One kinglet, however, Amika of Zamru, showed no intention of capitulating. Entrenched behind a screen of forests and frowning mountain ridges, he fearlessly awaited the attack. The only access to the remote villages over which he ruled, was by a few rough roads hemmed in between steep cliffs and beds of torrents; difficult and dangerous at ordinary times, they were blocked in war by temporary barricades, and dominated at every turn by some fortress perched at a dizzy height above them. After his return to the camp, where his soldiers were allowed a short respite, Assur-nazir-pal set out against Zamru, though he was careful not to approach it directly and attack it at its most formidable points. Between two peaks of the Lara and Bidirgi ranges he discovered a path which had been deemed impracticable for horses, or even for heavily armed men. By this route, the king, unsuspected by the enemy, made his way through the mountains, and descended so unexpectedly upon Zamru, that Amika had barely time to make his escape, abandoning everything in his alarm—palace, treasures, harem, and even his chariot.* A body of Assyrians pursued him hotly beyond the fords of the Lallu, chasing him as far as Mount Itini; then, retracing their steps to headquarters, they at once set out on a fresh track, crossed the Idir, and proceeded to lay waste the plains of Ilaniu and Suâni.**

Despairing of taking Amika prisoner, Assur-nazir-pal allowed him to lie hidden among the brushwood of Mount Sabua, while he himself called a halt at Parsindu,* and set to work to organise the fruits of his conquest.

He placed garrisons in the principal towns—-at Parsindu, Zamru, and at Arakdi in Lullumê, which one of his predecessors had re-named Tukulti-Ashshur-azbat,* —“I have taken the help of Assur.” He next imposed on the surrounding country an annual tribute of gold, silver, lead, copper, dyed stuffs, oxen, sheep, and wine. Envoys from neighbouring kings poured in—from Khudun; Khubushkia, and Gilzân, and the whole of Northern Zamua bowed “before the splendour of his arms;” it now needed only a few raids resolutely directed against Mounts Azîra and Simaki, as far as the Turn at, to achieve the final pacification of the South. While in this neighbourhood, his attention was directed to the old town of Atlîla,** built by Sibir,*** an ancient king of Karduniash, but which had been half ruined by the barbarians. He re-named it Dur-Assur, “the fortress of Assur,” and built himself within it a palace and storehouses, in which he accumulated large quantities of corn, making the town the strongest bulwark of his power on the Cossæan border.

The two campaigns of B.C. 882 and 881 had cost Assur-nazir-pal great efforts, and their results had been inadequate to the energy expended. His two principal adversaries, Nurrammân and Amika, had eluded him, and still preserved their independence at the eastern extremities of their former states. Most of the mountain tribes had acknowledged the king’s supremacy merely provisionally, in order to rid themselves of his presence; they had been vanquished scores of times, but were in no sense subjugated, and the moment pressure was withdrawn, they again took up arms. The districts of Zamua alone, which bordered on the Assyrian plain, and had been occupied by a military force, formed a province, a kind of buffer state between the mountain tribes and the plains of the Zab, protecting the latter from incursions.

Assur-nazir-pal, feeling himself tolerably safe on that side, made no further demands, and withdrew his battalions to the westward part of his northern frontier. He hoped, no doubt, to complete the subjugation of the tribes who still contested the possession of various parts of the Kashiari, and then to push forward his main guard as far as the Euphrates and the Arzania, so as to form around the plain of Amidi a zone of vassals or tutelary subjects like those of Zamua. With this end in view, he crossed the Tigris near its source at the traditional fords, and made his way unmolested in the bend of the Euphrates from the palace of Tilluli, where the accustomed tribute of Kummukh was brought to him, to the fortress of Ishtarâti, and from thence to Kibaki. The town of Matiatê, having closed its gates against him, was at once sacked, and this example so stimulated the loyalty of the Kurkhi chiefs, that they ha*tened to welcome him at the neighbouring military station of Zazabukha. The king’s progress continued thence as before, broken by frequent halts at the most favourable points for levying contributions on the inhabitants.1 Assur-nazir-pal encountered no serious difficulty except on the northern slopes of the Kashiari, but there again fortune smiled on him; all the contested positions were soon ceded to him, including even Madara, whose fourfold circuit of walls did not avail to save it from the conqueror.** After a brief respite at Tushkhân, he set out again one evening with his lightest chariots and the pick of his horsemen, crossed the Tigris on rafts, rode all night, and arrived unexpectedly the next morning before Pitura, the chief town of the Dirrabans.*** It was surrounded by a strong double enceinte, through which he broke after forty-eight hours of continuous assault: 800 of its men perished in the breach, and 700 others were impaled before the gates.

