themselves seemed to have been struck with superstitious horror at their crime: deadly fevers contracted in the marshes near the city thinned their ranks, and in the scourge which struck down their forces they recognised the chastisement of the goddess.*

* The invasion of Ionia by the Cimmerians is indicated in general terms by Herodotus; the details of the attack on Ephesus and the destruction of the temple of Artemis are preserved in a passage of Callimachus, and in the fragments quoted by Hesychius.

The survivors abandoned the siege and withdrew in disorder towards the mountains of the interior. On their way they surprised Magnesia on the Maeander and entirely destroyed it, but this constituted their sole military success: elsewhere, they contented themselves with devastating the fields without venturing to attack the fortified towns. Scarcely had Ardys freed himself from their unwelcome presence, than, like his father before him, he tried to win the support of Assyria. He sent an envoy to Nineveh with a letter couched in very humble terms: "The king whom the gods acknowledge, art thou; for as soon as thou hadst pronounced imprecations against my father, misfortune overtook him. I am thy trembling servant; receive my homage graciously, and I will bear thy yoke!" Assur-bani-pal did not harden his heart to this suppliant who confessed his fault so piteously, and circumstances shortly constrained him to give a more efficacious proof of his favour to Ardys than he had done in the days of Gyges. On quitting Lydia, Tugdami, with his hordes, had turned eastwards, bent upon renewing in the provinces of the Taurus and the Euphrates the same destructive raids which he had made among the peoples of the AEgean seaboard; but in the gorges of Cilicia he came into contact with forces much superior to his own, and fell fighting against them about the year 645 B.C. His son Sanda-khshatru led the survivors of this disaster back towards the centre of the peninsula, but the conflict had been so sanguinary that the Cimmerian power never fully recovered from it. Assur-bani-pal celebrated the victory won by his generals with a solemn thanksgiving to Marduk, accompanied by substantial offerings of gold and objects of great value.*

* Strabo was aware, perhaps from Xanthus of Lyclia, that Lygdamis had fallen in battle in Cilicia. The hymn to Marduk, published by Strong, informs us that the Cimmerian chief fell upon the Assyrians, and that his son Sanda- khshatru carried on hostilities some time longer. Sanda- khshatru is an Iranian name of the same type as that of the Median king Uva-khshatra or Cyaxares.

The tranquillity of the north-west frontier was thus for a time secured, and this success most opportunely afforded the king leisure to turn his attention to those of his vassals who, having thrown off their allegiance during the war against Shamash-shumukin, had not yet returned to their obedience. Among these were the Arabs and the petty princes of Egypt. The contingents furnished by Yauta, son of Hazael, had behaved valiantly during the siege of Babylon, and when they thought the end was approaching, their leaders, Abiyate and Aamu, had tried to cut a way through the Assyrian lines: being repulsed, they had laid down their arms on condition of their lives being spared. There now remained the bulk of the Arab tribes to be reduced to submission, and the recent experiences of Esarhaddon had shown the difficulties attending this task. Assur-bani-pal entrusted its accomplishment to his subjects in Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Hauran, and Damascus, since, dwelling on the very borders of the desert, they were familiar with the routes and the methods of warfare best suited to the country. They proved victorious all along the line. Yauta, betrayed by his own subjects, took refuge with the Nabataeans; but their king, Nadanu, although he did not actually deliver him up to the Assyrians, refused to grant him an asylum, and the unhappy man was finally obliged to surrender to his pursuers. His cousin Uate, son of Birdadda, was made chief in his place by the Assyrians, and Yauta was sent to Nineveh, where he was exposed at one of the city gates, chained in a niche beside the watch-dogs. Amuladdin, the leading prince of Kedar, met with no better fate: he was overcome, in spite of the assistance rendered him by Adiya, the queen of a neighbouring tribe, and was also carried away into captivity. His defeat completed the discouragement of the tribes who still remained unsubdued. They implored mercy, which Assur-bani-pal granted to them, although he deposed most of their sheikhs, and appointed as their ruler that Abiyate who had dwelt at his court since the capitulation of Babylon. Abiyate took the oath of fidelity, and was sent back to Kedar, where he was proclaimed king of all the Arab tribes under the suzerainty of Assyria.*

* The Cylinder B of the Brit. Mus. attributes to the reign of Assur-bani-pala whole series of events, comprising the first submission of Yauta and the restitution of the statues of Atarsamain, which had taken place under Esarhaddon. The Assyrian annalists do not seem to have always clearly distinguished between Yauta, son of Hazael, and Uate, son of Birdadda.

