The forts of the latter were destroyed, their houses burned, and prisoners were impaled outside the gates of their cities. Having achieved this noble exploit, the king crossed the intervening spurs of Lebanon and marched down to the shores of the Mediterranean. Here he bathed his weapons in the waters, and offered the customary sacrifices to the gods of the sea, while the Phoenicians, with their wonted prudence, hastened to anticipate his demands—Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Mahallat, Maîza, Kaîza, the Amorites and Arvad,* all sending tribute.

One point strikes us forcibly as we trace on the map the march of this victorious hero, namely, the care with which he confined himself to the left bank of the Orontes, and the restraint he exercised in leaving untouched the fertile fields of its valley, whose wealth was so calculated to excite his cupidity. This discretion would be inexplicable, did we not know that there existed in that region a formidable power which he may have thought it imprudent to provoke. It was Damascus which held sway over those territories whose frontiers he respected, and its kings, also suzerains of Hamath and masters of half Israel, were powerful enough to resist, if not conquer, any enemy who might present himself. The fear inspired by Damascus naturally explains the attitude adopted by the Hittite states towards the invader, and the precautions taken by the latter to restrict his operations within somewhat narrow limits. Having accepted the complimentary presents of the Phoenicians, the king again took his way northwards—making a slight detour in order to ascend the Amanos for the purpose of erecting there a stele commemorating his exploits, and of cutting pines, cedars, and larches for his buildings—and then returned to Nineveh amid the acclamations of his people.

In reading the history of this campaign, its plan and the principal events which took place in it appear at times to be the echo of what had happened some centuries before. The recapitulation of the halting-places near the sources of the Tigris and on the banks of the Upper Euphrates, the marches through the valleys of the Zagros or on the slopes of Kashiari, the crushing one by one of the Mesopotamian races, ending in a triumphal progress through Northern Syria, is almost a repetition, both as to the names and order of the places mentioned, of the expedition made by Tiglath-pileser in the first five years of his reign. The question may well arise in passing whether Assur-nazir-pal consciously modelled his campaign on that of his ancestor, as, in Egypt, Ramses III. imitated Ramses II., or whether, in similar circumstances, he instinctively and naturally followed the same line of march. In either case, he certainly showed on all sides greater wisdom than his predecessor, and having attained the object of his ambition, avoided compromising his success by injudiciously attacking Damascus or Babylon, the two powers who alone could have offered effective resistance. The victory he had gained, in 879, over the brother of Nabu-baliddin had immensely flattered his vanity. His panegyrists vied with each other in depicting Karduniash bewildered by the terror of his majesty, and the Chaldæans overwhelmed by the fear of his arms; but he did not allow himself to be carried away by their extravagant flatteries, and continued to the end of his reign to observe the treaties concluded between the two courts in the time of his grandfather Rammân-nirâri.*

He had, however, sufficiently enlarged his dominions, in less than ten years, to justify some display of pride. He himself described his empire as extending, on the west of Assyria proper, from the banks of the Tigris near Nineveh to Lebanon and the Mediterranean;* besides which, Sukhi was subject to him, and this included the province of Rapiku on the frontiers of Babylonia.**

He had added to his older provinces of Amidi, Masios and Singar, the whole strip of Armenian territory at the foot of the Taurus range, from the sources of the Supnat to those of the Bitlis-tchaî, and he held the passes leading to the banks of the Arzania, in Kirruri and Gilzân, while the extensive country of Naîri had sworn him allegiance. Towards the south-east the wavering tribes, which alternately gave their adherence to Assur or Babylon according to circumstances, had ranged themselves on his side, and formed a large frontier province beyond the borders of his hereditary kingdom, between the Lesser Zab and the Turnat. But, despite repeated blows inflicted on them, he had not succeeded in welding these various factors into a compact and homogeneous whole; some small proportion of them were assimilated to Assyria, and were governed directly by royal officials,* but the greater number were merely dependencies, more or less insecurely held by the obligations of vassalage or servitude. In some provinces the native chiefs were under the surveillance of Assyrian residents;** these districts paid an annual tribute proportionate to the resources and products of their country: thus Kirruri and the neighbouring states contributed horses, mules, bulls, sheep, wine, and copper vessels; the Aramaeans gold, silver, lead, copper, both wrought and in the ore, purple, and coloured or embroidered stuffs; while Izalla, Nirbu, Nirdun, and Bît-Zamâni had to furnish horses, chariots, metals, and cattle.