Arbaki, at the extreme limits of Eirkhi, was the next to succumb, after which the Assyrians, having pillaged Dirra, carried the passes of Matni after a bloody combat, spread themselves over Naîri, burning 250 of its towns and villages, and returned with immense booty to Tushkhân. They had been there merely a few days when the newt arrived that the people of Bît-Zamâni, always impatient of the yoke, had murdered their prince Ammibaal, and had proclaimed a certain Burramman in his place. Assur-nazir-pal marched upon Sinabux and repressed the insurrection, reaping a rich harvest of spoil—chariots fully equipped, 600 draught-horses, 130 pounds of silver and as much of gold, 6600 pounds of lead and the same of copper, 19,800 pounds of iron, stuffs, furniture in gold and ivory, 2000 bulls, 500 sheep, the entire harem of Ammibaal, besides a number of maidens of noble family together with their dresses. Burramman was by the king’s order flayed alive, and Arteanu his brother chosen as his successor. Sinabu* and the surrounding towns formed part of that network of colonies which in times past Shalmaneser I. had organised as a protection from the incursions of the inhabitants of Naîri; Assur-nazir-pal now used it as a rallying-place for the remaining Assyrian families, to whom he distributed lands and confided the guardianship of the neighbouring strongholds.

The results of this measure were not long in making themselves felt: Shupria, Ulliba, and Nirbu, besides other districts, paid their dues to the king, and Shura in Khamanu,* which had for some time held out against the general movement, was at length constrained to submit (880 B.C.).

However high we may rate the value of this campaign, it was eclipsed by the following one. The Aramæans on the Khabur and the middle Euphrates had not witnessed without anxiety the revival of Ninevite activity, and had begged for assistance against it from its rival. Two of their principal tribes, the Sukhi and the Laqi, had addressed themselves to the sovereign then reigning at Babylon. He was a restless, ambitious prince, named Nabu-baliddin, who asked nothing better than to excite a hostile feeling against his neighbour, provided he ran no risk by his interference of being drawn into open warfare. He accordingly despatched to the Prince of Sukhi the best of his Cossoan troops, commanded by his brother Zabdanu and one of the great officers of the crown, Bel-baliddin. In the spring of 879 B.C., Assur-nazir-pal determined once for all to put an end to these intrigues. He began by inspecting the citadels flanking the line of the Kharmish* and the Khabur,—Tabiti,** Magarisi,*** Shadikanni, Shuru in Bît-Khafupi, and Sirki.****

Between the embouchures of the Khabur and the Balîkh, the Euphrates winds across a vast table-land, ridged with marly hills; the left bank is dry and sterile, shaded at rare intervals by sparse woods of poplars or groups of palms. The right bank, on the contrary, is seamed with fertile valleys, sufficiently well watered to permit the growth of cereals and the raising of cattle. The river-bed is almost everywhere wide, but strewn with dangerous rocks and sandbanks which render navigation perilous. On nearing the ruins of Halebiyeh, the river narrows as it enters the Arabian hills, and cuts for itself a regular defile of three or four hundred paces in length, which is approached by the pilots with caution.*

Assur-nazir-pal, on leaving Sirki, made his way along the left bank, levying toll on Supri, Naqarabâni, and several other villages in his course. Here and there he called a halt facing some town on the opposite bank, but the boats which could have put him across had been removed, and the fords were too well guarded to permit of his hazarding an attack. One town, however, Khindânu, made him a voluntary offering which, he affected to regard as a tribute, but Kharidi and Anat appeared not even to suspect his presence in their vicinity, and he continued on his way without having obtained from them anything which could be construed into a mark of vassalage.*

At length, on reaching Shuru, Shadadu, the Prince of Sukhi, trusting in his Cossoans, offered him battle; but he was defeated by Assur-na’zir-pal, who captured the King of Babylon’s brother, forced his way into the town after an assault lasting two days, and returned to Assyria laden with spoil. This might almost be considered as a repulse; for no sooner had the king quitted the country than the Aramaeans in their turn crossed the Euphrates and ravaged the plains of the Khabur.* Assur-nazir-pal resolved not to return until he was in a position to carry his arms into the heart of the enemy’s country. He built a flotilla at Shuru in Bît-Khalupi on which he embarked his troops. Wherever the navigation of the Euphrates proved to be difficult, the boats were drawn up out of the water and dragged along the banks over rollers until they could again be safely launched; thus, partly afloat and partly on land, they passed through the gorge of Halebiyeh, landed at Kharidi, and inflicted a salutary punishment on the cities which had defied the king’s wrath on his last expedition. Khindânu, Kharidi, and Kipina were reduced to ruins, and the Sukhi and the Laqi defeated, the Assyrians pursuing them for two days in the Bisuru mountains as far as the frontiers of Bit-Adini.**