Of all the countries which had thrown off their allegiance during the late troubles, Egypt alone remained unpunished, and it now seemed as if its turn had come to suffer chastisement for its rebellion. It was, indeed, not to be tolerated that so rich and so recently acquired a province should slip from the grasp of the very sovereign who had completed its conquest, without his making an effort on the first opportunity to reduce it once more to submission. Such inaction on his part would be a confession of impotence, of which the other vassals of the empire would quickly take advantage: Tyre, Judah, Moab, the petty kings of the Taurus, and the chiefs of Media, would follow the example of Pharaoh, and the whole work of the last three centuries would have to be done over again. There can be no doubt that Assur-bani-pal cherished the secret hope of recovering Egypt in a short campaign, and that he hoped to attach it to the empire by more permanent bonds than before, but as a preliminary to executing this purpose it was necessary to close and settle if possible the account still open against Elam. Recent events had left the two rival powers in such a position that neither peace nor even a truce of long duration could possibly exist between them. Elam, injured, humiliated, and banished from the plains of the Lower Euphrates, over which she had claimed at all times an almost exclusive right of pillage, was yet not sufficiently enfeebled by her disasters to be convinced of her decided inferiority to Assyria. Only one portion of her forces, and that perhaps the smallest, had taken the field and sustained serious reverses: she had still at her disposal, besides the peoples of the plain and the marshes who had suffered the most, those almost inexhaustible reserves of warlike and hardy mountaineers, whose tribes were ranged on the heights which bounded the horizon, occupying the elevated valleys of the Uknu, the Ulai, and their nameless affluents, on the western or southern slopes or in the enclosed basins of the Iranian table-land. Here Elam had at her command at least as many men as her adversaries could muster against her, and though these barbarian contingents lacked discipline and systematic training, their bravery compensated for the imperfection of their military education. Elam not only refused to admit herself conquered, but she believed herself sure of final victory, and, as a matter of fact, it is not at all certain that Assur-bani-pal's generals would ever have completely triumphed over her, if internal discords and treason had not too often paralysed her powers. The partisans of Khumban-igash were largely responsible for bringing about the catastrophe in which Tiumman had perished, and those who sided with Tammaritu had not feared to provoke a revolt at the moment when Khumban-igash was occupied in Chaldaea; Indabigash in his turn had risen in rebellion in the rear of Tammaritu, and his intervention had enabled the Assyrians to deal their final blow at Shamash-shumukin. The one idea of the non-reigning members of the royal house was to depose the reigning sovereign, and they considered all means to this end as justifiable, whether assassination, revolt, desertion to the enemy, or defection on the very field of battle. As soon as one of them had dethroned another, hatred of the foreigner again reigned supreme in his breast, and he donned his armour with a firm determination to bring the struggle to an end, but the course he had pursued towards his predecessor was now adopted by one of his relatives towards himself; the enemy meanwhile was still under arms, and each of these revolutions brought him a step nearer to the goal of his endeavours, the complete overthrow of the Elamite kingdom and its annexation to the empire of Nineveh. Even before the struggle with Babylon was concluded, Assur-bani-pal had demanded of Indabigash the release of the Assyrians whom Nabo-bel-shumu had carried off in his train, besides the extradition of that personage himself. Indabigash had no desire for war at this juncture, but hesitated to surrender the Kalda, who had always served him faithfully: he entered into negotiations which were interminably prolonged, neither of the two parties being anxious to bring them to a close. After the fall of Babylon, Assur-bani-pal, who was tenacious in his hatred, summoned the Elamite ambassadors, and sent them back to their master with a message conceived in the following menacing terms: "If thou dost not surrender those men, I will go and destroy thy cities, and lead into captivity the inhabitants of Susa, Madaktu, and Khaidalu. I will hurl thee from thy throne, and will set up another thereon: as aforetime I destroyed Tiumman, so will I destroy thee." A detachment of troops was sent to enforce the message of defiance, but when the messengers had reached the frontier town of Deri, Indabigash was no longer there: his nobles had assassinated him, and had elected Khumban-khaldash, the son of Atta-metush, king in his stead. The opportunity was a favourable one to sow the seeds of division in the Elamite camp, before the usurper should have time to consolidate his power: Assur-bani-pal therefore threw himself into the cause of Tammaritu, supporting him with an army to which many malcontents speedily rallied. The Aramaeans and the cities of the marsh-lands on the littoral, Khilmu, Billate, Dummuku, Sulaa, Lakhiru, and Dibirina, submitted without a struggle, and the invaders met with no resistance till they reached Bit-Imbi. This town had formerly been conquered by Sennacherib, but it had afterwards returned to the rule of its ancient masters, who had strongly fortified it. It now offered a determined resistance, but without success: its population was decimated, and the survivors mutilated and sent as captives into Assyria—among them the commander of the garrison, Imbappi, son-in-law of Khumban-khaldash, together with the harem of Tiumman, with his sons and daughters, and all the members of his family whom his successors had left under guard in the citadel. The siege had been pushed forward so rapidly that the king had not been able to make any attempt to relieve the defenders: besides this, a pretender had risen up against him, one Umbakhabua, who had been accepted as king by the important district of Bubilu. The fall of Bit-Imbi filled the two competitors with fear: they abandoned their homes and fled, the one to the mountains, the other to the lowlands on the shores of the Nar-Marratum. Tammaritu entered Susa in triumph and was enthroned afresh; but the insolence and rapacity of his auxiliaries was so ruthlessly manifested, that at the end of some days he resolved to rid himself of them by the sword. A traitor having revealed the design, Tammaritu was seized, stripped of his royal apparel, and cast into prison. The generals of Assur-bani-pal had no one whom they could proclaim king in his stead, and furthermore, the season being well advanced, the Elamites, who had recovered from their first alarm, were returning in a body, and threatened to cut off the Assyrian retreat: they therefore evacuated Susa, and regained Assyria with their booty. They burnt all the towns along the route whose walls were insufficient to protect them against a sudden escalade or an attack of a few hours' duration, and the country between the capital and the frontier soon contained nothing but heaps of smoking ruins (647 e.g.).*

