Under the walls of Lutibu he overthrew the combined forces of Adini, Samalla, and the Patina, and raised a trophy to commemorate his victory at the sources of the Saluara; then turning sharply to the south, he crossed the Orontes in pursuit of Shapalulme, King of the Patina.

Not far from Alizir he encountered a fresh army raised by Akhuni and the King of Samalla, with contingents from Carchemish, Kuî, Cilicia, and Iasbuki:* having routed it, he burnt the fortresses of Shapalulme, and after occupying himself by cutting down cedars and cypress trees on the Amanos in the province of Atalur, he left a triumphal stele engraved on the mountain-side.

Next turning eastwards, he received the homage offered with alacrity by the towns of Taia, Khazazu, Nulia, and Butamu, and, with a final tribute from Agusi, he returned in triumph to Nineveh. The motley train which accompanied, him showed by its variety the immense extent of country he had traversed during this first campaign. Among the prisoners were representatives of widely different races;—Khâti with long robes and cumbrous head-dresses, following naked mountaineers from Shugunia, who marched with yokes on their necks, and wore those close-fitting helmets with short crests which have such a strangely modern look on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. The actual results of the campaign were, perhaps, hardly commensurate with the energy expended. This expedition from east to west had certainly inflicted considerable losses on the rebels against whom it had been directed; it had cost them dearly in men and cattle, and booty of all kinds, and had extorted from them a considerable amount of tribute, but they remained, notwithstanding, still unsubdued. As soon as the Assyrian troops had quitted their neighbourhood, they flattered themselves they were safe from further attack. No doubt they thought that a show of submission would satisfy the new invader, as it had satisfied his father; but Shalmaneser was not disposed to rest content with this nominal dependence. He intended to exercise effective control over all the states won by his sword, and the proof of their subjection was to be the regular payment of tribute and fulfilment of other obligations to their suzerain. Year by year he unfailingly enforced his rights, till the subject states were obliged to acknowledge their master and resign themselves to servitude.

The narrative of his reiterated efforts is a monotonous one. The king advanced against Adini in the spring of 859 B.C., defeated Akhuni near Tul-barsip, transported his victorious regiments across the Euphrates on rafts of skins, seized Surunu, Paripa, and Dabigu* besides six fortresses and two hundred villages, and then advanced into the territory of Carchemish, which he proceeded to treat with such severity that the other Hittite chiefs hastened to avert a similar fate by tendering their submission.

The very enumeration of their offerings proves not only their wealth, but the terror inspired by the advancing Assyrian host: Shapalulmê of the Patina, for instance, yielded up three talents of gold, a hundred talents of silver, three hundred talents of copper, and three hundred of iron, and paid in addition to this an annual tribute of one talent of silver, two talents of purple, and two hundred great beams of cedar-wood. Samalla, Agusi, and Kummukh were each laid under tribute in proportion to their resources, but their surrender did not necessarily lead to that of Adini. Akhuni realised that, situated as he was on the very borders of Assyrian territory, there was no longer a chance of his preserving his semi-independence, as was the case with his kinsfolk beyond the Euphrates; proximity to the capital would involve a stricter servitude, which would soon reduce him from the condition of a vassal to that of a subject, and make him merely a governor where he had hitherto reigned as king. Abandoned by the Khâti, he sought allies further north, and entered into a league with the tribes of Naîri and Urartu. When, in 858 B.C., Shalmaneser III. forced an entrance into Tul-barsip, and drove back what was left of the garrison on the right bank of the Euphrates, a sudden movement of Aramê obliged him to let the prey escape from his grasp. Rapidly fortifying Tul-barsip, Nappigi, Aligu, Pitru, and Mutkînu, and garrisoning them with loyal troops to command the fords of the river, as his ancestor Shalmaneser I. had done six centuries before,* he then re-entered Naîri by way of Bît-Zamani, devastated Inziti with fire and sword, forced a road through to the banks of the Arzania, pillaged Sukhmi and Dayaîni, and appeared under the walls of Arzashkun.