A complete submission was brought about, and its permanency secured by the erection of two strongholds, one of which, Kar-assur-nazir-pal, commanded the left, and the other, Nibarti-assur, the right bank of the Euphrates.*

This last expedition had brought the king into contact with the most important of the numerous Aramaean states congregated in the western region of Mesopotamia. This was Bît-Adini, which lay on both sides of the middle course of the Euphrates.** It included, on the right bank, to the north of Carchemish, between the hills on the Sajur and Arabân-Su, a mountainous but fertile district, dotted over with towns and fortresses, the names of some of which have been preserved—Pakarrukhbuni, Sursunu, Paripa, Dabigu, and Shitamrat.*** Tul-Barsip, the capital, was situated on the left bank, commanding the fords of the modern Birejîk,**** and the whole of the territory between this latter and the Balîkh acknowledged the rule of its princes, whose authority also extended eastwards as far as the basaltic plateau of Tul-Abâ, in the Mesopotamian desert.

To the south-east, Bît-Adini bordered upon the country of the Sukhi and the Laqi,* lying to the east of Assyria; other principalities, mainly of Aramoan origin, formed its boundary to the north and north-west—Shugab in the bend of the Euphrates, from Birejîk to Samosata,** Tul-Abnî around Edessa,*** the district of Harrân,**** Bît-Zamani, Izalla in the Tektek-dagh and on the Upper Khabur, and Bît-Bakhiâni in the plain extending from the Khabur to the Kharmish.^

Bît-Zamani had belonged to Assyria by right of conquest ever since the death of Ammibaal; Izalla and Bît-Bakhiâni had fulfilled their duties as vassals whenever Assur-nazir-pal had appeared in their neighbourhood; Bît-Adini alone had remained independent, though its strength was more apparent than real. The districts which it included had never been able to form a basis for a powerful state. If by chance some small kingdom arose within it, uniting under one authority the tribes scattered over the burning plain or along the river banks, the first conquering dynasty which sprang up in the neighbourhood would be sure to effect its downfall, and absorb it under its own leadership. As Mitâni, saved by its remote position from bondage to Egypt, had not been able to escape from acknowledging the supremacy of the Khâti, so Bît-Adini was destined to fall almost without a struggle under the yoke of the Assyrians. It was protected from their advance by the volcanic groups of the Urâa and Tul-Abâ, which lay directly in the way of the main road from the marshes of the Khabur to the outskirts of Tul-Barsip. Assur-nazir-pal, who might have worked round this line of natural defence to the north through Nirbu, or to the south through his recently acquired province of Lâqi, preferred to approach it in front; he faced the desert, and, in spite of the drought, he invested the strongest citadel of Tul-Abâ in the month of June, 877 B.C. The name of the place was Kaprabi, and its inhabitants believed it impregnable, clinging as it did to the mountain-side “like a cloud in the sky.” *

The king, however, soon demolished its walls by sapping and by the use of the ram, killed 800 of its garrison, burned its houses, and carried off 2400 men with their families, whom he installed in one of the suburbs of Calah. Akhuni, who was then reigning in Bît-Adini, had not anticipated that the invasion would reach his neighbourhood: he at once sent hostages and purchased peace by a tribute; the Lord of Tul-Abnî followed his example, and the dominion of Assyria was carried at a blow to the very frontier of the Khâti. It was about two centuries before this that Assurirba had crossed these frontiers with his vanquished army, but the remembrance of his defeat had still remained fresh in the memory of the people, as a warning to the sovereign who should attempt the old hazardous enterprise, and repeat the exploits of Sargon of Agadê or of Tiglath-pileser I. Assur-nazir-pal made careful preparations for this campaign, so decisive a one for his own prestige and for the future of the empire. He took with him not only all the Assyrian troops at his disposal, but requisitioned by the way the armies of his most recently acquired vassals, incorporating them with his own, not so much for the purpose of augmenting his power of action, as to leave no force in his rear when once he was engaged hand to hand with the Syrian legions. He left Calah in the latter days of April, 876 B.C.,* receiving the customary taxes from Bît-Bakhiâni, Izalla, and Bît-Adini, which comprised horses, silver, gold, copper, lead, precious stuffs, vessels of copper and furniture of ivory; having reached Tul-Barsip, he accepted the gifts offered by Tul-Abni, and crossing the Euphrates upon rafts of inflated skins, he marched his columns against Oarchemish.