* The difficulty we experience in locating on the map most of the names of Elamite towns is the reason why we cannot determine with any certainty the whole itinerary followed by the Assyrian army.

The campaign, which had been so successful at the outset, had not produced all the results expected from it. The Assyrians had hoped henceforth to maintain control of Elam through Tammaritu, but in a short time they had been obliged to throw aside the instrument with which they counted on effecting the complete humiliation of the nation: Khumban-khaldash had reoccupied Susa, following on the heels of the last Assyrian detachment, and he reigned as king once more without surrendering Nabo-bel-shumi, or restoring the statue of Nana, or fulfilling any of the conditions which had been the price of a title to the throne. Assur-bani-pal was not inclined to bear patiently this partial reverse; as soon as spring returned he again demanded the surrender of the Chaldaean and the goddess, under pain of immediate invasion. Khumban-khaldash offered to expel Nabo-bel-shumi from Lakhiru where he had entrenched himself, and to thrust him towards the Assyrian frontier, where the king's troops would be able to capture him. His offer was not accepted, and a second embassy, headed by Tammaritu, who was once more in favour, arrived to propose more trenchant terms. The Elamite might have gone so far as to grant the extradition of Nabo-bel-shumi, but if he had yielded the point concerning Nana, a rebellion would have broken out in the streets of Susa: he preferred war, and prepared in desperation to carry it on to the bitter end. The conflict was long and sanguinary, and the result disastrous for Elam. Bit-Imbi opened its gates, the district of Kashi surrendered at discretion, followed by the city of Khamanu and its environs, and the Assyrians approached Madaktu: Khumban-khaldash evacuated the place before they reached it, and withdrew beneath the walls of Dur-Undasi, on the western bank of the Ididi. His enemies pursued him thither, but the stream was swift and swollen by rain, so that for two days they encamped on its bank without daring to cross, and were perhaps growing discouraged, when Ishtar of Arbela once more came to the rescue. Appearing in a dream to one of her seers, she said, "I myself go before Assur-bani-pal, the king whom my hands have created;" the army, emboldened by this revelation, overcame the obstacle by a vigorous effort, and dashed impetuously over regions as yet unvisited by any conqueror. The Assyrians burnt down fourteen royal cities, numberless small towns, and destroyed the cornfields, the vines, and the orchards; Khumban-khaldash, utterly exhausted, fled to the mountains "like a young dog." Banunu and the districts of Tasarra, twenty cities in the country of Khumir, Khaidalu, and Bashimu, succumbed one after another, and when the invaders at length decided to retrace their steps to the frontier, Susa, deserted by her soldiers and deprived of her leaders, lay before them an easy prey. It was not the first time in the last quarter of a century that the Assyrians had had the city at their mercy. They had made some stay in it after the battle of Tulliz, and also after the taking of Bit-Imbi in the preceding year; but on those occasions they had visited it as allies, to enthrone a king owing allegiance to their own sovereign, and political exigencies had obliged them to repress their pillaging instincts and their long-standing hatred. Now that they had come as enemies, they were restrained by no considerations of diplomacy: the city was systematically pillaged, and the booty found in it was so immense that the sack lasted an entire month. The royal treasury was emptied of its gold and silver, its metals and the valuable objects which had been brought to it from Sumir, Accad, and Karduniash at successive periods from the most remote ages down to that day, in the course of the successful invasions conducted by the princes of Susa beyond the Tigris; among them, the riches of the Babylonian temples, which Shamash-shumukin had lavished on Tiumman to purchase his support, being easily distinguishable. The furniture of the palace was sent to Nineveh in a long procession; it comprised beds and chairs of ivory, and chariots encrusted with enamel and precious stones, the horses of which were caparisoned with gold. The soldiers made their way into the ziggurat, tore down the plates of ruddy copper, violated the sanctuary, and desecrated the prophetic statues of the gods who dwelt within it, shrouded in the sacred gloom, and whose names were only uttered by their devotees with trembling lips. Shumudu, Lagamar, Partikira, Ammankasibar, Uduran, Sapak, Aipaksina, Bilala, Panintimri, and Kindakarpu, were now brought forth to the light, and made ready to be carried into exile together with their belongings and their priests.



Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard, The Monuments of Nineveh.

Thirty-two statues of the kings, both ancient and modern, in silver, gold, bronze, and marble, escorted the gods on their exodus, among their number being those of Khumbanigash, son of Umbadara, Shutruk-nakhunta, and Tammaritu II., the sovereigns who had treated Assyria with the greatest indignity. The effigy of Khalludush was subjected to humiliating outrage: "his mouth, with its menacing smile, was mutilated; his lips, which breathed forth defiance, were slit; his hands, which had brandished the bow against Assur, were cut off," to avenge, though tardily, the ill success of Sennacherib. The sacred groves shared the fate of the temples, and all the riches collected in them by generations of victors were carried off in cartloads. They contained, amongst other edifices, the tombs of the ancient heroes of Elam, who had feared neither Assur nor Ishtar, and who had often brought trouble on the ancestors of Assur-bani-pal. Their sepulchres were violated, their coffins broken open, their bones collected and despatched to Nineveh, to crumble finally into dust in the land of exile: their souls, chained to their mortal bodies, shared their captivity, and if they were provided with the necessary sustenance and libations to keep them from annihilation, it was not from any motives of compassion or pity, but from a refinement of vengeance, in order that they might the longer taste the humiliation of captivity.



The image of Nana was found among those of the native gods: it was now separated from them, and after having been cleansed from pollution by the prescribed ceremonies, it was conducted to Uruk, which it entered in triumph on the 1st of the month Kislev. It was reinstated in the temple it had inhabited of old: sixteen hundred and thirty-five years had passed since it had been carried off, in the reign of Kutur-nakhunta, to dwell as a prisoner in Susa.

