History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0148/01484.txt

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$Title{History Of The Babylonians And Assyrians
Times Of Tiglathpileser I.  1100 B.C.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Godspeed, George}
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$Subject{assyrian
king
euphrates
assyria
babylonian
tiglathpileser
upon
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$Date{1903}
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Title:       History Of The Babylonians And Assyrians
Book:        Part II: The Rise Of Assyria And Its Struggles With Kassite Babylonia
Author:      Godspeed, George
Date:        1903

Times Of Tiglathpileser I.  1100 B.C.

     133. The splendid extension of Assyrian authority to the northwest,
achieved by Shalmaneser I. and his successors (sect. 120), had not been
lasting.  The incursion and settlement of the Khatti in Syria proved to be
merely the beginning of a series of similar migrations from the north and
northwest into the regions of Western Asia.  Half a century before his own
time, according to the testimony of Tiglathpileser I. of Assyria, the Mushki
had advanced over the boundaries of Assyria's conquests along the headwaters
of the Euphrates, had conquered the Alzi and the Purukuzzi, her tributary
peoples, and were sifting into the nearer region of Qummukh.  The bulk of
the invading peoples, indeed, poured down into Syria, and broke in pieces
the loose confederation of the Khatti, but the latter in turn were thereby
pushed eastward to hamper Assyrian progress.  The effect of this reverse may
be observed in the revival of Babylonia under the later Kassite kings (sect.
122).  It was, probably, late in his long reign that Ashurdan I. of Assyria
was able to make headway against his southern rivals, and inflict on the
next to the last Kassite ruler a defeat which three years after seems to
have cost this foreign dynasty its supremacy over Babylonia.  Ashurdan died
soon after, and was followed by his son Mutakkil-nusku, of whom little is
known; presumably he reigned but a few years (about 1135 B.C.).

     134. The dynasty which wrested the Babylonian throne from the Kassites
was, as the names of its kings indicate, of native origin, and is called in
the kings' list "the dynasty of Pashe." Unfortunately, that important
document is imperfectly preserved at this point, and seven names out of the
whole number of eleven are quite illegible.  By a strange chance the names
of those kings who from other documents are known to belong to this dynasty,
are among those missing from the kings' list, and it is therefore impossible
to determine accurately their chronological order and the length of their
reigns.  Of these the greatest was Nebuchadrezzar I.  A highly probable
argument has been made by Hilprecht (OBT, I. i, pp. 41 ff.) to prove that he
was the founder of the dynasty and its first king (about 1140-1123 B.C.),
but paleographic grounds render it inconclusive, though not impossible.  He
was followed in turn by Belnadin-aplu (about 1122-1117 B.C.), and
Marduknadin-akhi (about 1116-1105).  The dynasty held the throne over one
hundred and thirty-two years to about 1010 B.C.

     135. The name Nebuchadrezzar, meaning "May the god Nabu protect the
boundary," is significant of the work of this energetic Babylonian ruler.
Babylonia had been the tramping-ground of the nations.  For centuries
foreigners had ruled in the land and had warred with the Assyrians for its
possession.  In the last Kassite years the Elamites had renewed their
inroads from the east, penetrating to the very heart of the land.  The
province of Namar, famous for its horses, was already occupied by them.
This deep humiliation, coupled with the Assyrian success, drove the Kassite
from his ascendency and opened the way for more successful defenders of the
ancient state.  Nebuchadrezzar undertook the task.  He found the Elamites
already at Der.  In spite of the scorching heat of midsummer he pushed on,
driving them before him.  Across the Tigris, on the banks of the Ula, the
final stand was made by the Elamite army, but, in the fierce battle that
ensued, the king, in the words of his own inscription (ABL, p. 8), "remained
the victor" and "overthrew the country of the king of Elam . . . carrying
away its possessions." Other expeditions to the northeast into the old
Kassite land and beyond it to the highlands of the Lullumi, were intended to
give warning to future marauders from that region.  A governor of the
district was stationed at the fortress of Holwan.

