* Shalmânu-âsharîd, or Shulmânu-âsharîd, signifies “the god
Shulmânu (Shalmânu) is prince,” as Pinches was the first to
point out.
** Some of the details of these campaigns have been
preserved on the much-mutilated obelisk of Assur-nazir-pal.
This was a compilation taken from the Annals of Assyria to
celebrate the important acts of the king’s ancestors. The
events recorded in the third column were at first attributed
to the reign of Tiglath-pileser I.; Fr. Delitzsch was the
first to recognise that they could be referred to the reign
of this Shalmaneser, and his opinion is now admitted by most
of the Assyriologists who have studied the question.
*** The identity of the Arami (written also Armaya, Arumi,
Arimi) with the Aramoans, admitted by the earlier Kammin-
nikâbi Assyriologists.

He captured their towns one after another, razed their fortresses, smote the agricultural districts with fire and sword, and then turned upon the various peoples who had espoused their cause—the Kirkhu, the Euri, the Kharrîn,* and the Muzri, who inhabited the territory between the basins of the two great rivers;** once, indeed, he even crossed the Euphrates and ventured within the country of Khanigalbat, a feat which his ancestors had never even attempted.***

* The people of the country of Kilkhi, or Kirkhi, the
Kurkhi, occupied the region between the Tigris at Diarbekîr
and the mountains overlooking the lake of Urumiah. The
position of the Ruri is not known, but it is certain that on
one side they joined the Aramaeans, and that they were in
the neighbourhood of Tushkhân. Kharrân is the Harrân of the
Balikh, mentioned in vol. iv. pp. 37, 38 of the present
work.
** The name of Muzri frequently occurs, and in various
positions, among the countries mentioned by the Assyrian
conquerors; the frequency of its occurrence is easily
explained if we are to regard it as a purely Assyrian term
used to designate the military confines or marches of the
kingdom at different epochs of its history. The Muzri here
in question is the borderland situated in the vicinity of
Cilicia, probably the Sophene and the Gumathene of classical
geographers. Winckler appears to me to exaggerate their
importance when he says they were spread over the whole of
Northern Syria as early as the time of Shalmaneser I.
*** Khanigalbat is the name of the province in which Milid
was placed.

He was recalled by a revolt which had broken out in the scattered cities of the district of Dur-Kurigalzu; he crushed the rising in spite of the help which Kadash-manburiash, King of Babylon, had given to the rebels, and was soon successful in subduing the princes of Lulumê. These were not the raids of a day’s duration, undertaken, without any regard to the future, merely from love of rapine or adventure. Shalmaneser desired to bring the regions which he annexed permanently under the authority of Assyria, and to this end he established military colonies in suitable places, most of which were kept up long after his death.*

* More than five centuries after the time of Shalmaneser I.,
Assurnazir-pal makes mention, in his Annals, of one of
these colonies, established in the country of Diarbekîr at
Khabzilukha (or Khabzidipkha), near to the town of Damdamua.

He seems to have directed the internal affairs of his kingdom with the same firmness and energy which he displayed in his military expeditions. It was no light matter for the sovereign to decide on a change in the seat of government; he ran the risk of offending, not merely his subjects, but the god who presided over the destinies of the State, and neither his throne nor his life would have been safe had he failed in his attempt. Shalmaneser, however, did not hesitate to make the change, once he was fully convinced of the drawbacks presented by Assur as a capital. True, he beautified the city, restored its temples, and permitted it to retain all its privileges and titles; but having done so, he migrated with his court to the town of Kalakh, where his descendants continued to reside for several centuries. His son Tukulti-ninip made himself master of Babylon, and was the first of his race who was able to claim the title of King of Sumir and Akkad. The Cossæans were still suffering from their defeat at the hands of Bammân-nirâri. Four of their princes had followed Nazimaruttash on the throne in rapid succession—Kadashmanturgu, Kadashmanburiash, who was attacked by Shalmaneser, a certain Isammeti whose name has been mutilated, and lastly, Shagaraktiburiash: Bibeiasdu, son of this latter, was in power at the moment when Tukulti-ninip ascended the throne. War broke out between the two monarchs, but dragged on without any marked advantage on one side or the other, till at length the conflict was temporarily suspended by a treaty similar to others which had been signed in the course of the previous two or three centuries.*