Assur-bani-pal had no intention of preserving the city of Susa from destruction, or of making it the capital of a province which should comprise the plain of Elam. Possibly it appeared to him too difficult to defend as long as the mountain tribes remained unsubdued, or perhaps the Elamites themselves were not so completely demoralised as he was pleased to describe them in his inscriptions, and the attacks of their irregular troops would have rendered the prolonged sojourn of the Assyrian garrison difficult, if not impossible. Whatever the reason, as soon as the work of pillage was fully accomplished, the army continued its march towards the frontier, carrying with it the customary spoil of the captured towns, and their whole population, or all, at least, who had not fled at the approach of the enemy. The king reserved for himself the archers and pikemen, whom he incorporated into his own bodyguard, as well as the artisans, smelters, sculptors, and stonemasons, whose talents he turned to account in the construction and decoration of his palaces; the remainder of the inhabitants he apportioned, like so many sheep, to the cities and the temples, governors of provinces, officers of state, military chiefs, and private soldiers. Khumban-khaldash reoccupied Susa after the Assyrians had quitted it, but the misery there was so great that he could not endure it: he therefore transferred his court to Madaktu, one of the royal cities which had suffered least from the invasion, and he there tried to establish a regular government. Rival claimants to the throne had sprung up, but he overcame them without much difficulty: one of them, named Pae, took refuge in Assyria, joining Tammaritn and that little band of dethroned kings or pretenders to the throne of Susa, of whom Assur-bani-pal had so adroitly made use to divide the forces of his adversary. Khumban-khaldash might well believe that the transportation of the statue of Nana and the sack of Susa had satisfied the vengeance of the Assyrians, at least for a time, and that they would afford him a respite, however short; but he had reckoned without taking into consideration the hatred which had pursued Nabo-bel-shumi during so many years: an envoy followed him as far as Madaktu, and offered Khumban-khaldash once more the choice between the extradition of the Chaldean or the immediate reopening of hostilities. He seems to have had a moment's hesitation, but when Nabo-bel-shumi was informed of the terms offered by the envoy, "life had no more value in his eyes: he desired death." He ordered his shield-bearer to slay him, and when the man refused to do so, declaring that he could not live without his master, they stabbed each other simultaneously, and perished, as they had lived, together. Khumban-khaldash, delivered by this suicide from his embarrassments, had the corpse of the master and the head of the faithful shield-bearer duly embalmed, and sent them to Nineveh. Assur-bani-pal mutilated the wretched body in order to render the conditions of life in the other world harder for the soul: he cut off its head, and forbade the burial of the remains, or the rendering to the dead of the most simple offerings.