     136. Among the first tasks confronting such a ruler was the rewarding
of his followers, - a work which at the same time meant the restoration of
the Semitic-Babylonian element to its former social and political supremacy.
An interesting example of his procedure in this respect is found in a
document of the king, the most considerable inscription which has been
preserved from his reign, containing a deed of gift.  Ritti Marduk, of the
house of Karziyabkhu, in the province of Namar, which had fallen into the
hands of the Elamites, had valiantly supported his lord in the trying
Elamite campaign.  Indeed, he seems to have performed a signal personal
service to Nebuchadrezzar when hard pressed by the enemy.  On the return of
the army the king issued a proclamation, giving back to the prince and
sealing for all time former privileges by which Karziyabkhu was made a free
domain, over which the royal officials were not to exercise authority, upon
which they were not to levy taxes, from which no requisitions for state
purposes of any sort were to be made.  Of the wisdom of establishing such
feudal domains in the kingdom there may be some question.  It was a return
to the older system of land tenure which, by weakening the force of royal
authority, had made defence against invaders difficult.  But, for the
present at least, restoration was the order of the day, and Nebuchadrezzar
proudly styles himself "the sun of his country, who makes his people to
prosper, who preserves boundaries and establishes landmarks (?), the just
king, who pronounces righteous judgment." According to another similar
document, he rescued in his campaign a statue of the god Bel, which the
Elamites may have taken from Babylon.  He seized the opportunity on this
occasion to re-establish, by "taking the hands of Bel," his own right to the
Babylonian throne, and proceeded to renew in a yet more striking and
magnificent way the ancient glories of his kingdom.

     137. Centuries had passed since any Babylonian ruler either had set up
the ancestral claim to possession of the "West-land," or had done anything
to make that claim good.  The Kassite kings had found Egypt in possession of
the field, and Assyria was, from time to time, pushing forward to cut off
the road by occupying the upper waters of the Euphrates.  But
Nebuchadrezzar, in the spirit of a glorious past which he felt that he
represented, not only called himself "conqueror of the West-land," but seems
actually to have reached the Mediterranean and left his name upon the cliffs
of the Nahr-el-Kelb.

     138. Such an expedition was certain to bring him into contact with
Assyria, and, indeed, was possible only by reason of Assyrian weakness.  His
activities in the northeast were equally offensive to the rival state.  It
is no wonder, therefore, that the Synchronistic History records a clash
between the two kingdoms.  Neither the time nor the details of the campaigns
can be satisfactorily determined.  It may be presumed that they took place
toward the close of the king's reign (about 1125 B.C.).  A new ruler, Ashur-
rish-ishi, was king in Assyria and eager to try conclusions with the
Babylonian veteran.  He invaded the south, but was driven back and followed
by Nebuchadrezzar, who laid siege to a border fortress.  The Assyrian king
succeeded in beating him off and destroying his siege-train.  In a later
expedition which the Babylonian sent against Assyria, another and more
serious repulse was suffered; the Babylonian general Karastu was taken
prisoner and forty chariots captured.  Nebuchadrezzar, near the end of his
career, made no further attempt to avenge this disgrace, but left the
renewal of the contest to his successors (Syn. Hist., col. II.).
Belnadinaplu (sect. 134), indeed, seems to have taken no steps in this
direction, nor did the Assyrian king pursue his advantage, unless his
campaigns in the east and southeast against the highland tribes, Ahlami,
Guti, and Lullumi, are to be regarded as an intrusion into territory already
claimed as the conquest of Nebuchadrezzar (sect. 135).  Evidently neither
party was anxious to come to blows.  Babylonia needed yet a longer period of
recuperation from the exhausting struggles for deliverance from Kassite and
Elamite, while the Assyrian had his task awaiting him in the restoration of
Assyrian power in the north and northwest.

     139. The king who was to achieve this task for Assyria and to add a
brilliant page to her annals of victory was already in the field.  For at
least three generations the Assyrian crown had passed from father to son,
when Tiglathpileser I., the fourth of the line, in the flower of his youth,
mounted the throne (about 1110 B.C.).