The less civilised and more distant tribes were not, like these, subject to regular tribute, but each time the sovereign traversed their territory or approached within reasonable distance, their chiefs sent or brought to him valuable presents as fresh pledges of their loyalty. Royal outposts, built at regular intervals and carefully fortified, secured the fulfilment of these obligations, and served as depots for storing the commodities collected by the royal officials; such outposts were, Damdamusa on the north-west of the Kashiari range, Tushkhân on the Tigris, Tilluli between the Supnat and the Euphrates, Aribua among the Patina, and others scattered irregularly between the Greater and Lesser Zab, on the Khabur, and also in Naîri. These strongholds served as places of refuge for the residents and their guards in case of a revolt, and as food-depots for the armies in the event of war bringing them into their neighbourhood. In addition to these, Assur-nazir-pal also strengthened the defences of Assyria proper by building fortresses at the points most open to attack; he repaired or completed the defences of Kaksi, to command the plain between the Greater and Lesser Zab and the Tigris; he rebuilt the castles or towers which guarded the river-fords and the entrances to the valleys of the Gebel Makhlub, and erected at Calah the fortified palace which his successors continued to inhabit for the ensuing five hundred years.

Assur-nazir-pal had resided at Nineveh from the time of his accession to the throne; from thence he had set out on four successive campaigns, and thither he had returned at the head of his triumphant troops, there he had received the kings who came to pay him homage, and the governors who implored his help against foreign attacks; thither he had sent rebel chiefs, and there, after they had marched in ignominy through the streets, he had put them to torture and to death before the eyes of the crowd, and their skins were perchance still hanging nailed to the battlements when he decided to change the seat of his capital. The ancient capital no longer suited his present state as a conqueror; the accommodation was too restricted, the decoration too poor, and probably the number of apartments was insufficient to house the troops of women and slaves brought back from his wars by its royal master. Built on the very bank of the Tebilti, one of the tributaries of the Khusur, and hemmed in by three temples, there was no possibility of its enlargement—a difficulty which often occurs in ancient cities. The necessary space for new buildings could only have been obtained by altering the course of the stream, and sacrificing a large part of the adjoining quarters of the city: Assur-nazir-pal therefore preferred to abandon the place and to select a new site where he would have ample space at his disposal.

He found what he required close at hand in the half-ruined city of Calah, where many of his most illustrious predecessors had in times past sought refuge from the heat of Assur. It was now merely an obscure and sleepy town about twelve miles south of Nineveh, on the right bank of the Tigris, and almost at the angle made by the junction of this river with the Greater Zab. The place contained a palace built by Shalmaneser I., which, owing to many years’ neglect, had become uninhabitable. Assur-nazir-pal not only razed to the ground the palaces and temples, but also levelled the mound on which they had been built; he then cleared away the soil down to the water level, and threw up an immense and almost rectangular terrace on which to lay out his new buildings.