About this time the inhabitants of Bit-Imbi, of Til-Khumba, and a dozen other small towns, who had fled for refuge to the woods of Mount Saladri, came forth from their hiding-places and cast themselves on the mercy of the conqueror: he deigned to receive them graciously, and enrolled them in his guard, together with the prisoners taken in the last campaign. He was contented to leave Elam to itself for the moment, as he was disquieted at the turn affairs were taking in Arabia. Abiyate, scarcely seated on the throne, had refused to pay tribute, and had persuaded Uate and Nadanu to join him in his contumacy; several cities along the Phoenician seaboard, led away by his example, shut their gates and declared themselves independent. Assur-bani-pal had borne all this patiently, while the mass of his troops were engaged against Khumban-khaldash; but after the destruction of Susa, he determined to revenge himself. His forces left Nineveh in the spring of 642 B.C., crossed the Euphrates, and the line of wooded hills which bordered the course of the river towards the west, provisioned themselves with water at the halting-place of Laribda, and plunged into the desert in search of the rebels. The Assyrians overran the country of Mash, from the town of Iarki to Azalla, where "there dwell no beasts of the field, where no bird of the sky builds its nest," and then, after filling their water-skins at the cisterns of Azalla, they advanced boldly into the thirsty lands which extend towards Qurazite; they next crossed the territory of Kedar, cutting down the trees, filling up the wells, burning the tents, and reached Damascus from the north-east side, bringing in their train innumerable flocks of asses, sheep, camels, and slaves. The Bedawin of the north had remained passive, but the Nabathaeans, encouraged by the remoteness of their country and the difficulty of access to it, persisted in their rebellion. The Assyrian generals did not waste much time in celebrating their victory in the Syrian capital: on the 3rd of Ab, forty days after leaving the Chaldsean frontier, they started from Damascus towards the south, and seized the stronghold of Khalkhuliti, at the foot of the basaltic plateau overlooked by the mountains of the Hauran; they then destroyed all the fortresses of the country one after another, driving the inhabitants to take shelter in the rugged range of volcanic rocks, where they were blockaded, and finally reduced by famine: Abiyate capitulated, Nadanu ransomed himself by a promise of tribute, and the whole desert between Syria and the Euphrates fell once more into the condition of an Assyrian province. Before returning to Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal's generals inflicted chastisement on Akko and Ushu, the two chief Tyrian cities which had revolted, and this vigorous action confirmed the fidelity of the Assyrian vassals in Palestine. Uate's life was spared, but his lip and cheek were pierced by the hand of the king himself, and he was led by a cord passed through the wounds, as if he had been a wild beast intended for domestication; a dog's collar was riveted round his neck, and he was exposed in a cage at one of the gates of Nineveh. Aamu, the brother of Abiyate, was less fortunate, for he was flayed alive before the eyes of the mob. Assyria was glutted with the spoil: the king, as was customary, reserved for his own service the able-bodied men for the purpose of recruiting his battalions, distributing the remainder among his officers and soldiers. The camels captured were so numerous that their market-value was for a long time much reduced; they were offered in the open market, like sheep, for a half-shekel of silver apiece, and the vendor thought himself fortunate to find a purchaser even at this price.

The final ruin of Elam followed swiftly on the subjugation of Arabia. While one division of the army was scouring the desert, the remainder were searching the upland valleys of the Ulai and the Uknu, and relentlessly pursuing Khumban-khaldash. The wretched monarch was now in command of merely a few bands of tattered followers, and could no longer take the field; the approach of the enemy obliged him to flee from Madaktu, and entrench himself on the heights. Famine, misery, and probably also the treachery of his last adherents, soon drove him from his position, and, despairing of his cause, he surrendered himself to the officers who were in pursuit of him. He was the third king of Elam whom fate had cast alive into the hands of the conqueror: his arrival at Nineveh afforded the haughty Assur-bani-pal an occasion for celebrating one of those triumphal processions in which his proud soul delighted, and of going in solemn state