     140. To understand the significance of the career of this great king,
so fully detailed in his own inscription, a glance must be given at what had
come to be the traditional political policy of Assyria.  Linked to Babylonia
by ties of blood and culture, the state was constantly drawn into
complications with the mother-land.  The vicissitudes of these relations
have been traced in preceding chapters.  But, apart from this fundamental
influence, was the problem, presented to each state, of the relation to the
larger environment. For Babylonia, this problem had already been solved.
Her central position on the Euphrates - the connecting link between east and
west - indicated that her sphere of influence reached out through western
Mesopotamia to Syria and the Mediterranean coast-lands.  This predominance,
realized long before Assyria was born, had been maintained, with frequent
lapses, indeed, and long intervals of inactivity, down to the days of
Nebuchadrezzar I.  From Babylon to Haran and from Haran to the sea stretched
the recognized highroad as well of Babylonia's merchants as of her armies.
Assyria, newly arrived upon the scene, and once secure of her position as an
independent power by the side of her more ancient rival, found the outlook
for progress leading to the more rugged pathways of the highlands to the
north and northwest.  To this field her position in the upper corner of the
Mesopotamian plain invited her.  The Tigris had broken through the mountains
and opened up the road thither.  And when the Assyrian merchant, moving
westward in the shadow of the mountain wall which formed the northern
boundary of the plain, was halted at the Euphrates by Babylonian authority,
he turned northward into the highlands through which the upper Euphrates
poured, and thus brought to light wider regions for the extension of
Assyrian commerce.  In all this mountain-land the soldier had followed hard
upon the heels of the trader, so that for more than three centuries the
campaigns of kings like Ashuruballit, Adadnirari, and Shalmaneser had built
up the tradition that Assyria's sphere of influence was this northern
highland.  Though in after years, when Babylonia had yielded her supremacy
of the west-land, the Assyrian kings devoted themselves to conquest in the
richer lands of Syria, they never forgot the field of their earlier
campaigns; they kept open the trade routes, and held in check the restless
peoples of this rugged region.

     141. This region, in classical times known as Armenia, containing in
its fullest extent sixty thousand square miles, is an irregular rectangle,
its greatest length five hundred miles, its width two hundred and fifty
miles.  A vast plateau, lifted some seven thousand feet above sea-level, it
is girt about and traversed by mountain ranges.  On its northern boundary
lies the Caucasus; along the southern border, overlooking the Mesopotamian
valley, runs Mt. Masius, called by the Assyrians Kashiari.  Between these
mountain boundaries two chains (the Armenian Taurus and the Anti-Taurus)
cross this lofty region from west to east at about equal distances from one
another.  At its eastern border the mountains turn sharply to the southeast,
and the country becomes a trackless tangle of peaks and ravines.  Toward the
northwest the plain runs out onto the plateau of Asia Minor, or drops to the
Black Sea.  To the southwest the Taurus throws out the ranges that pierce
Armenia, and then itself turns off to the south in the Amanus range which
forms the backbone of Syria.  In this disintegration of the Taurus the
entire surface of the land, like its eastern counterpart, is tossed about in
a shapeless confusion of high and well-nigh impassable summits.  Within
Armenia, between the long ranges, lie fair and smiling plains.  Between
Kashiari and the Armenian Taurus the springs of the Tigris gather to form
that mighty stream which breaks through the former range on the east and
pours down to the sea.  Behind the Armenian Taurus are the sources of the
Euphrates which flows at first parallel to the Tigris, but in the opposite
direction, until, turning to the southward, it tears its way through the
knot of mountains in southwestern Armenia by innumerable windings, and
debouches on the plain, at first to fall swiftly, then to spread out more
widely on its way to the Persian gulf.  The land, threaded by the head-
waters of these rivers, is wild and romantic, with deep glens, lofty peaks,
and barren passes.  In the midst of it lies the broad, blue salt lake of
Van, eighty miles long.  The mountains are thickly wooded, the valleys are
genial.  Mineral wealth in silver, copper, and iron abounds.  Inexhaustible
pasturage is found for flocks and herds.  All the fruits of the temperate
zone grow in the valleys, and harvests of grain are reaped in the plains.
The winters are cold and invigorating.  It is a country of rare
picturesqueness, capable of supporting a large population.  The people,
vigorous and hardy, till the soil of the plains, or lead flocks and herds
over the hillsides. The tribal organization prevails.  Villages nestle at
the base of hills surmounted by rude fortresses.  The larger towns, situated
on the main roads which lead from Asia Minor to Mesopotamia, are centres of
trade in raw materials, wool, goat's hair, and grain, or in the rude vessels
of copper and silver, the spoil of the mines, or in the coarse cloths of the
native weaver.  The larger plains afford to the tribes opportunities for
closer organization, under chiefs mustering no inconsiderable number of
warriors.  Border forays and the hunting of wild beasts vary the monotony of
agricultural and pastoral existence.  At times, under pressure of invasion,
the tribes unite to defend their valleys, but fall apart again when the
danger is past.  A free, healthy, and abundant, if rude, life is lived under
the open sky.

