The remoteness of Egypt from the Babylonian frontier no doubt relieved Karaîndash from any apprehension of an actual invasion by the Pharaohs; but there was the possibility of their subsidising some nearer enemy, and also of forbidding Babylonish caravans to enter Egyptian provinces, and thus crippling Chaldæan commerce. Friendly relations, when once established, soon necessitated a constant interchange of embassies and letters between the Nile and the Euphrates. As a matter of fact, the Babylonian king could never reconcile himself to the idea that Syria had passed out of his hands. While pretending to warn the Pharaoh of Syrian plots against him,* the Babylonians were employing at the same time secret agents, to go from city to city and stir up discontent at Egyptian rule, praising the while the great Cosssean king and his armies, and inciting to revolt by promises of help never meant to be fulfilled. Assyria, whose very existence would have been endangered by the re-establishment of a Babylonian empire, never missed an opportunity of denouncing these intrigues at head-quarters: they warned the royal messengers and governors of them, and were constantly contrasting the frankness and honesty of their own dealings with the duplicity of their rival.

This state of affairs lasted for more than half a century, during which time both courts strove to ingratiate themselves in the favour of the Pharaoh, each intriguing for the exclusion of the other, by exchanging presents with him, by congratulations on his accession, by imploring gifts of wrought or unwrought gold, and by offering him the most beautiful women of their family for his harem. The son of Karaîndash, whose name still remains to be discovered, bestowed one of his daughters on the young Amenôthes III.: Kallimasin, the sovereign who succeeded him, also sent successively two princesses to the same Pharaoh. But the underlying bitterness and hatred would break through the veneer of polite formula and protestations when the petitioner received, as the result of his advances, objects of inconsiderable value such as a lord might distribute to his vassals, or when he was refused a princess of solar blood, or even an Egyptian bride of some feudal house; at such times, however, an ironical or haughty epistle from Thebes would recall him to a sense of his own inferiority.

As a fact, the lot of the Cossæan sovereigns does not appear to have been a happy one, in spite of the variety and pomposity of the titles which they continued to assume. They enjoyed but short lives, and we know that at least three or four of them—Kallimasin, Burnaburiash I., and Kurigalzu I. ascended the throne in succession during the forty years that Amenôthes III. ruled over Egypt and Syria.*

Perhaps the rapidity of this succession may have arisen from some internal revolution or from family disturbances. The Chaldæans of the old stock reluctantly rendered obedience to these Cosssean kings, and, if we may judge from the name, one at least of these ephemeral sovereigns, Kallimasin, appears to have been a Semite, who owed his position among the Cossoan princes to some fortunate chance. A few rare inscriptions stamped on bricks, one or two letters or documents of private interest, and some minor objects from widely distant spots, have enabled us to ascertain the sites upon which these sovereigns erected buildings; Karaîndash restored the temple of Nana at Uruk, Burnaburiash and Kurigalzu added to that of Shamash at Larsam, and Kurigalzu took in hand that of Sin at Uru. We also possess a record of some of their acts in the fragments of a document, which a Mnevite scribe of the time of Assurbanipal had compiled, or rather jumbled together,* from certain Babylonian chronicles dealing with the wars against Assyria and Elam, with public treaties, marriages, and family quarrels. We learn from this, for example, that Burnaburiash I. renewed with Buzurassur the conventions drawn up between Karaîndash and Assurbelnishishu. These friendly relations were maintained, apparently, under Kurigalzu I. and Assur-nadin-akhi, the son of Buzurassur;** if Kurigalzu built or restored the fortress, long called after him Dur-Kurigalzu,*** at one of the fords of the Narmalka, it was probably as a precautionary measure rather than because of any immediate danger. The relations between the two powers became somewhat strained when Burnaburiash II. and Assuruballît had respectively succeeded to Kurigalzu and Assur-nadin-akhi; **** this did not, however, lead to hostilities, and the subsequent betrothal of Karakhardash, son of Burnaburiash II., to Mubauîtatseruâ, daughter of Assuruballît, tended to restore matters to their former condition.