The king chose Ninip, the god of war, as the patron of the city, and dedicated to him, at the north-west corner of the terrace, a ziggurât with its usual temple precincts. Here the god was represented as a bull with a man’s head and bust in gilded alabaster, and two yearly feasts were instituted in his honour, one in the month Sebat, the other in the month Ulul. The ziggurât was a little over two hundred feet high, and was probably built in seven stages, of which only one now remains intact: around it are found several independent series of chambers and passages, which may have been parts of other temples, but it is now impossible to say which belonged to the local Belît, which to Sin, to Gula, to Rammân, or to the ancient deity Râ. At the entrance to the largest chamber, on a rectangular pedestal, stood a stele with rounded top, after the Egyptian fashion. On it is depicted a figure of the king, standing erect and facing to the left of the spectator; he holds his mace at his side, his right hand is raised in the attitude of adoration, and above him, on the left upper edge of the stele, are grouped the five signs of the planets; at the base of the stele stands an altar with a triangular pedestal and circular slab ready for the offerings to be presented to the royal founder by priests or people. The palace extended along the south side of the terrace facing the town, and with the river in its rear; it covered a space one hundred and thirty-one yards in length and a hundred and nine in breadth. In the centre was a large court, surrounded by seven or eight spacious halls, appropriated to state functions; between these and the court were many rooms of different sizes, forming the offices and private apartments of the royal house. The whole palace was built of brick faced with stone. Three gateways, flanked by winged, human-headed bulls, afforded access to the largest apartment, the hall of audience, where the king received his subjects or the envoys of foreign powers.* The doorways and walls of some of the rooms were decorated with glazed tiles, but the majority of them were covered with bands of coloured** bas-reliefs which portrayed various episodes in the life of the king—his state-councils, his lion hunts, the reception of tribute, marches over mountains and rivers, chariot-skirmishes, sieges, and the torture and carrying away of captives.

Incised in bands across these pictures are inscriptions extolling the omnipotence of Assur, while at intervals genii with eagles’ beaks, or deities in human form, imperious and fierce, appear with hands full of offerings, or in the act of brandishing thunderbolts against evil spirits. The architect who designed this imposing decoration, and the sculptors who executed it, closely followed the traditions of ancient Chaldæa in the drawing and composition of their designs, and in the use of colour or chisel; but the qualities and defects peculiar to their own race give a certain character of originality to this borrowed art. They exaggerated the stern and athletic aspect of their models, making the figure thick-set, the muscles extraordinarily enlarged, and the features ludicrously accentuated.

Their pictures produce an impression of awkwardness, confusion and heaviness, but the detail is so minute and the animation so great that the attention of the spectator is forcibly arrested; these uncouth beings impress us with the sense of their self-reliance and their confidence in their master, as we watch them brandishing their weapons or hurrying to the attack, and see the shock of battle and the death-blows given and received. The human-headed bulls, standing on guard at the gates, exhibit the calm and pensive dignity befitting creatures conscious of their strength, while the lions passant who sometimes replace them, snarl and show their teeth with an almost alarming ferocity.

The statues of men and gods, as a rule, are lacking in originality. The heavy robes which drape them from head to foot give them the appearance of cylinders tied in at the centre and slightly flattened towards the top. The head surmounting this shapeless bundle is the only life-like part, and even the lower half of this is rendered heavy by the hair and beard, whose tightly curled tresses lie in stiff rows one above the other. The upper part of the face which alone is visible is correctly drawn; the expression is of rather a commonplace type of nobility—respectable but self-sufficient. The features—eyes, forehead, nose, mouth—are all those of Assur-nazir-pal; the hair is arranged in the fashion he affected, and the robe is embroidered with his jewels; but amid all this we miss the keen intelligence always present in Egyptian sculpture, whether under the royal head-dress of Cheops or in the expectant eyes of the sitting scribe: the Assyrian sculptor could copy the general outline of his model fairly well, but could not infuse soul into the face of the conqueror, whose “countenance beamed above the destruction around him.”

The water of the Tigris being muddy, and unpleasant to the taste, and the wells at Calah so charged with lime and bitumen as to render them unwholesome, Assur-nazir-pal supplied the city with water from the neighbouring Zab.* An abundant stream was diverted from this river at the spot now called Negub, and conveyed at first by a tunnel excavated in the rock, and thence by an open canal to the foot of the great terrace: at this point the flow of the water was regulated by dams, and the surplus was utilised for irrigation** purposes by means of openings cut in the banks.