Aramê withdrew to Mount Adduri and awaited his attack in an almost impregnable position; he was nevertheless defeated: 3400 of his soldiers fell on the field of battle; his camp, his treasures, his chariots, and all his baggage passed into the hands of the conqueror, and he himself barely escaped with his life. Shalmaneser ravaged the country “as a savage bull ravages and tramples under his feet the fertile fields;” he burnt the villages and the crops, destroyed Arzashkun, and raised before its gates a pyramid of human heads, surrounded by a circle of prisoners impaled on stakes. He climbed the mountain chain of Iritia, and laid waste Aramali and Zanziuna at his leisure, and descending for the second time to the shores of Lake Van, renewed the rites he had performed there in the first year of his reign, and engraved on a neighbouring rock an inscription recording his deeds of prowess.

He made his way back to Gilzân, where its king, Shua, brought him a war-horse fully caparisoned, as a token of homage. Shalmaneser graciously deigned to receive it, and further exacted from the king the accustomed contributions of chariot-horses, sheep, and wine, together with seven dromedaries, whose strange forms amused the gaping crowds of Nineveh. After quitting Gilzân, Shalmaneser encountered the people of Khubushkia, who ventured to bar his way; but its king, Kakia, lost his city of Shilaia, and three thousand soldiers, besides bulls, horses, and sheep innumerable. Having enforced submission in Khubushkia, Shalmaneser at length returned to Assur through the defiles of Kirruri, and came to Calah to enjoy a well-earned rest after the fatigues of his campaign.

But Akhuni had not yet lost heart. Though driven back to the right bank of the Euphrates, he had taken advantage of the diversion created by Aramê in his favour, to assume a strong position among the hills of Shitamrat with the river in his rear.*

Shalmaneser attacked his lines in front, and broke through them after three days’ preliminary skirmishing; then finding the enemy drawn up in battle array before their last stronghold, the king charged without a moment’s hesitation, drove them back and forced them to surrender. Akhuni’s life was spared, but he was sent with the remainder of his army to colonise a village in the neighbourhood of Assur, and Adini became henceforth an integral part of Assyria.

The war on the western frontier was hardly brought to a close when another broke out in the opposite direction. The king rapidly crossed the pass of Bunagishlu and fell upon Mazamua: the natives, disconcerted by his impetuous onslaught, nevertheless hoped to escape by putting out in their boats on the broad expanse of Lake Urumiah. Shalmaneser, however, constructed rafts of inflated skins, on which his men ventured in pursuit right out into the open. The natives were overpowered; the king “dyed the sea with their blood as if it had been wool,” and did not withdraw until he had forced them to appeal for mercy.

In five years Shalmaneser had destroyed Adini, laid low Urartu, and confirmed the tributary states of Syria in their allegiance; but Damascus and Babylon were as yet untouched, and the moment was at hand when he would have to choose between an arduous conflict with them, or such a repression of the warlike zeal of his opening years, that, like his father Assur-nazir-pal, he would have to repose on his laurels. Shalmaneser was too deeply imbued with the desire for conquest to choose a peaceful policy: he decided at once to assume the offensive against Damascus, being probably influenced by the news of Ahab’s successes, and deeming that if the King of Israel had gained the ascendency unaided, Assur, fully confident of its own superiority, need have no fear as to the result of a conflict. The forces, however, at the disposal of Benhadad II. (Adadidri) were sufficient to cause the Assyrians some uneasiness. The King of Damascus was not only lord of Coele-Syria and the Haurân, but he exercised a suzerainty more or less defined over Hamath, Israel, Ammon, the Arabian and Idumean tribes, Arvad and the principalities of Northern Phoenicia, Usanata, Shianu, and Irkanata;* in all, twelve peoples or twelve kings owned his sway, and their forces, if united to his, would provide at need an army of nearly 100,000 men: a few years might see these various elements merged in a united empire, capable of withstanding the onset of any foreign foe.**

Shalmaneser set out from Nineveh on the 14th day of the month Iyyâr, 854 B.C., and chastised on his way the Aramaeans of the Balikh, whose sheikh Giammu had shown some inclination to assert his independence. He crossed the Euphrates at Tul-harsip, and held a species of durbar at Pitru for his Syrian subjects: Sangar of Carchemish, Kundashpi of Kummukh, Aramê of Agusi, Lalli of Melitene, Khaiani of Samalla, Garparuda who had succeeded Shapalulmê among the Patina, and a second Garparuda of Gurgum, rallied around him with their presents of welcome, and probably also with their troops. This ceremony concluded, he hastened to Khalmaa and reduced it to submission, then plunged into the hill-country between Khalmân and the Orontes, and swept over the whole territory of Hamath. A few easy victories at the outset enabled him to exact ransom from, or burn to the ground, the cities of Adinnu, Mashgâ, Arganâ, and Qarqar, but just beyond Qarqar he encountered the advance-guard of the Syrian army.*