The good will between the two countries became still more pronounced when Kadashmankharbê succeeded his father Karakhardash. The Cossæan soldiery had taken umbrage at his successor and had revolted, assassinated Kadashmankharbê, and proclaimed king in his stead a man of obscure origin named Nazibùgash. Assuruballît, without a moment’s hesitation, took the side of his new relatives; he crossed the frontier, killed Nazibugash, and restored the throne to his sister’s child, Kurigalzu II., the younger. The young king, who was still a minor at his accession, appears to have met with no serious difficulties; at any rate, none were raised by his Assyrian cousins, Belnirârî I. and his successor Budîlu.*

Towards the close of his reign, however, revolts broke out, and it was only by sustained efforts that he was able to restore order in Babylon, Sippara, and the Country of the Sea. While the king was in the midst of these difficulties, the Elamites took advantage of his troubles to steal from him a portion of his territory, and their king, Khurbatila, challenged him to meet his army near Dur-Dungi. Kurigalzu accepted the challenge, gained a decisive victory, took his adversary prisoner, and released him only on receiving as ransom a province beyond the Tigris; he even entered Susa, and, from among other trophies of past wars, resumed possession of an agate tablet belonging to Dungi, which the veteran Kudurnakhunta had stolen from the temple of Nipur nearly a thousand years previously. This victory was followed by the congratulations of most of his neighbours, with the exception of Bammân-nirâri II., who had succeeded Budîlu in Assyria, and probably felt some jealousy or uneasiness at the news. He attacked the Cossæans, and overthrew them at Sugagi, on the banks of the Salsallât; their losses were considerable, and Kurigalzu could only obtain peace by the cession to Assyria of a strip of territory the entire length of the north-west frontier, from the confines of the Shubari country, near the sources of the Khabur, to the suburbs of Babylon itself. Nearly the whole of Mesopotamia thus changed hands at one stroke, but Babylon had still more serious losses to suffer. Nazimaruttash, who attempted to wipe out the disaster sustained by his father Kurigalzu, experienced two crushing defeats, one at Kar-Ishtar and the other near Akarsallu, and the treaty which he subsequently signed was even more humiliating for his country than the preceding one. All that part of the Babylonian domain which lay nearest to Nineveh was ceded to the Assyrians, from Pilaski on the right bank of the Tigris to the province of Lulumê in the Zagros mountains. It would appear that the Cossæan tribes who had remained in their native country, took advantage of these troublous times to sever all connection with their fellow-countrymen established in the cities of the plain; for we find them henceforward carrying on a petty warfare for their own profit, and leading an entirely independent life. The descendants of Gandish, deprived of territories in the north, repulsed in the east, and threatened in the south by the nations of the Persian Gulf, never recovered their former ascendency, and their authority slowly declined during the century which followed these events. Their downfall brought about the decadence of the cities over which they had held sway; and the supremacy which Babylon had exercised for a thousand years over the countries of the Euphrates passed into the hands of the Assyrian kings.

Assyria itself was but a poor and insignificant country when compared with her rival. It occupied, on each side of the middle course of the Tigris, the territory lying between the 35th and 37th parallels of latitude.*

It was bounded on the east by the hills and mountain ranges running parallel to the Zagros Chain—Gebel Guar, Gebel Gara, Zerguizavân-dagh, and Baravân-dagh, with their rounded monotonous limestone ridges, scored by watercourses and destitute of any kind of trees. On the north it was hemmed in by the spurs of the Masios, and bounded on the east by an undefined line running from Mount Masios to the slopes of Singar, and from these again to the Chaldæan plain; to the south the frontier followed the configuration of the table-land and the curve of the low cliffs, which in prehistoric times had marked the limits of the Persian Gulf; from here the boundary was formed on the left side of the Tigris by one of its tributaries, either the Lower Zab or the Badanu. The territory thus enclosed formed a compact and healthy district: it was free from extremes of temperature arising from height or latitude, and the relative character and fertility of its soil depended on the absence or presence of rivers. The eastern part of Assyria was well watered by the streams and torrents which drained the Iranian plateau and the lower mountain chains which ran parallel to it. The beds of these rivers are channelled so deeply in the alluvial soil, that it is necessary to stand on the very edge of their banks to catch a sight of their silent and rapid waters; and it is only in the spring or early summer, when they are swollen by the rains and melting snow, that they spread over the adjacent country. As soon as the inundation is over, a vegetation of the intensest green springs up, and in a few days the fields and meadows are covered with a luxuriant and fragrant carpet of verdure. This brilliant growth is, however, short-lived, for the heat of the sun dries it up as quickly as it appears, and even the corn itself is in danger of being burnt up before reaching maturity. To obviate such a disaster, the Assyrians had constructed a network of canals and ditches, traces of which are in many places still visible, while a host of shadufs placed along their banks facilitated irrigation in the dry seasons. The provinces supplied with water in this manner enjoyed a fertility which passed into a proverb, and was well known among the ancients; they yielded crops of cereals which rivalled those of Babylonia, and included among their produce wheat, barley, millet, and sesame. But few olive trees were cultivated, and the dates were of inferior quality; indeed, in the Greek period, these fruits were only used for fattening pigs and domestic animals. The orchards contained the pistachio, the apple, the pomegranate, the apricot, the vine, the almond, and the fig, and, in addition to the essences common to both Syria and Egypt, the country produced cédrats of a delicious scent which were supposed to be an antidote to all kinds of poisons. Assyria was not well wooded, except in the higher valleys, where willows and poplars bordered the rivers, and sycamores, beeches, limes, and plane trees abounded, besides several varieties of pines and oaks, including a dwarf species of the latter, from whose branches manna was obtained.

