"Then Jehoiada the priest brought out the captains of hundreds that were set over the host, and said unto them, Have her forth of the ranges: and whoso followeth her, let him be slain by the sword. For the priest said, Slay her not in the house of the Lord. So they laid hands on her; and when she was come to the entering of the horse gate by the king's house, they slew her there.
"And Jehoiada made a covenant between him, and between all the people, and between the king, that they should be the Lord's people. Then all the people went to the house of Baal, and brake it down, and brake his altars and his images in pieces, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars."[[462]]
When Jehu of Israel died, he was succeeded by Jehoahaz. "The Lord was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael all their days." Then Jehoahaz repented. He "besought the Lord, and the Lord hearkened unto him: for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them. And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hands of the Syrians."[[463]] The "saviour", as will be shown, was Assyria. Not only Israel, but Judah, under King Joash, Edom, the Philistines and the Ammonites were compelled to acknowledge the suzerainty of Damascus.
Shalmaneser III swayed an extensive and powerful empire, and kept his generals continually employed suppressing revolts on his frontiers. After he subdued the Hittites, Kati, king of Tabal, sent him his daughter, who was received into the royal harem. Tribes of the Medes came under his power: the Nairi and Urartian tribes continued battling with his soldiers on his northern borders like the frontier tribes of India against the British troops. The kingdom of Urartu was growing more and more powerful.
In 829 B.C. the great empire was suddenly shaken to its foundations by the outbreak of civil war. The party of rebellion was led by Shalmaneser's son Ashur-danin-apli, who evidently desired to supplant the crown prince Shamshi-Adad. He was a popular hero and received the support of most of the important Assyrian cities, including Nineveh, Asshur, Arbela, Imgurbel, and Dur-balat, as well as some of the dependencies. Shalmaneser retained Kalkhi and the provinces of northern Mesopotamia, and it appears that the greater part of the army also remained loyal to him.
After four years of civil war Shalmaneser died. His chosen heir, Shamshi-Adad VII, had to continue the struggle for the throne for two more years.
When at length the new king had stamped out the last embers of revolt within the kingdom, he had to undertake the reconquest of those provinces which in the interval had thrown off their allegiance to Assyria. Urartu in the north had grown more aggressive, the Syrians were openly defiant, the Medes were conducting bold raids, and the Babylonians were plotting with the Chaldaeans, Elamites, and Aramaeans to oppose the new ruler. Shamshi-Adad, however, proved to be as great a general as his father. He subdued the Medes and the Nairi tribes, burned many cities and collected enormous tribute, while thousands of prisoners were taken and forced to serve the conqueror.
Having established his power in the north, Shamshi-Adad then turned attention to Babylonia. On his way southward he subdued many villages. He fell upon the first strong force of Babylonian allies at Dur-papsukal in Akkad, and achieved a great victory, killing 13,000 and taking 3000 captives. Then the Babylonian king, Marduk-balatsu-ikbi, advanced to meet him with his mixed force of Babylonians, Chaldaeans, Elamites, and Aramaeans, but was defeated in a fierce battle on the banks of the Daban canal. The Babylonian camp was captured, and the prisoners taken by the Assyrians included 5000 footmen, 200 horsemen, and 100 chariots.
Shamshi-Adad conducted in all five campaigns in Babylonia and Chaldaea, which he completely subdued, penetrating as far as the shores of the Persian Gulf. In the end he took prisoner the new king, Bau-akh-iddina, the successor of Marduk-balatsu-ikbi, and transported him to Assyria, and offered up sacrifices as the overlord of the ancient land at Babylon, Borsippa, and Cuthah. For over half a century after this disaster Babylonia was a province of Assyria. During that period, however, the influence which it exercised over the Assyrian Court was so great that it contributed to the downfall of the royal line of the Second Empire.