The aqueduct was named Bâbilat-khigal—the bringer of plenty—and, to justify the epithet, date-palms, vines, and many kinds of fruit trees were planted along its course, so that both banks soon assumed the appearance of a shady orchard interspersed with small towns and villas. The population rapidly increased, partly through the spontaneous influx of Assyrians themselves, but still more through the repeated introduction of bands of foreign prisoners: forts, established at the fords of the Zab, or commanding the roads which cross the Gebel Makhlub, kept the country in subjection and formed an inner line of defence at a short distance from the capital.

Assur-nazir-pal kept up a palace, garden, and small temple, near the fort of Imgur-Bel, the modern Balawât: thither he repaired for intervals of repose from state affairs, to enjoy the pleasures of the chase and cool air in the hot season. He did not entirely abandon his other capitals, Nineveh and Assur, visiting them occasionally, but Calah was his favourite seat, and on its adornment he spent the greater part of his wealth and most of his leisure hours. Only once again did he abandon his peaceful pursuits and take the field, about the year 897 B.C., during the eponymy of Shamashnurî. The tribes on the northern boundary of the empire had apparently forgotten the lessons they had learnt at the cost of so much bloodshed at the beginning of his reign: many had omitted to pay the tribute due, one chief had seized the royal cities of Amidi and Damdamusa, and the rebellion threatened to spread to Assyria itself. Assur-nazir-pal girded on his armour and led his troops to battle as vigorously as in the days of his youth. He hastily collected, as he passed through their lands, the tribute due from Kipâni, Izalla, and Kummukh, gained the banks of the Euphrates, traversed Grubbu burning everything on his way, made a detour through Dirria and Kirkhi, and finally halted before the walls of Damdamusa. Six hundred soldiers of the garrison perished in the assault and four hundred were taken prisoners: these he carried to Amidi and impaled as an object-lesson round its walls; but, the defenders of the town remaining undaunted, he raised the siege and plunged into the gorges of the Kashiari. Having there reduced to submission Udâ, the capital of Lapturi, son of Tubisi, he returned to Calah, taking with him six thousand prisoners whom he settled as colonists around his favourite residence. This was his last exploit: he never subsequently quitted his hereditary domain, but there passed the remaining seven years of his life in peace, if not in idleness. He died in 860 B.C., after a reign of twenty-five years. His portraits represent him as a vigorous man, with a brawny neck and broad shoulders, capable of bearing the weight of his armour for many hours at a time. He is short in the head, with a somewhat flattened skull and low forehead; his eyes are large and deep-set beneath bushy eyebrows, his cheek-bones high, and his nose aquiline, with a fleshy tip and wide nostrils, while his mouth and chin are hidden by moustache and beard. The whole figure is instinct with real dignity, yet such dignity as is due rather to rank and the habitual exercise of power, than to the innate qualities of the man.*

The character of Assur-nazir-pal, as gathered from the dry details of his Annals, seems to have been very complex. He was as ambitious, resolute, and active as any prince in the world; yet he refrained from offensive warfare as soon as his victories had brought under his rule the majority of the countries formerly subject to Tiglath-pileser I. He knew the crucial moment for ending a campaign, arresting his progress where one more success might have brought him into collision with some formidable neighbour; and this wise prudence in his undertakings enabled him to retain the principal acquisitions won by his arms. As a worshipper of the gods he showed devotion and gratitude; he was just to his subjects, but his conduct towards his enemies was so savage as to appear to us cruel even for that terribly pitiless age: no king ever employed such horrible punishments, or at least none has described with such satisfaction the tortures inflicted on his vanquished foes.

Perhaps such measures were necessary, and the harshness with which he repressed insurrection prevented more frequent outbreaks and so averted greater sacrifice of life. But the horror of these scenes so appals the modern reader, that at first he can only regard Assur-nazir-pal as a royal butcher of the worst type.

Assur-nazir-pal left to his successor an overflowing treasury, a valiant army, a people proud of their progress and fully confident in their own resources, and a kingdom which had recovered, during several years of peace, from the strain of its previous conquests. Shalmaneser III.* drew largely on the reserves of men and money which his father’s foresight had prepared, and his busy reign of thirty-five years saw thirty-two campaigns, conducted almost without a break, on every side of the empire in succession. A double task awaited him, which he conscientiously and successfully fulfilled.