The political organisation of Northern Syria had remained entirely unaltered since the days when Tiglath-pileser made his first victorious inroad into the country. The Cilician empire which succeeded to the Assyrian—if indeed it ever extended as far as some suppose—did not last long enough to disturb the balance of power among the various races occupying Syria: it had subjugated them for a time, but had not been able to break them up and reconstitute them. At the downfall of the Cilician Empire the small states were still intact, and occupied, as of old, the territory comprising the ancient Naharaim of the Egyptians, the plateau between the Orontes and the Euphrates, the forests and marshy lowlands of the Amanos, the southern slopes of Taurus, and the plains of Cilicia.

Of these states, the most famous, though not then the most redoubtable, was that with which the name of the Khâti is indissolubly connected, and which had Carchemish as its capital. This ancient city, seated on the banks of the Euphrates, still maintained its supremacy there, but though its wealth and religious ascendency were undiminished, its territory had been curtailed. The people of Bît-Adini had intruded themselves between this state and Kummukh, Arazik hemmed it in on the south, Khazazu and Khalmân confined it on the west, so that its sway was only freely exercised in the basin of the Sajur. On the north-west frontier of the Khâti lay Gurgum, whose princes resided at Marqasi and ruled over the central valley of the Pyramos together with the entire basin of the Ak-su. Mikhri,* Iaudi, and Samalla lay on the banks of the Saluara, and in the forests of the Amanos to the south of Gurgum. Kuî maintained its uneventful existence amid the pastures of Cilicia, near the marshes at the mouth of the Pyramos. To the south of the Sajur, Bît-Agusi** barred the way to the Orontes; and from their lofty fastness of Arpad, its chiefs kept watch over the caravan road, and closed or opened it at their will.

They held the key of Syria, and though their territory was small in extent, their position was so strong that for more than a century and a half the majority of the Assyrian generals preferred to avoid this stronghold by making a detour to the west, rather than pass beneath its walls. Scattered over the plateau on the borders of Agusi, or hidden in the valleys of Amanos, were several less important principalities, most of them owing allegiance to Lubarna, at that time king of the Patina and the most powerful sovereign of the district. The Patina had apparently replaced the Alasia of Egyptian times, as Bît-Adini had superseded Mitâni; the fertile meadow-lands to the south of Samalla on the Afrîn and the Lower Orontes, together with the mountainous district between the Orontes and the sea as far as the neighbourhood of Eleutheros, also belonged to the Patina.

On the southern frontier of the Patina lay the important Phoenician cities, Arvad, Arka, and Sina; and on the south-east, the fortresses belonging to Hamath and Damascus. The characteristics of the country remained unchanged. Fortified towns abounded on all sides, as well as large walled villages of conical huts, like those whose strange outlines on the horizon are familiar to the traveller at the present-day. The manners and civilisation of Chaldæa pervaded even more than formerly the petty courts, but the artists clung persistently to Asianic tradition, and the bas-reliefs which adorned the palaces and temples were similar in character to those we find scattered throughout Asia Minor; there is the same inaccurate drawing, the same rough execution, the same tentative and awkward composition.

The scribes from force of custom still employed the cuneiform syllabary in certain official religious or royal inscriptions, but, as it was difficult to manipulate and limited in application, the speech of the Aramæan immigrants and the Phoenician alphabet gradually superseded the ancient language and mode of writing.*

Thus these Northern Syrians became by degrees assimilated to the people of Babylon and Nineveh, much as the inhabitants of a remote province nowadays adapt their dress, their architecture, their implements of husbandry and handicraft, their military equipment and organisation, to the fashions of the capital.*

Their armies were modelled on similar lines, and consisted of archers, plkemen, slingers, and those troops of horsemen which accompanied the chariotry on flying raids; the chariots, moreover, closely followed the Assyrian type, even down to the padded bar with embroidered hangings which connected the body of the chariot with the end of the pole.

The Syrian princes did not adopt the tiara, but they wore the long fringed robe, confined by a girdle at the waist, and their mode of life, with its ceremonies, duties, and recreations, differed little from that prevailing in the palaces of Calah or Babylon. They hunted big game, including the lion, according to the laws of the chase recognised at Nineveh, priding themselves as much on their exploits in hunting, as on their triumphs in war.