     142. To secure control over the borders of this upland, then, Assyrian
kings had girded themselves in preceding centuries.  But the foothold
attained by them on the upper waters of the Euphrates had been, as has been
indicated (sect. 133), all but lost before Tiglathpileser became king.
Scarcely had he taken his seat, when a new disaster was announced from the
land of the Qummukhi.  This people occupied the extensive valley between the
Armenian Taurus and the Kashiari range at the sources of the Tigris, to the
east of the gorge by which the Euphrates breaks through the former range to
seek the Mesopotamian plain.  Tribes from the northwest, known collectively
as the Mushki, not content with overpowering the Alzi and Purukuzzi (sect.
133), suddenly hurled themselves under their five kings with twenty thousand
warriors upon the Qummukhi.  Tiglathpileser hurried, with an army, from
Assur to the scene, more than three hundred miles away.  His route led him
up the Tigris, half-way across the upper Mesopotamian plain, then northward
over the range of Kashiari, to a point where he could overlook the valley at
its centre, not far from the ancient town of Amid, the modern Diyarbekr.
From here he descended with chariots and infantry upon the invaders below
and crushed them in one tremendous onslaught.  Surprised and overwhelmed,
fourteen thousand were cut down, and the remainder captured and transported
to Assur.  The Qummukhi, restless and rebellious, were subdued with fire and
sword; one of their clans that fled into the eastern mountains the king
followed across the Tigris, and, though they were aided by the Kirkhi
(Kurti), a neighboring people in the eastern plateau, he defeated them and
captured their stronghold.  Returning, he marched against the capital of
another of their clans farther to the north.  They fled at his approach;
their chief submitted without fighting and was spared.  The king closed the
campaign by taking a detachment of infantry and thirty chariots for a dash
over the northern mountains into the "haughty and unsubmissive country of
Mildish," which was likewise reduced to subjection.  Upon all the peoples he
laid the obligation of regular tribute and, laden with booty, returned to
Assyria.  By one vigorous advance he had not only removed the danger from
the invading peoples, but had re-established Assyrian authority over one of
the largest and most important of these mountain valleys, - that one which
formed the entrance into the Mesopotamian plain.

     143. The second campaign, undertaken in the first full year of his
reign, - the year of his accession counting as only "the beginning," - was
directed chiefly against the still rebellious Qummukhi, who were made again
to feel the weight of Assyrian displeasure.  On their western border were
settled the Shumashti (Shubarti), whose cities had been invaded by a body of
tribes of the Khatti, four thousand strong in infantry and chariots.  These
invaders submitted on the king's advance and were transported to Assyria.
Two minor events of the year were the re-establishment of authority over the
Alzi and Purukuzzi, and the subjugation of the Shubari, an eastern hill-
tribe.

     144. In the narrative of the first year's exploits occurs a phrase
which suggests that the plan subsequently followed by the king was already
conceived.  Not only had Ashur, the nation's god, bidden him subdue
rebellious vassals, but, to use the king's own words, "now he commanded me
to extend the boundaries of my country." It had become clear that, to hold
the peoples of these northern valleys to their allegiance, a systematic
extension of Assyrian territory there must be undertaken.  The task was
formidable, leading Tiglathpileser I. into far districts hitherto unheard of
by Assyrian kings, and requiring a display of energy and resource that his
predecessors had not approached.  Three well-conceived campaigns are
recorded.  In the first - that of his second regnal year - the tribes to the
east of Qummukhi and the sources of the Tigris, between Kashiari and the
Armenian Taurus, were subdued.  In the second - that of his third regnal
year - the king climbed the Taurus and descended upon the sources of the
Euphrates.  Here were the tribes known to the Assyrians as the Nairi, living
to the west of Lake Van.  The army pushed steadily westward through the
mountains, fighting as it advanced, crossed the Euphrates, marched along its
right bank, and reached the city of Milid, the western end of the main road
from Asia Minor, later called the "Royal Road," and the chief city of a
district separated from the Qummukhi only by the lofty Taurus mountains.
There remained only the peoples to the far west, and against these, after
the interval of a year, the king proceeded in his fifth regnal year.  In
this region, between Qummukhi and the gulf of Issus, lived the Mucri, whom
Shalmaneser I.  had already encountered (sect. 120).  In these mountain
valleys had flourished, centuries before, one of the main branches of the
wide kingdom of the Khatti, and from thence this warlike people had
descended upon the Syrian plain.  Here Tiglathpileser found great
fortresses, with walls and towers, blocking his advance.  His reduction of
the Mucri stirred up their neighbors and allies to the northwest, the
Qumani, and sent him still farther away into the endless confusion of rugged
mountain ranges to accomplish their overthrow.  One fierce battle with an
army of twenty thousand warriors drove the defenders back upon Khunusa,
their triple-walled fortress, which was stormed by the king with great
slaughter and demolished.  The way now lay open to their capital, which
surrendered on his approach.  Thereupon he accepted the submission of the
tribes and laid the usual tribute upon them.  The first stage of his
stupendous task was now practically completed.  The Assyrian border in this
vast mountain region stretched in a huge arc from the upper Tigris and Lake
Van around the head-waters of the Euphrates to the northeastern corner of
the Mediterranean.  Indeed it extended even farther, for, to use his own
proud words:

     I conquered in all, from the beginning of my reign to my fifth regnal
year, forty-two countries and their princes, from the left bank of the lower
Zab and the border of distant forest-clad mountains as far as the right bank
of the Euphrates, the land of the Khatti, and the Upper Sea of the setting
sun (Prism Inscription, col. vi. 39-45).

     145. During the strenuous years of these campaigns the king had found
occasion to make at least two expeditions in other directions.  The
overthrow of the Shubari in the eastern hills took place in his first regnal
year.  In the fourth, he made a raid upon the Bedouin, who were crossing the
Euphrates into western Mesopotamia, apparently for the purpose of settling
in the upper plain.  They were the advance guard of the Arameans.  Crossing
the plain due west from Assur, Tiglathpileser drove them before him along
the river from the Khabur to the city of Karkhemish, followed them across
into the desert, burned their villages, and carried off their goods and
cattle to his capital.  Necessary as such a campaign was for Assyria's
protection, it had entered territory under Babylonian influence, and could
hardly have failed to stir up the Babylonian ruler to action against
Assyria.  Marduknadinakhi (sect. 134) was a vigorous ruler, and he seems to
have responded by an invasion of Assyrian territory in the tenth year of his
reign, in which may have occurred the capture of the city of Ekallati, and
the removal of its gods to Babylon, an event to which a later Assyrian king,
Sennacherib, refers.  In the hostilities which inevitably ensued and
continued for two years, possibly the seventh and eighth regnal years of
Tiglathpileser, the Babylonian was severely beaten.  In the first campaign
Marduknadinakhi had advanced beyond the lower Zab into Assyrian territory,
when he was driven back.  In the second, the Assyrian king took the
offensive and swept all before him.  The decisive defeat was administered in
northern Babylonia.  Tiglathpileser captured, one after another, the chief
northern cities, Upi, Dur Kurigalzu, Sippar, and Babylon, and then marched
up the Euphrates to the Khabur, thereby bringing the river from Babylon to
Karkhemish under Assyrian control.  Satisfied with this assertion of his
superiority, and the control of the chief trade routes, he did not attempt
to usurp the Babylonian throne, but left Marduknadinakhi to resume his
discredited authority.

     146. A few more campaigns of the great Assyrian are recorded.  An
expedition against Elam may belong to his ninth year.  Other visits to the
lands of the Nairi are mentioned, in the last of which he set up, at the
mouth of a grotto whence flows one of the sources of the Tigris, a stone
slab upon which a full-length effigy of the conqueror is sculptured, with a
proclamation of his victories over these northern peoples.  It would not be
surprising if he reigned little more than ten years.  The numerous and
fatiguing campaigns in which he led his troops, sometimes in his chariot,
oftener on foot, over rugged mountains, amidst incessant fighting, must
early have exhausted even his iron endurance.  In the intervals of warfare
he hunted with indefatigable zeal.  Lists of lions slain by the king when on
foot or from the chariot, of wild oxen and elephants, the trophies of his
lance and bow, appear in his annals, and reveal another side of his
activity.  Not by himself, but by later kings, is another expedition
referred to, which if, as it seems, properly assigned to him, rounds out his
career.  On the broken obelisk of Ashurnacirpal III.  are some lines which
describe achievements parallel to his, though the ruler's name has not been
preserved.  Of this unknown it is further said that he sailed in ships of
Arvad, a city of Phoenicia, killed a nakhiru (sea monster of some sort) in
the great sea, captured wild cattle at the foot of Lebanon, and was
presented by the king of Egypt with a pagutu (hippopotamus?) and a
crocodile.  Shalmaneser II.  speaks of the cities of Ashurutiracbat and
Mutkinu, lying over against one another on either side of the Euphrates, as
once captured by Tiglathpileser.  These statements imply that, in the years
after his Babylonian victory, he completed his western conquests by a
campaign in Syria that carried him to the Mediterranean and to the Lebanons.
The fame of this exploit extorted a tribute of respect from an Egyptian
ruler.