Assur-nazir-pal had thoroughly reorganised the empire and raised it to the rank of a great power: he had confirmed his provinces and vassal states in their allegiance, and had subsequently reduced to subjection, or, at any rate, penetrated at various points, the little buffer principalities between Assyria and the powerful kingdoms of Babylon, Damascus, and Urartu; but he had avoided engaging any one of these three great states in a struggle of which the issue seemed doubtful. Shalmaneser could not maintain this policy of forbearance without loss of prestige in the eyes of the world: conduct which might seem prudent and cautious in a victorious monarch like Assur-nazir-pal would in him have argued timidity or weakness, and his rivals would soon have provoked a quarrel if they thought him lacking in the courage or the means to attack them. Immediately after his accession, therefore, he assumed the offensive, and decided to measure his strength first against Urartu, which for some years past had been showing signs of restlessness. Few countries are more rugged or better adapted for defence than that in which his armies were about to take the field. The volcanoes to which it owed its configuration in geological times, had become extinct long before the appearance of man, but the surface of the ground still bears evidence of their former activity; layers of basaltic rock, beds of scorias and cinders, streams of half-disintegrated mud and lava, and more or less perfect cones, meet the eye at every turn. Subterranean disturbances have not entirely ceased even now, for certain craters—that of Tandurek, for example—sometimes exhale acid fumes; while hot springs exist in the neighbourhood, from which steaming waters escape in cascades to the valley, and earthquakes and strange subterranean noises are not unknown. The backbone of these Armenian mountains joins towards the south the line of the Grordyasan range; it runs in a succession of zigzags from south-east to northwest, meeting at length the mountains of Pontus and the last spurs of the Caucasus.

Lofty snow-clad peaks, chiefly of volcanic origin, rise here and there among them, the most important being Akhta-dagh, Tandurek, Ararat, Bingoel, and Palandoeken. The two unequal pyramids which form the summit of Ararat are covered with perpetual snow, the higher of them being 16,916 feet above the sea-level. The spurs which issue from the principal chain cross each other in all directions, and make a network of rocky basins where in former times water collected and formed lakes, nearly all of which are now dry in consequence of the breaking down of one or other of their enclosing sides. Two only of these mountain lakes still remain, entirely devoid of outlet, Lake Van in the south, and Lake Urumiah further to the south-east. The Assyrians called the former the Upper Sea of Naîri, and the latter the Lower Sea, and both constituted a defence for Urartu against their attacks. To reach the centre of the kingdom of Urartu, the Assyrians had either to cross the mountainous strip of land between the two lakes, or by making a detour to the north-west, and descending the difficult slopes of the valley of the Arzania, to approach the mountains of Armenia lying to the north of Lake Van. The march was necessarily a slow and painful one for both horses and men, along narrow winding valleys down which rushed rapid streams, over raging torrents, through tangled forests where the path had to be cut as they advanced, and over barren wind-swept plateaux where rain and mist chilled and demoralized soldiers accustomed to the warm and sunny plains of the Euphrates. The majority of the armies which invaded this region never reached the goal of the expedition: they retired after a few engagements, and withdrew as quickly as possible to more genial climes. The main part of the Urartu remained almost always unsubdued behind its barrier of woods, rocks, and lakes, which protected it from the attacks levelled against it, and no one can say how far the kingdom extended in the direction of the Caucasus. It certainly included the valley of the Araxes and possibly part of the valley of the Kur, and the steppes sloping towards the Caspian Sea. It was a region full of contrasts, at once favoured and ill-treated by nature in its elevation and aspect: rugged peaks, deep gorges, dense thickets, districts sterile from the heat of subterranean fires, and sandy wastes barren for lack of moisture, were interspersed with shady valleys, sunny vine-clad slopes, and wide stretches of fertile land covered with rich layers of deep alluvial soil, where thick-standing corn and meadow-lands, alternating with orchards, repaid the cultivator for the slightest attempt at irrigation.