Ben-hadad had called together, to give him a fitting reception, the whole of the forces at his disposal: 1200 chariots, 1200 horse, 20,000 foot-soldiers from Damascus alone; 700 chariots, 700 horse and 10,000 foot from Hamath; 2000 chariots and 10,000 foot belonging to Ahab, 500 soldiers from Kuî, 1000 mountaineers from the Taurus,* 10 chariots and 10,000 foot from Irk and 200 from Arvad, 200 from Usanata, 30 chariots and 10,000 foot from Shianu, 1000 camels from Gindibu the Arab, and 1000 Ammonites.

The battle was long and bloody, and the issue uncertain; Shalmaneser drove back one wing of the confederate army to the Orontes, and forcing the other wing and the centre to retire from Qarqar to Kirzau, claimed the victory, though the losses on both sides were equally great. It would seem as if the battle were indecisive—the Assyrians, at any rate, gained nothing by it; they beat a retreat immediately after their pretended victory, and returned to their own land without prisoners and almost without booty. On the whole, this first conflict had not been unfavourable to Damascus: it had demonstrated the power of that state in the eyes of the most incredulous, and proved how easy resistance would be, if only the various princes of Syria would lay aside their differences and all unite under the command of a single chief. The effect of the battle in Northern Syria and among the recently annexed Aïamoan tribes was very great; they began to doubt the omnipotence of Assyria, and their loyalty was shaken. Sangar of Carchemish and the Khâti refused to pay their tribute, and the Emirs of Tul-Abnî and Mount Kashiari broke out into open revolt. Shalmaneser spent a whole year in suppressing the insurrection; complications, moreover, arose at Babylon which obliged him to concentrate his attention and energy on Chaldæan affairs. Nabu-baliddin had always maintained peaceful and friendly relations with Assyria, but he had been overthrown, or perhaps assassinated, and his son Marduk-nadin-shumu had succeeded him on the throne, to the dissatisfaction of a section of his subjects. Another son of Nabu-baliddin, Marduk-belusâtê, claimed the sovereign power, and soon won over so much of the country that Marduk-nâdin-shumu had fears for the safety of Babylon itself. He then probably remembered the pretensions to Kharduniash, which his Assyrian neighbours had for a long time maintained, and applied to Shalmaneser to support his tottering fortunes. The Assyrian monarch must have been disposed to lend a favourable ear to a request which allowed him to intervene as suzerain in the quarrels of the rival kingdom: he mobilised his forces, offered sacrifices in honour of Bammân at Zabân, and crossed the frontier in 853 B.C.*

The war dragged on during the next two years. The scene of hostilities was at the outset on the left bank of the Tigris, which for ten centuries had served as the battle-field for the warriors of both countries. Shalmaneser, who had invested Me-Turnat at the fords of the Lower Dîyalah, at length captured that fortress, and after having thus isolated the rebels of Babylonia proper, turned his steps towards G-ananatê.**

Marduk-belusâtê, “a vacillating king, incapable of directing his own affairs,” came out to meet him, but although repulsed and driven within the town, he defended his position with such spirit that Shalmaneser was at length obliged to draw off his troops after having cut down all the young compelled the fruit trees, disorganised the whole system of irrigation,—in short, after having effected all the damage he could. He returned in the following spring by the most direct route; Lakhiru fell into his hands,* but Marduk-belusâtê, having no heart to contend with him for the possession of a district ravaged by the struggle of the preceding summer, fell back on the mountains of Yasubi and concentrated his forces round Armân.**