     147. Enough has been said to show that the king's military activity was
no purposeless series of plundering raids.  His campaigns are linked
together in a well-ordered system.  The first item of his policy is stated
in his plain but significant assertion.  "The feet of the enemy I kept from
my country." Even more important is his second boast, "One word united I
caused them to speak." Once conquered, the peoples were organized under
Assyrian rule.  Of the details in the realization of this plan he himself
has recorded little beyond the establishment of a regular tax and the
requirement of hostages.  The deportation of captured tribes is not
uncommon.  The conquered peoples swear solemn oaths of allegiance by the
Assyrian gods.  Rebels are treated with ruthless cruelty, for they have
sinned against gods and men.  Peoples who resist attack are exposed to
slaughter and the plundering of their goods.  Tribes that submit are spared,
their property respected, their chiefs restored to power under Assyrian
supremacy.  These principles, acted upon by Tiglathpileser, formed a body of
precedents for future rulers.

     148. At first thought, it seems unlikely that so eager a warrior would
be solicitous for the economic welfare of his country.  He was statesman,
however, as well as conqueror.  From the conquered lands he brought back
flocks and herds; he sought out useful and valuable trees for transplanting
into Assyrian forests, oaks, cedars, and fruit trees of a kind unknown to
Assyrian orchards.  He rebuilt the crumbling walls of cities; repaired the
storehouses and granaries and heaped them high with grain.  Royal palaces in
his various provincial cities were restored, forming citadels for defence.
Most splendid of all were the temples which he built and adorned with
inimitable splendor.  Of the restored temple of Anu and Adad he says:

     I built it from foundation to roof larger and grander than before, and
erected also two great temple towers, fitting ornaments of their great
divinities.  The splendid temple, a brilliant and magnificent dwelling, the
habitation of their joys, the house for their delight, shining as bright as
the stars on heaven's firmament and richly decorated with ornaments through
the skill of my artists, I planned, devised, and thought out, built, and
completed.  I made its interior brilliant like the dome of the heavens;
decorated its walls like the splendor of the rising stars, and made it grand
with resplendent brilliancy.  I reared its temple towers to heaven, and
completed its roof with burned brick; located therein the upper terrace
containing the chamber of their great divinities; and led into the interior
Anu and Adad, the great gods, and made them to dwell in their lofty house,
thus gladdening the heart of their great divinities (Prism Ins., col. vii.
85-114, trans. in ABL, pp. 25 f.).

     149. The height of Assyria's attainment in the arts of life may be
inferred from a passage like the foregoing, which is characteristic of the
inscription as a whole, written as it is in a vigorous, flowing, and
somewhat rhetorical style, significant of no little literary culture.  The
ruler who could achieve such things and find expression for them in so lofty
a fashion was far from being a mere ruthless general, and his state much
more than a mere military establishment.  Justly could he declare that he
had "enhanced the welfare of his nation," and made his people "live and
dwell in peaceful homes." Well might he pray, to use his own words, that the
gods may turn to me truly and faithfully, accept graciously the lifting up
of my hands, hearken unto my devout prayers, grant unto me and my kingdom
abundance of rain, years of prosperity and fruitfulness in plenty (Prism.
Ins., col. viii. 24-29, trans. in ABL, p. 26).

     150. Tiglathpileser was followed on the throne by his son Ashur-bel-
kala, and he by his brother Shamshi Adad.  The two reigns seem to have been
peaceful and prosperous.  The former king appears to have continued to rule
over the wide domains of his father and, in addition, to have come to terms
with Babylonia.  There Marduk-sapik-zerim followed Marduknadinakhi, and
entered into an alliance with his Assyrian neighbor.  When a rebellion drove
the Babylonian from his throne, the successful usurper, "son of nobody,"
Adad-aplu-iddlin, was recognized by the son of Tiglathpileser, who took his
daughter into the harem on payment of a princely dowry by her father.  It
has been inferred, from the finding of a statue in Nineveh hailing from the
king's palace, that Ashurbelkala removed the capital from Assur to Nineveh.
Such a change is quite possible, since it would place him nearer the centre
of his realm.  His brother, who was perhaps his successor, is known to have
built on the temple of Ishtar in the latter city.  The name of the son of
Shamshi Adad, Ashurnacirpal II., has been preserved, but though his striking
prayer to Ishtar is in our hands (BMG, p. 68), a record of his deeds has not
come down to posterity.  The Assyrian kingdom goes out in darkness.  The
first chapter of her imperial history is finished (about 1050 B.C.).