This is a saccharine substance, which is deposited in small lumps, and is found in greater abundance during wet years and especially on foggy days. When fresh, it has an agreeable taste and is pleasant to eat; but as it will not keep in its natural state, the women prepare it for exportation by dissolving it in boiling water, and evaporating it to a sweetish paste, which has more or less purgative, qualities. The aspect of the country changes after crossing the Tigris westward. The slopes of Mount Masios are everywhere furrowed with streams, which feed the Khabur and its principal affluent, the Kharmis;* woods become more frequent, and the valleys green and shady.

The plains extending southwards, however, contain, like those of the Euphrates, beds of gypsum in the sub-soil, which render the water running through them brackish, and prevent the growth of vegetation. The effects of volcanic action are evident on the surface of these great steppes; blocks of basalt pierce through the soil, and near the embouchure of the Kharmis, a cone, composed of a mass of lava, cinders, and scorial, known as the Tell-Kôkab, rises abruptly to a height of 325 feet. The mountain chain of Singar, which here reaches its western termination, is composed of a long ridge of soft white limestone, and seems to have been suddenly thrown up in one of the last geological upheavals which affected this part of the country: in some places it resembles a perpendicular wall, while in others it recedes in natural terraces which present the appearance of a gigantic flight of steps. The summit is often wooded, and the spurs covered with vineyards and fields, which flourish vigorously in the vicinity of streams; when these fail, however, the table-land resumes its desolate aspect, and stretches in bare and sandy undulations to the horizon, broken only where it is crossed by the Thartar, the sole river in this region which is not liable to be dried up, and whose banks may be traced by the scanty line of vegetation which it nourishes.

In a country thus unequally favoured by nature, the towns are necessarily distributed in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. Most of them are situated on the left bank of the Tigris, where the fertile nature of the soil enables it to support a dense population. They were all flourishing centres of population, and were in close proximity to each other, at all events during the centuries of Assyrian hegemony.*

Three of them soon eclipsed their rivals in political and religious importance; these were Kalakh and Nina on the Tigris, and Arbaîlu, lying beyond the Upper Zab, in the broken plain which is a continuation eastwards of the first spurs of the Zagros.* On the right bank, however, we find merely some dozen cities and towns, scattered about in places where there was a supply of water sufficient to enable the inhabitants to cultivate the soil; as, for example, Assur on the banks of the Tigris itself, Singara near the sources of the Thartar, and Nazibina near those of the Kharmis, at the foot of the Masios. These cities were not all under the rule of one sovereign when Thûtmosis III. appeared in Syria, for the Egyptian monuments mention, besides the kingdom of Assyria, that of Singara** and Araphka in the upper basin of the Zab.***

Assyria, however, had already asserted her supremacy over this corner of Asia, and the remaining princes, even if they were not mere vicegerents depending on her king, were not strong enough in wealth and extent of territory to hold their own against her, since she was undisputed mistress of Assur, Arbeles, Kalakh, and Nineveh, the most important cities of the plain. Assur covered a considerable area, and the rectangular outline formed by the remains of its walls is still discernible on the surface of the soil. Within the circuit of the city rose a mound, which the ancient builders had transformed, by the addition of masses of brickwork, into a nearly square platform, surmounted by the usual palace, temple, and ziggurat; it was enclosed within a wall of squared stone, the battlements of which remain to the present day.* The whole pile was known as the “Ekharsagkurkurra,” or the “House of the terrestrial mountain,” the sanctuary in whose decoration all the ancient sovereigns had vied with one another, including Samsirammân I. and Irishum, who were merely vicegerents dependent upon Babylon. It was dedicated to Anshar, that duplicate of Anu who had led the armies of heaven in the struggle with Tiâmat; the name Anshar, softened into Aushar, and subsequently into Ashshur, was first applied to the town and then to the whole country.**