History does not record who were the former possessors of this land; but towards the middle of the ninth century it was divided into several principalities, whose position and boundaries cannot be precisely determined. It is thought that Urartu lay on either side of Mount Ararat and on both banks of the Araxes, that Biainas lay around Lake Van,* and that the Mannai occupied the country to the north and east of Lake Urumiah;** the positions of the other tribes on the different tributaries of the Euphrates or the slopes of the Armenian mountains are as yet uncertain.

The country was probably peopled by a very mixed race, for its mountains have always afforded a safe asylum for refugees, and at each migration, which altered the face of Western Asia, some fugitives from neighbouring nations drifted to the shelter of its fastnesses.

Some of them led a pastoral life, wandering about with their flocks during the greater part of the year, obliged to seek pasturage in valley, forest, or mountain height according to the season, while in winter they remained frost-bound in semi-subterranean dwellings similar to those in which descendants immure themselves at the present day. Where the soil lent itself to agriculture, they proved excellent husbandmen, and obtained abundant crops. Their ingenuity in irrigation was remarkable, and enabled them to bring water by a system of trenches from distant springs to supply their fields and gardens; besides which, they knew how to terrace the steep hillsides so as to prevent the rapid draining away of moisture. Industries were but little developed among them, except perhaps the working of metals; for were they not akin to those Chalybes of the Pontus, whose mines and forges already furnished iron to the Grecian world? Fragments have been discovered in the ruined cities of Urartu of statuettes, cups, and votive shields, either embossed or engraved, and decorated with concentric bands of animals or men, treated in the Assyrian manner, but displaying great beauty of style and remarkable finish of execution.

Their towns were generally fortified or perched on heights, rendering them easy of defence, as, for example, Van and Toprah-Kaleh. Even such towns as were royal residences were small, and not to be compared with the cities of Assyria or Aram; their ground-plan generally assumed the form of a rectangular oblong, not always traced with equal exactitude.

The walls were built of blocks of roughly hewn stone, laid in regular courses, but without any kind of mortar or cement; they were surmounted by battlements, and flanked at intervals by square towers, at the foot of which were outworks to protect the points most open to attack. The entrance was approached by narrow and dangerous pathways, which sometimes ran on ledges across the precipitous face of the rock. The dwelling-houses were of very simple construction, being merely square cabins of stone or brick, devoid of any external ornament, and pierced by one low doorway, but sometimes surmounted by an open colonnade supported by a row of small pillars; a flat roof with a parapet crowned the whole, though this was often replaced by a gabled top, which was better adapted to withstand the rains and snows of winter. The palaces of the chiefs differed from the private houses in the size of their apartments and the greater care bestowed upon their decoration. Their façades were sometimes adorned with columns, and ornamented with bucklers or carved discs of metal; slabs of stone covered with inscriptions lined the inner halls, but we do not know whether the kings added to their dedications to the gods and the recital of their victories, pictures of the battles they had fought and of the fortresses they had destroyed. The furniture resembled that in the houses of Nineveh, but was of simpler workmanship, and perhaps the most valuable articles were imported from Assyria or were of Aramaean manufacture. The temples seemed to have differed little from the palaces, at least in external appearance. The masonry was more regular and more skilfully laid; the outer court was filled with brazen lavers and statues; the interior was furnished with altars, sacrificial stones, idols in human or animal shape, and bowls identical with those in the sanctuaries on the Euphrates, but the nature and details of the rites in which they were employed are unknown. One supreme deity, Khaldis, god of the sky, was, as far as we can conjecture, the protector of the whole nation, and their name was derived from his, as that of the Assyrians was from Assur, the Cossæans from Kashshu, and the Khati from Khâtu.

This deity was assisted in the government of the universe by Teisbas, god of the air, and Ardinîs the sun-god. Groups of secondary deities were ranged around this sovereign triad—Auis, the water; Ayas, the earth; Selardis, the moon; Kharubainis, Irmusinis, Adarutas, and Arzi-melas: one single inscription enumerates forty-six, but some of these were worshipped in special localities only.