to thank the gods for the overthrow of his most formidable enemy. On the day when he went to prostrate himself before Assur and Ishtar, he sent for Tammaritu, Pae, and Khumban-khaldash, and adding to them Uate, who was taken out of his cage for the occasion, he harnessed all four to his chariot of state, and caused himself to be drawn through Nineveh by this team of fallen sovereigns to the gate of the temple of Emashmash. And, indeed, at that moment, he might reasonably consider himself as having reached the zenith of his power. Egypt, it is true, still remained unpunished, and its renewed vitality under the influence of the Saite Pharaohs allowed no hope of its being speedily brought back into subjection, but its intrigues no longer exerted any influence over Syria, and Tyre itself appeared to be resigned to the loss of its possessions on the mainland. Lydia under the rule of Ardys continued to maintain intermittent intercourse with its distant protector. The provinces of the Taurus, delivered from the terror inspired by the Cimmerians, desired peace above all things, and the Mannai had remained quiet since the defeat of Akhsheri. Babylon was rapidly recovering from the ills she had endured. She consoled herself for her actual servitude by her habitual simulation of independence; she called Assur-bani-pal Kandalanu, and this new name allowed her to fancy she had a separate king, distinct from the King of Assyria. Elam no longer existed. Its plains and marsh lands were doubtless occupied by Assyrian garrisons, and formed an ill-defined annexation to Nineveh; the mountain tribes retained their autonomy, and although still a source of annoyance to their neighbours by their raids or sudden incursions, they no longer constituted a real danger to the state: if there still remained some independent Elamite states, Elam itself, the most ancient, except Babylon, of all the Asiatic kingdoms, was erased from the map of the world. The memories of her actual history were soon effaced, or were relegated to the region of legend, where the fabulous Memnon supplanted in the memory of men those lines of hardy conquerors who had levied tribute from Syria in the day when Nineveh was still an obscure provincial town. Assyria alone remained, enthroned on the ruins of the past, and her dominion seemed established for all time; yet, on closer investigation, indications were not wanting of the cruel sufferings that she also had endured. Once again, as after the wars of Tiglath-pileser I. and those of Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., her chiefs had overtaxed her powers by a long series of unremitting wars against vigorous foes. Doubtless the countries comprised within her wide empire furnished her with a more ample revenue and less restricted resources than had been at the command of the little province of ancient days, which had been bounded by the Khabur and the Zab, and lay on the two banks of the middle course of the Tigris; but, on the other hand, the adversaries against whom she had measured her forces, and whom she had overthrown, were more important and of far greater strength than her former rivals. She had paid dearly for humiliating Egypt and laying Babylon in the dust. As soon as Babylon was overthrown, she had, without pausing to take breath, joined issue with Elam, and had only succeeded in triumphing over it by drawing upon her resources to the utmost during many years: when the struggle was over, she realised to what an extent she had been weakened by so lavish an outpouring of the blood of her citizens. The Babylonian and Elamite recruits whom she incorporated into her army after each of her military expeditions, more or less compensated for the void which victory itself had caused in her population and her troops; but the fidelity of these vanquished foes of yesterday, still smarting from their defeat, could not be relied on, and the entire assimilation of their children to their conquerors was the work of at least one or two generations. Assyria, therefore, was on the eve of one of those periods of exhaustion which had so often enfeebled her national vitality and imperilled her very existence. On each previous occasion she had, it is true, recovered after a more or less protracted crisis, and the brilliancy of her prospects, though obscured for a moment, appeared to be increased by their temporary eclipse. There was, therefore, good reason to hope that she would recover from her latest phase of depression; and the only danger to be apprehended was that some foreign power, profiting by her momentary weakness, might rise up and force her, while still suffering from the effects of her heroic labours, to take the field once more.