The god himself was a deity of light, usually represented under the form of an armed man, wearing the tiara and having the lower half of his body concealed by a feathered disk. He was supposed to hover continually over the world, hurling fiery darts at the enemies of his people, and protecting his kingly worshippers under the shadow of his wings. Their wars were his wars, and he was with them in the thick of the attack, placing himself in the front rank with the soldiery,* so that when he gained the victory, the bulk of the spoil—precious metals, gleanings of the battle-field, slaves and productive lands—fell to his share. The gods of the vanquished enemy, moreover, were, like their princes, forced to render him homage. In the person of the king he took their statues prisoners, and shut them up in his sanctuary; sometimes he would engrave his name upon their figures and send them back to their respective temples, where the sight of them would remind their worshippers of his own omnipotence.** The goddess associated with him as his wife had given her name, Nina, to Nineveh,*** and was, as the companion of the Chaldæan Bel, styled the divine lady Belit; she was, in fact, a chaste and warlike Ishtar, who led the armies into battle with a boldness characteristic of her father.****

These two divinities formed an abstract and solitary pair, around whom neither story nor myth appears to have gathered, and who never became the centre of any complex belief. Assur seems to have had no parentage assigned to him, no statue erected to him, and he was not associated with the crowd of other divinities; on the contrary, he was called their lord, their “peerless king,” and, as a proof of his supreme sovereignty over them, his name was inscribed at the head of their lists, before those of the triads constituted by the Chaldæan priests—even before those of Anu, Bel, and Ba. The city of Assur, which had been the first to tender him allegiance for many years, took precedence of all the rest, in spite of the drawbacks with which it had to contend. Placed at the very edge of the Mesopotamian desert, it was exposed to the dry and burning winds which swept over the plains, so that by the end of the spring the heat rendered it almost intolerable as a residence. The Tigris, moreover, ran behind it, thus leaving it exposed to the attacks of the Babylonian armies, unprotected as it was by any natural fosse or rampart. The nature of the frontier was such as to afford it no safeguard; indeed, it had, on the contrary, to protect its frontier. Nineveh, on the other hand, was entrenched behind the Tigris and the Zab, and was thus secure from any sudden attack. Northerly and easterly winds prevailed during the summer, and the coolness of the night rendered the heat during the day more bearable. It became the custom for the kings and vicegerents to pass the most trying months of the year at Nineveh, taking up their abode close to the temple of Nina, the Assyrian Ishtar, but they did not venture to make it their habitual residence, and consequently Assur remained the official capital and chief sanctuary of the empire. Here its rulers concentrated their treasures, their archives, their administrative offices, and the chief staff of the army; from this town they set out on their expeditions against the Cossæans of Babylon or the mountaineers of the districts beyond the Tigris, and it was in this temple that they dedicated to the god the tenth of the spoil on their return from a successful campaign.*

* The majority of scholars now admit that the town of Nina, mentioned by Gudea and the vicegerents of Telloh, was a quarter of, or neighbouring borough of, Lagash, and had nothing in common with Nineveh, in spite of Hommel’s assumption to the contrary.

The struggle with Chaldæa, indeed, occupied the greater part of their energies, though it did not absorb all their resources, and often left them times of respite, of which they availed themselves to extend their domain to the north and east. We cannot yet tell which of the Assyrian sovereigns added the nearest provinces of the Upper Tigris to his realm; but when the names of these districts appear-in history, they are already in a state of submission and vassalage, and their principal towns are governed by Assyrian officers in the same manner as those of Singara and Nisibe. Assuruballît, the conqueror of the Cossæans, had succeeded in establishing his authority over the turbulent hordes of Shubari which occupied the neighbourhood of the Masios, between the Khabur and the Balîkh, and extended perhaps as far as the Euphrates; at any rate, he was considered by posterity as the actual founder of the Assyrian empire in these districts.* Belnirâri had directed his efforts in another direction, and had conquered the petty kingdoms established on the slopes of the Iranian table-land, around the sources of the two Zabs, and those of the Badanu and the Turnât.**

Like Susiana, this part of the country was divided up into parallel valleys, separated from each other by broken ridges of limestone, and watered by the tributaries of the Tigris or their affluents.