Shalmaneser, having first wreaked his vengeance upon Gananatê, attacked his adversary in his self-chosen position; Annan fell after a desperate defence, and Marduk-belusâtê either perished or disappeared in a last attempt at retaliation. Marduk-nadîn-shumu, although rid of his rival, was not yet master of the entire kingdom. The Aramæans of the Marshes, or, as they called themselves, the Kaldâ, had refused him their allegiance, and were ravaging the regions of the Lower Euphrates by their repeated incursions. They constituted not so much a compact state, as a confederation of little states, alternately involved in petty internecine quarrels, or temporarily reconciled under the precarious authority of a sole monarch. Each separate state bore the name of the head of the family—real or mythical—from whom all its members prided themselves on being descended,—Bît-Dakkuri, Bît-Adini, Bît-Amukkâni, Bît-Shalani, Bît-Shalli, and finally Bît-Yakîn, which in the end asserted its predominance over all the rest.*

In demanding Shalmaneser’s help, Marduk-nadîn-shumu had virtually thrown on him the responsibility of bringing these turbulent subjects to order, and the Assyrian monarch accepted the duties of his new position without demur. He marched to Babylon, entered the city and went direct to the temple of E-shaggîl: the people beheld him approach with reverence their deities Bel and Belît, and visit all the sanctuaries of the local gods, to whom he made endless propitiatory libations and pure offerings. He had worshipped Ninip in Kuta; he was careful not to forget Nabo of Borsippa, while on the other hand he officiated in the temple of Ezida, and consulted its ancient oracle, offering upon its altars the flesh of splendid oxen and fat lambs. The inhabitants had their part in the festival as well as the gods; Shalmaneser summoned them to a public banquet, at which he distributed to them embroidered garments, and plied them with meats and wine; then, after renewing his homage to the gods of Babylon, he recommenced his campaign, and set out in the direction of the sea. Baqâni, the first of the Chaldæan cities which lay on his route, belonged to Bît-Adini,* one of the tribes of Bît-Dakkuri; it appeared disposed to resist him, and was therefore promptly dismantled and burnt—an example which did not fail to cool the warlike inclinations which had begun to manifest themselves in other parts of Bît-Dakkuri.

He next crossed the Euphrates, and pillaged Enzudî, the fate of which caused the remainder of Bît-Adini to lay down arms, and the submission of the latter brought about that of Bît-Yakîn and Bît-Amukkani. These were all rich provinces, and they bought off the conqueror liberally: gold, silver, tin, copper, iron, acacia-wood, ivory, elephants’ skins, were all showered upon the invader to secure his mercy. It must have been an intense satisfaction to the pride of the Assyrians to be able to boast that their king had deigned to offer sacrifices in the sacred cities of Accad, and that he had been borne by his war-horses to the shores of the Salt Sea; these facts, of little moment to us now, appeared to the people of those days of decisive importance. No king who was not actually master of the country would have been tolerated within the temple of the eponymous god, for the purpose of celebrating the rites which the sovereign alone was empowered to perform. Marduk-nadîn-shumu, in recognising Shalmaneser’s right to act thus, thereby acknowledged that he himself was not only the king’s ally, but his liegeman. This bond of supremacy doubtless did not weigh heavily upon him; as soon as his suzerain had evacuated the country, the two kingdoms remained much on the same footing as had been established by the treaties of the three previous generations. Alliances were made between private families belonging to both, peace existed between the two sovereigns, interchange of commerce and amenities took place between the two peoples, but with one point of difference which had not existed formerly: Assur protected Babel, and, by taking precedence of Marduk, he became the real head of the peoples of the Euphrates valley. Assured of the subordination, or at least of the friendly neutrality of Babylon, Shalma-neser had now a free hand to undertake a campaign in the remoter regions of Syria, without being constantly haunted by the fear that his rival might suddenly swoop down upon him in the rear by the valleys of the Badanu or the Zabs. He now ran no risks in withdrawing his troops from the south-eastern frontier, and in marshalling his forces on the slopes of the Armenian Alps or on the banks of the Orontes, leaving merely a slender contingent in the heart of Assyria proper to act as the necessary guardians of order in the capital.