Their religion was derived from the common source which underlay all Semitic religions, but a considerable number of Babylonian deities were also worshipped; these had been introduced in some cases without any modification, whilst in others they had been assimilated to more ancient gods bearing similar characteristics: at Nerab, among the Patina, Nusku and his female companion Nikal, both of Chaldæan origin, claimed the homage of the faithful, to the disparagement of Shahr the moon and Shamash the sun. Local cults often centred round obscure deities held in little account by the dominant races; thus Samalla reverenced Uru the light, Bekubêl the wind, the chariot of El, not to mention El himself, Besheph, Hadad, and the Cabin, the servants of Besheph.

These deities were mostly of the Assyrian type, and if one may draw any conclusion from the few representations of them already discovered, their rites must have been celebrated in a manner similar to that followed in the cities on the Lower Euphrates. Scarcely any signs of Egyptian influence survived, though here and there a trace of it might be seen in the figures of calf or bull, the vulture of Mut or the sparrow-hawk of Horus. Assur-nazir-pal, marching from the banks of the Khabur to Bît-Adini, and from Bît-Adini passing on to Northern Syria, might almost have imagined himself still in his own dominions, so gradual and imperceptible were the changes in language and civilisation in the country traversed between Nineveh and Assur, Tul-Barsip and Samalla.

His expedition was unattended by danger or bloodshed. Lubarna, the reigning prince of the Patina, was possibly at that juncture meditating the formation of a Syrian empire under his rule. Unki, in which lay his capital of Kunulua, was one of the richest countries of Asia,* being well watered by the Afrin, Orontes, and Saluara;** no fields produced such rich harvests as his, no meadows pastured such cattle or were better suited to the breeding of war-horses.

His mountain provinces yielded him wood and minerals, and provided a reserve of semi-savage woodcutters and herdsmen from which to recruit his numerous battalions. The neighbouring princes, filled with uneasiness or jealousy by his good fortune, saw in the Assyrian monarch a friend and a liberator rather than an enemy. Carchemish opened its gates and laid at his feet the best of its treasures—twenty talents of silver, ingots, rings, and daggers of gold, a hundred talents of copper, two hundred talents of iron, bronze bulls, cups decorated with scenes in relief or outline, ivory in the tusk or curiously wrought, purple and embroidered stuffs, and the state carriage of its King Shangara. The Hittite troops, assembled in haste, joined forces with the Aramæan auxiliaries, and the united host advanced on Coele-Syria. The scribe commissioned to record the history of this expedition has taken a delight in inserting the most minute details. Leaving Carchemish, the army followed the great caravan route, and winding its way between the hills of Munzigâni and Khamurga, skirting Bît-Agusi, at length arrived under the walls of Khazazu among the Patina.*

The town having purchased immunity by a present of gold and of finely woven stuffs, the army proceeded to cross the Apriê, on the bank of which an entrenched camp was formed for the storage of the spoil. Lubarna offered no resistance, but nevertheless refused to acknowledge his inferiority; after some delay, ifc was decided to make a direct attack on his capital, Kunulua, whither he had retired. The appearance of the Assyrian vanguard put a speedy end to his ideas of resistance: prostrating himself before his powerful adversary, he offered hostages, and emptied his palaces and stables to provide a ransom. This comprised twenty talents of silver, one talent of gold, a hundred talents of lead, a hundred talents of iron, a thousand bulls, ten thousand sheep, daughters of his nobles with befitting changes of garments, and all the paraphernalia of vessels, jewels, and costly stuffs which formed the necessary furniture of a princely household. The effect of his submission on his own vassals and the neighbouring tribes was shown in different ways. Bît-Agusi at once sent messengers to congratulate the conqueror, but the mountain provinces awaited the invader’s nearer approach before following its example. Assur-nazir-pal, seeing that they did not take the initiative, crossed the Orontes, probably at the spot where the iron bridge now stands, and making his way through the country between laraku and Iaturi,* reached the banks of the Sangura* without encountering any difficulty.

After a brief halt there in camp, he turned his back on the sea, and passing between Saratini and Duppâni,* took by assault the fortress of Aribua.** This stronghold commanded all the surrounding country, and was the seat of a palace which Lubarna at times used as a similar residence. Here Assur-nazir-pal took up his quarters, and deposited within its walls the corn and spoils of Lukhuti;*** he established here an Assyrian colony, and, besides being the scene of royal festivities, it became henceforth the centre of operations against the mountain tribes.