CHAPTER III—THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDAEAN EMPIRE

THE FALL OF NINEVEH AND THE RISE OF THE CHALDAEAN AND MEDIAN EMPIRES—THE XXVIth EGYPTIAN DYNASTY: CYAXARES, ALYATTES, AND NEBUCHADREZZAR.

The legendary history of the kings of Media and the first contact of the Medes with the Assyrians: the alleged Iranian migrations of the Avesta—Media-proper, its fauna and flora; Phraortes and the beginning of the Median empire—Persia proper and the Persians; conquest of Persia by the Medes—The last monuments of Assur-bani-pal: the library of Kouyunjik—Phraortes defeated and slain by the Assyrians.

Cyaxares and his first attach on Nineveh—The Assyrian triangle and the defence of Nineveh: Assur-bani-pal summons the Scythians to his aid—The Scythian invasion—Judah under Manasseh and Amon: development in the conceptions of the prophets—The Scythians in Syria and on the borders of Egypt: they are defeated and driven back by Cyaxares—The last kings of Nineveh and Naliopolassar—Taking and, destruction of Nineveh: division of the Assyrian empire between the Chaldaeans and the Medes (608 B.C.).

The XXVIth Egyptian dynasty—Psammetichus I. and the Ionian and Carian mercenaries; final retreat of the Ethiopians and the annexation of the Theban principality; the end of Egypt as a great power—First Greek settlements in the Delta; flight of the Mashauasha and the reorganisation of the army—Resumption of important works and the renaissance of art in Egypt—The occupation of Ashdod, and the Syrian policy of Psammetichus I.

Josiah, King of Judah: the discovery and public reading of the Book of the Covenant; the religious reform—Necho II. invades Syria: Josiah slain at Megiddo, the battle of Carchemish—Nebuchadrezzar II.: his policy with regard to Media—The conquests of Cyaxares and the struggles of the Mermnadae against the Greek colonies—The war between Alyattes and Cyaxares: the battle of the Halys and the peace of 585 B.C.—Necho reorganises his army and his fleet: the circumnavigation of Africa—Jeremiah and the Egyptian party in Jerusalem: the revolt of Jehoiakim and the captivity of Jehoiachin.