Since the indecisive battle of Qarqar, the western frontier of the empire had receded as far as the Euphrates, and Shalmaneser had been obliged to forego the collection of the annual Syrian tribute. It would have been an excellent opportunity for the Khâti, while they enjoyed this accidental respite, to come to an understanding with Damascus, for the purpose of acting conjointly against a common enemy; but they let the right moment slip, and their isolation made submission inevitable. The effort to subdue them cost Shalmaneser dear, both in time and men; in the spring of each year he appeared at the fords of Tul-barsip and ravaged the environs of Carchemish, then marched upon the Orontes to accomplish the systematic devastation of some fresh district, or to inflict a defeat on such of his adversaries as dared to encounter him in the open field. In 850 B.C. the first blow was struck at the Khâti; Agusi* was the next to suffer, and its king, Aramê, lost Arniê, his royal city, with some hundred more townships and strongholds.**

In 849 B.C. it was the turn of Damascus. The league of which Ben-hadad had proclaimed himself the suzerain was still in existence, but it had recently narrowly escaped dissolution, and a revolt had almost deprived it of the adherence of Israel and the house of Omri—after Hamath, the most active of all its members. The losses suffered at Qarqar had doubtless been severe enough to shake Ahab’s faith in the strength of his master and ally. Besides this, it would appear that the latter had not honourably fulfilled all the conditions of the treaty of peace he had signed three years previously; he still held the important fortress of Bamoth-gilead, and he delayed handing it over to Ahab in spite of his oath to restore it. Finding that he could not regain possession of it by fair means, Ahab resolved to take it by force. A great change in feeling and politics had taken place at Jerusalem. Jehoshaphat, who occupied the throne, was, like his father Asa, a devout worshipper of Jahveh, but his piety did not blind him to the secular needs of the moment. The experience of his predecessors had shown that the union of the twelve tribes under the rule of a scion of Judah was a thing of the past for ever; all attempts to restore it had ended in failure and bloodshed, and the house of David had again only lately been saved from ruin by the dearly bought intervention of Ben-hadad I. and his Syrians. Jehoshaphat from the outset clearly saw the necessity of avoiding these errors of the past; he accepted the situation and sought the friendship of Israel. An alliance between two princes so unequal in power could only result in a disguised suzerainty for one of them and a state of vassalage for the other; what Ben-hadad’s alliance was to Ahab, that of Ahab was to Jehoshaphat, and it served his purpose in spite of the opposition of the prophets.1 The strained relations between the two countries were relaxed, and the severed tribes on both sides of the frontier set about repairing their losses; while Hiel the Bethelite at length set about rebuilding Jericho on behalf of Samaria,* Jehoshaphat was collecting around him a large army, and strengthening himself on the west against the Philistines and on the south against the Bedawîn of the desert.** The marriage of his eldest son Jehoram*** with Athaliah subsequently bound the two courts together by still closer ties;**** mutual-visits were exchanged, and it was on the occasion of a stay made by Jehoshaphat at Jezreel that the expedition against Eamoth was finally resolved on.

It might well have appeared a more than foolhardy enterprise, and it was told in Israel that Micaiah, a prophet, the son of Imlah, had predicted its disastrous ending. “I saw,” exclaimed the prophet, “the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and on His left. And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will entice him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And He said, Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hafch put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.” *

The two kings thereupon invested Ramoth, and Ben-hadad hastened to the defence of his fortress. Selecting thirty-two of his bravest charioteers, he commanded them to single out Ahab only for attack, and not fight with others until they had slain him. This injunction happened in some way to come to the king’s ears, and he therefore disguised himself as a common soldier, while Jehoshaphat retained his ordinary dress. Attracted by the richness of the latter’s armour, the Syrians fell upon him, but on his raising his war-cry they perceived their mistake, and turning from the King of Judah they renewed their quest of the Israelitish leader. While they were vainly seeking him, an archer drew a bow “at a venture,” and pierced him in the joints of his cuirass. “Wherefore he said to his charioteer, Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am sore wounded.” Perceiving, however, that the battle was going against him, he revoked the order, and remained on the field the whole day, supported by his armour-bearers. He expired at sunset, and the news of his death having spread panic through the ranks, a cry arose, “Every man to his city, and every man to his country!” The king’s followers bore his body to Samaria,* and Israel again relapsed into the position of a vassal, probably under the same conditions as before the revolt.

Ahaziah survived his father two years, and was succeeded by his brother Joram.* When Shalmaneser, in 849 B.C., reappeared in the valley of the Orontes, Joram sent out against him his prescribed contingent, and the conquered Israelites once more fought for their conqueror.