It was thickly strewn with walled towns and villages; the latter, perched upon the precipitous mountain summits, and surrounded by deep ravines, owed their security solely to their position, and, indeed, needed no fortification. The country abounded in woods and pastures, interspersed with cornlands; access to it was gained by one or two passes on the eastern side, which thus permitted caravans or armies to reach the districts lying between the Erythræan and Caspian Seas. The tribes who inhabited it had been brought early under Chaldæan civilization, and had adopted the cuneiform script; such of their monuments as are still extant resemble the bas-reliefs and inscriptions of Assyria.* It is not always easy to determine the precise locality occupied by these various peoples; the Guti were situated near the upper courses of the Turnât and the Badanu, in the vicinity of the Kashshu;** the Lulumê had settled in the neighbourhood of the Batîr, to the north of the defiles of Zohab;*** the Namar separated the Lulumê from Elam, and were situated half in the plain and half in the mountain, while the Arapkha occupied, both banks of the Great Zab.

Budîlu carried his arms against these tribes, and obtained successes over the Turuki and the Nigimkhi, the princes of the Guti and the Shuti, as well as over the Akhlamî and the Iauri.*

The chiefs of the Lulumê had long resisted the attacks of their neighbours, and one of them, Anu-banini, had engraved on the rocks overhanging the road not far from the village of Seripul, a bas-relief celebrating his own victories. He figures on it in full armour, wearing a turban on his head, and treading underfoot a fallen foe, while Ishtar of Arbeles leads towards him a long file of naked captives, bound ready for sacrifice. The resistance of the Lulumê was, however, finally overcome by Rammân-nirâri, the son of Budilû; he strengthened the suzerainty gained by his predecessor over the Guti, the Cossæans, and the Shubarti, and he employed the spoil taken from them in beautifying the temple of Assur. He had occasion to spend some time in the regions of the Upper Tigris, warring against the Shubari, and a fine bronze sabre belonging to him has been found near Diarbekîr, among the ruins of the ancient Amidi, where, no doubt, he had left it as an offering in one of the temples. He was succeeded by Shalmânuâsharîd,* better known to us as Shalmaneser I., one of the most powerful sovereigns of this heroic age of Assyrian history.

His reign seems to have been one continuous war against the various races then in a state of ferment on the frontiers of his kingdom. He appears in the main to have met with success, and in a few years had doubled the extent of his dominions.* His most formidable attacks were directed against the Aramaeans** of Mount Masios, whose numerous tribes had advanced on one side till they had crossed the Tigris, while on the other they had pushed beyond the river Balîkh, and had probably reached the Euphrates.***

He captured their towns one after another, razed their fortresses, smote the agricultural districts with fire and sword, and then turned upon the various peoples who had espoused their cause—the Kirkhu, the Euri, the Kharrîn,* and the Muzri, who inhabited the territory between the basins of the two great rivers;** once, indeed, he even crossed the Euphrates and ventured within the country of Khanigalbat, a feat which his ancestors had never even attempted.***

He was recalled by a revolt which had broken out in the scattered cities of the district of Dur-Kurigalzu; he crushed the rising in spite of the help which Kadash-manburiash, King of Babylon, had given to the rebels, and was soon successful in subduing the princes of Lulumê. These were not the raids of a day’s duration, undertaken, without any regard to the future, merely from love of rapine or adventure. Shalmaneser desired to bring the regions which he annexed permanently under the authority of Assyria, and to this end he established military colonies in suitable places, most of which were kept up long after his death.*

He seems to have directed the internal affairs of his kingdom with the same firmness and energy which he displayed in his military expeditions. It was no light matter for the sovereign to decide on a change in the seat of government; he ran the risk of offending, not merely his subjects, but the god who presided over the destinies of the State, and neither his throne nor his life would have been safe had he failed in his attempt. Shalmaneser, however, did not hesitate to make the change, once he was fully convinced of the drawbacks presented by Assur as a capital. True, he beautified the city, restored its temples, and permitted it to retain all its privileges and titles; but having done so, he migrated with his court to the town of Kalakh, where his descendants continued to reside for several centuries. His son Tukulti-ninip made himself master of Babylon, and was the first of his race who was able to claim the title of King of Sumir and Akkad. The Cossæans were still suffering from their defeat at the hands of Bammân-nirâri. Four of their princes had followed Nazimaruttash on the throne in rapid succession—Kadashmanturgu, Kadashmanburiash, who was attacked by Shalmaneser, a certain Isammeti whose name has been mutilated, and lastly, Shagaraktiburiash: Bibeiasdu, son of this latter, was in power at the moment when Tukulti-ninip ascended the throne. War broke out between the two monarchs, but dragged on without any marked advantage on one side or the other, till at length the conflict was temporarily suspended by a treaty similar to others which had been signed in the course of the previous two or three centuries.*