It would appear as if no goddesses were included in the native Pantheon. Saris, the only goddess known to us at present, is probably merely a variant of the Ishtar of Nineveh or Arbela, borrowed from the Assyrians at a later date.

The first Assyrian conquerors looked upon these northern regions as an integral part of Naîri, and included them under that name. They knew of no single state in the district whose power might successfully withstand their own, but were merely acquainted with a group of hostile provinces whose internecine conflicts left them ever at the mercy of a foreign foe.* Two kingdoms had, however, risen to some importance about the beginning of the ninth century—that of the Mannai in the east, and that of Urartu in the centre of the country. Urartu comprised the district of Ararat proper, the province of Biaina, and the entire basin of the Arzania.

Arzashkun, one of its capitals, situated probably near the sources of this river, was hidden, and protected against attack, by an extent of dense forest almost impassable to a regular army. The power of this kingdom, though as yet unorganised, had already begun to inspire the neighbouring states with uneasiness. Assur-nazir-pal speaks of it incidentally as lying on the northern frontier of his empire,* but the care he took to avoid arousing its hostility shows the respect in which he held it.

He was, indeed, as much afraid of Urartu as of Damascus, and though he approached quite close to its boundary in his second campaign, he preferred to check his triumphant advance rather than risk attacking it. It appears to have been at that time under the undisputed rule of a certain Sharduris, son of Lutipri, and subsequently, about the middle of Assur-nazir-pal’s reign, to have passed into the hands of Aramê, who styled himself King of Naîri, and whose ambition may have caused those revolts which forced Assur-nazir-pal to take up arms in the eighteenth year of his reign. On this occasion the Assyrians again confined themselves to the chastisement of their own vassals, and checked their advance as soon as they approached Urartu. Their success was but temporary; hardly had they withdrawn from the neighbourhood, when the disturbances were renewed with even greater violence, very probably at the instigation of Aramê. Shalmaneser III. found matters in a very unsatisfactory state both on the west and south of Lake Van: some of the peoples who had been subject to his father—the Khubushkia, the pastoral tribes of the Gordæan mountains, and the Aramæans of the Euphrates—had transferred their allegiance elsewhere. He immediately took measures to recall them to a sense of their duty, and set out from Calah only a few days after succeeding to the crown. He marched at first in an easterly direction, and, crossing the pass of Simisi, burnt the city of Aridi, thus proving that he was fully prepared to treat rebels after the same fashion as his father. The lesson had immediate effect. All the neighbouring tribes, Khargæans, Simisæans, the people of Simira, Sirisha, and Ulmania, hastened to pay him homage even before he had struck his camp near Aridi. Hurrying across country by the shortest route, which entailed the making of roads to enable his chariots and cavalry to follow him, he fell upon Khubushkia, and reduced a hundred towns to ashes, pursuing the king Kakia into the depths of the forest, and forcing him to an unconditional surrender. Ascending thence to Shugunia, a dependency of Aramê’s, he laid the principality waste, in spite of the desperate resistance made on their mountain slopes by the inhabitants; then proceeding to Lake Van, he performed the ceremonial rites incumbent on an Assyrian king whenever he stood for the first time on the shores of a new sea. He washed his weapons in the waters, offered a sacrifice to the gods, casting some portions of the victim into the lake, and before leaving carved his own image on the surface of a commanding rock. On his homeward march he received tribute from Gilzân. This expedition was but the prelude of further successes. After a few weeks’ repose at Nineveh, he again set out to make his authority felt in the western portions of his dominions.

Akhuni, chief of Bît-Adini, whose position was the first to be menaced, had formed a league with the chiefs of all the cities which had formerly bowed before Assur-nazir-pal’s victorious arms, Gurgum, Samalla, Kuî, the Patina, Car-chemish, and the Khâti. Shalmaneser seized Lalati* and Burmarana, two of Akhuni’s towns, drove him across the Euphrates, and following close on his heels, collected as he passed the tribute of Gurgum, and fell upon Samalla.