The Assyrians had, as usual, maltreated the Khâti. After having pillaged the towns of Carchemish and Agusi, they advanced on the Amanos, held to ransom the territory of the Patina enclosed within the bend of the Orontes, and descending upon Hamath by way of the districts of Iaraku and Ashta-maku, they came into conflict with the army of the twelve kings, though on this occasion the contest was so bloody that they were forced to withdraw immediately after their success. They had to content themselves with sacking Apparazu, one of the citadels of Aramê, and with collecting the tribute of Garparuda of the Patina; which done, they skirted the Amanos and provided themselves with beams from its cedars. The two following years were spent in harrying the people of Paqarakhbuni, on the right bank of the Euphrates, in the dependencies of the ancient kingdom of Adini (848 B.C.), and in plundering the inhabitants of Ishtaratê in the country of Iaîti, near the sources of the Tigris (847 B.C.), till in 846 they returned to try their fortune again in Syria. They transported 120,000 men across the Euphrates, hoping perhaps, by the mere mass of such a force, to crush their enemy in a single battle; but Ben-hadad was supported by his vassals, and their combined army must have been as formidable numerically as that of the Assyrians. As usual, after the engagement, Shalmaneser claimed the victory, but he did not succeed in intimidating the allies or in wresting from them a single rood of territory.*

Discouraged, doubtless, by so many fruitless attempts, he decided to suspend hostilities, at all events for the present. In 845 B.C. he visited Naîri, and caused an “image of his royal Majesty” to be carved at the source of the Tigris close to the very spot where the stream first rises. Pushing forward through the defiles of Tunibuni, he next invaded Urartu, and devastated it as far as the sources of the Euphrates; on reaching these he purified his arms in the virgin spring, and offered a sacrifice to the gods. On his return to the frontier, the chief of Dayaini “embraced his feet,” and presented him with some thoroughbred horses. In 844 B.C. he crossed the Lower Zab and plunged into the heart of Namri; this country had long been under Babylonian influence, and its princes bore Semitic names. Mardukmudammiq, who was then its ruler, betook himself to the mountains to preserve his life; but his treasures, idols, and troops were carried off to Assyria, and he was superseded on the throne by Ianzu, the son of Khambân, a noble of Cossæan origin. As might be expected after such severe exertions, Shalmaneser apparently felt that he deserved a time of repose, for his chroniclers merely note the date of 843 B.C. as that of an inspection, terminating in a felling of cedars in the Amanos. As a fact, there was nothing stirring on the frontier. Chaldæa itself looked upon him as a benefactor, almost as a suzerain, and by its position between Elam and Assyria, protected the latter from any quarrel with Susa. The nations on the east continued to pay their tribute without coercion, and Namri, which alone entertained pretensions to independence, had just received a severe lesson. Urartu had not acknowledged the supremacy of Assur, but it had suffered in the last invasion, and Aramê had shown no further sign of hostility. The tribes of the Upper Tigris—Kummukh and Adini—accepted their position as subjects, and any trouble arising in that quarter was treated as merely an ebullition of local dissatisfaction, and was promptly crushed. The Khâti were exhausted by the systematic destruction of their towns and their harvests. Lastly, of the principalities of the Amanos, Gurgum, Samalla, and the Patina, if some had occasionally taken part in the struggles for independence, the others had always remained faithful in the performance of their duties as vassals. Damascus alone held out, and the valour with which she had endured all the attacks made on her showed no signs of abatement; unless any internal disturbance arose to diminish her strength, she was likely to be able to resist the growing power of Assyria for a long time to come. It was at the very time when her supremacy appeared to be thus firmly established that a revolution broke out, the effects of which soon undid the work of the preceding two or three generations. Ben-hadad, disembarrassed of Shalmaneser, desired to profit by the respite thus gained to make a final reckoning with the Israelites. It would appear that their fortune had been on the wane ever since the heroic death of Ahab. Immediately after the disaster at Eamoth, the Moabites had risen against Ahaziah,* and their king, Mesha, son of Kamoshgad, had seized the territory north of the Arnon which belonged to the tribe of Gad; he had either killed or carried away the Jewish population in order to colonise the district with Moabites, and he had then fortified most of the towns, beginning with Dhibon, his capital. Owing to the shortness of his reign, Ahaziah had been unable to take measures to hinder him; but Joram, as soon as he was firmly seated on the throne, made every effort to regain possession of his province, and claimed the help of his ally or vassal Jehoshaphat.**