The peace thus concluded might have lasted longer but for an unforeseen catastrophe which placed Babylon almost at the mercy of her rival. The Blamites had never abandoned their efforts to press in every conceivable way their claim to the Sebbeneh-su, the supremacy, which, prior to Kbammurabi, had been exercised by their ancestors over the whole of Mesopotamia; they swooped down on Karduniash with an impetuosity like that of the Assyrians, and probably with the same alternations of success and defeat. Their king, Kidinkhutrutash, unexpectedly attacked Belnadînshumu, son of Bibeiashu, appeared suddenly under the walls of Nipur and forced the defences of Durîlu and Étimgarka-lamma: Belnadînshumu disappeared in the struggle after a reign of eighteen months. Tukulti-ninip left Belna-dînshumu’s successor, Kadashmankharbe II., no time to recover from this disaster; he attacked him in turn, carried Babylon by main force, and put a number of the inhabitants to the sword. He looted the palace and the temples, dragged the statue of Merodach from its sanctuary and carried it off into Assyria, together with the badges of supreme power; then, after appointing governors of his own in the various towns, he returned to Kalakh, laden with booty; he led captive with him several members of the royal family—among others, Bammânshumusur, the lawful successor of Bibeiashu.

This first conquest of Chaldæa did not, however, produce any lasting results. The fall of Babylon did not necessarily involve the subjection of the whole country, and the cities of the south showed a bold front to the foreign intruder, and remained faithful to Kadashmankharbe; on the death of the latter, some months after his defeat, they hailed as king a certain Bammânshumnadîn, who by some means or other had made his escape from captivity. Bammânshumnadîn proved himself a better man than his predecessors; when Kidinkhutrutash, never dreaming, apparently, that he would meet with any serious resistance, came to claim his share of the spoil, he defeated him near Ishin, drove him out of the districts recently occupied by the Elamites, and so effectually retrieved his fortunes in this direction, that he was able to concentrate his whole attention on what was going on in the north. The effects of his victory soon became apparent: the nobles of Akkad and Karduniash declined to pay homage to their Assyrian governors, and, ousting them from the offices to which they had been appointed, restored Babylon to the independence which it had lost seven years previously. Tukulti-ninip paid dearly for his incapacity to retain his conquests: his son Assurnazirpal I. conspired with the principal officers, deposed him from the throne, and confined him in the fortified palace of Kar-Tukulti-ninip, which he had built not far from Kalakh, where he soon after contrived his assassination. About this time Rammânshumnadîn disappears, and we can only suppose that the disasters of these last years had practically annihilated the Cossæan dynasty, for Rammânshu-musur, who was a prisoner in Assyria, was chosen as his successor. The monuments tell us nothing definite of the troubles which next befell the two kingdoms: we seem to gather, however, that Assyria became the scene of civil wars, and that the sons of Tukulti-ninip fought for the crown among themselves. Tukultiassurbel, who gained the upper hand at the end of six years, set Raminân-shumusur at liberty, probably with the view of purchasing the support of the Chaldæans, but he did not succeed in restoring his country to the position it had held under Shalmaneser and Tukulti-ninip I. The history of Assyria presents a greater number of violent contrasts and extreme vicissitudes than that of any other Eastern people in the earliest times. No sooner had the Assyrians arrived, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of five or six generations, at the very summit of their ambition, than some incompetent, or perhaps merely unfortunate, king appeared on the scene, and lost in a few years all the ground which had been gained at the cost of such tremendous exertions: then the subject races would rebel, the neighbouring peoples would pluck up courage and reconquer the provinces which they had surrendered, till the dismembered empire gradually shrank back to its original dimensions. As the fortunes of Babylon rose, those of Nineveh suffered a corresponding depression: Babylon soon became so powerful that Eammânshumusur was able to adopt a patronising tone in his relations with Assur-nirâri I. and Nabodaînâni, the descendants of Tukultiassurbel, who at one time shared the throne together.*