Psammetichus I. and Zedekiah—Apries and the revolt of Tyre and of Judah: the siege and destruction of Jerusalem—The last convulsions of Judah and the submission of Tyre; the successes of Aprics in Phoenicia—The Greeks in Libya and the founding of Cyrene: the defeat of Irasa and the fall of Apries—Amasis and the campaign of Nebuchadrezzar against Egypt—Relations between Nebuchadrezzar and Astyages—The fortifications of Babylon and the rebuilding of the Great Ziggurat—The successors of Nebuchadrezzar: Nabonidus.



CHAPTER III—THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDAEAN EMPIRE

The fall of Nineveh and the rise of the Chaldaean and Median empires—The XXVIth Egyptian dynasty: Cyaxares, Alyattes, and Nebuchadrezzar.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the silver vase of Tchertomlitsk, now in the museum of the Hermitage. The vignette is also drawn by Faucher-Gudin, and represents an Egyptian torso in the Turin museum; the cartouche which is seen upon the arm is that of Psammetichus I.

The East was ever a land of kaleidoscopic changes and startling dramatic incidents. An Oriental empire, even when built up by strong hands and watched over with constant vigilance, scarcely ever falls to pieces in the slow and gradual process of decay arising from the ties that bind it together becoming relaxed or its constituent elements growing antiquated. It perishes, as a rule, in a cataclysm; its ruin comes like a bolt from the blue, and is consummated before the commencement of it is realised. One day it stands proud and stately in the splendour of its glory; there is no report abroad but that which tells of its riches, its industry, its valour, the good government of its princes and the irresistible might of its gods, and the world, filled with envy or with fear, deeming its good fortune immutable, never once applies to it, even in thought, the usual commonplaces on the instability of human things. Suddenly an ill wind, blowing up from the distant horizon, bursts upon it in destructive squalls, and it is overthrown in the twinkling of an eye, amid the glare of lightning, the resounding crash of thunder, whirlwinds of dust and rain: when the storm has passed away as quickly as it came, its mutterings heralding the desolation which it bears to other climes, the brightening sky no longer reveals the old contours and familiar outlines, but the sun of history rises on a new empire, emerging, as if by the touch of a magic wand, from the ruins which the tempest has wrought. There is nothing apparently lacking of all that, in the eyes of the many, invested its predecessor with glory; it seems in no wise inferior in national vigour, in the number of its soldiers, in the military renown of its chiefs, in the proud prosperity of its people, or in the majesty of its gods; the present fabric is as spacious and magnificent, it would seem, as that which has but just vanished into the limbo of the past. No kingdom ever shone with brighter splendour, or gave a greater impression of prosperity, than the kingdom of Assyria in the days succeeding its triumphs over Blam and Arabia: precisely at this point the monuments and other witnesses of its activity fail us, just as if one of the acts of the piece in which it had played a chief part having come to an end, the drop-curtain must be lowered, amid a flourish of trumpets and the illuminations of an apotheosis, to allow the actors a little breathing-space. Half a century rolls by, during which we have a dim perception of the subdued crash of falling empires, and of the trampling of armies in fierce fight; then the curtain rises on an utterly different drama, of which the plot has been woven behind the scenes, and the exciting motif has just come into play. We no longer hear of Assyria and its kings; their palaces are in ruins; their last faithful warriors sleep in unhonoured graves beneath the ashes of their cities, their prowess is credited to the account of half a dozen fabulous heroes such as Ninus, Sardanapalus, and Semiramis—heroes whose names call up in the memory of succeeding generations only vague but terrible images, such as the phantasies of a dream, which, although but dimly remembered in the morning, makes the hair to stand on end with terror. The nations which erewhile disputed the supremacy with Assyria have either suffered a like eclipse—such as the Khati, Urartu, the Cossaeans, and Elam—or have fallen like Egypt and Southern Syria into the rank of second-rate powers. It is Chaldaea which is now in the van of the nations, in company with Lydia and with Media, whose advent to imperial power no one would have ventured to predict forty or fifty years before.