* The passage from the Synchronous History, republished by
Winckler, contains the termination of the mutilated name of
a Babylonian king... ashu, which, originally left
undecided by Winckler, has been restored “Bibeiashu” by
Hilprecht, in the light of monuments discovered at Nipur, an
emendation which has since then been accepted by Winckler.
Winckler, on his part, has restored the passage on the
assumption that the name of the King of Assyria engaged
against Bibeiashu was Tukulti-ninip; then, combining this
fragment with that in the Pinches Chronicle, which deals
with the taking of Babylon, he argues that Bibeiashu was the
king dethroned by Tukulti-ninip. An examination of the
dates, in so far as they are at present known to us from the
various documents, seems to me to render this arrangement
inadmissible. The Pinches Chronicle practically tells us
that Tukulti-ninip reigned over Babylon for seven years,
when the Chaldæans revolted, and named Rammânshumusur king.
Now, the Babylonian Canon gives us the following reigns for
this epoch: Bibeiashu 8 years, Belnadînshumu 1 year 6
months, Kadashmankharbe 1 year 6 months, Rammânnadînshumu
6 years, Rammânshumusur 30 years, or 9 years between
the end of the reign of Bibeiashu and the beginning of that
of Rammânshumusur, instead of the 7 years given us by the
Pinches Chronicle for the length of the reign of Tukulti-
ninip at Babylon. If we reckon, as the only documents known
require us to do, seven years from the beginning of the
reign of Rammânshumusur to the date of the taking of
Babylon, we are forced to admit that this took place in the
reign of Kadashmankharbe IL, and, consequently, that the
passage in the Synchronous History, in which mention is
made of Bibeiashu, must be interpreted as I have done in the
text, by the hypothesis of a war prior to that in which
Babylon fell, which was followed by a treaty between this
prince and the King of Assyria.

The peace thus concluded might have lasted longer but for an unforeseen catastrophe which placed Babylon almost at the mercy of her rival. The Blamites had never abandoned their efforts to press in every conceivable way their claim to the Sebbeneh-su, the supremacy, which, prior to Kbammurabi, had been exercised by their ancestors over the whole of Mesopotamia; they swooped down on Karduniash with an impetuosity like that of the Assyrians, and probably with the same alternations of success and defeat. Their king, Kidinkhutrutash, unexpectedly attacked Belnadînshumu, son of Bibeiashu, appeared suddenly under the walls of Nipur and forced the defences of Durîlu and Étimgarka-lamma: Belnadînshumu disappeared in the struggle after a reign of eighteen months. Tukulti-ninip left Belna-dînshumu’s successor, Kadashmankharbe II., no time to recover from this disaster; he attacked him in turn, carried Babylon by main force, and put a number of the inhabitants to the sword. He looted the palace and the temples, dragged the statue of Merodach from its sanctuary and carried it off into Assyria, together with the badges of supreme power; then, after appointing governors of his own in the various towns, he returned to Kalakh, laden with booty; he led captive with him several members of the royal family—among others, Bammânshumusur, the lawful successor of Bibeiashu.

This first conquest of Chaldæa did not, however, produce any lasting results. The fall of Babylon did not necessarily involve the subjection of the whole country, and the cities of the south showed a bold front to the foreign intruder, and remained faithful to Kadashmankharbe; on the death of the latter, some months after his defeat, they hailed as king a certain Bammânshumnadîn, who by some means or other had made his escape from captivity. Bammânshumnadîn proved himself a better man than his predecessors; when Kidinkhutrutash, never dreaming, apparently, that he would meet with any serious resistance, came to claim his share of the spoil, he defeated him near Ishin, drove him out of the districts recently occupied by the Elamites, and so effectually retrieved his fortunes in this direction, that he was able to concentrate his whole attention on what was going on in the north. The effects of his victory soon became apparent: the nobles of Akkad and Karduniash declined to pay homage to their Assyrian governors, and, ousting them from the offices to which they had been appointed, restored Babylon to the independence which it had lost seven years previously. Tukulti-ninip paid dearly for his incapacity to retain his conquests: his son Assurnazirpal I. conspired with the principal officers, deposed him from the throne, and confined him in the fortified palace of Kar-Tukulti-ninip, which he had built not far from Kalakh, where he soon after contrived his assassination. About this time Rammânshumnadîn disappears, and we can only suppose that the disasters of these last years had practically annihilated the Cossæan dynasty, for Rammânshu-musur, who was a prisoner in Assyria, was chosen as his successor. The monuments tell us nothing definite of the troubles which next befell the two kingdoms: we seem to gather, however, that Assyria became the scene of civil wars, and that the sons of Tukulti-ninip fought for the crown among themselves. Tukultiassurbel, who gained the upper hand at the end of six years, set Raminân-shumusur at liberty, probably with the view of purchasing the support of the Chaldæans, but he did not succeed in restoring his country to the position it had held under Shalmaneser and Tukulti-ninip I. The history of Assyria presents a greater number of violent contrasts and extreme vicissitudes than that of any other Eastern people in the earliest times. No sooner had the Assyrians arrived, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of five or six generations, at the very summit of their ambition, than some incompetent, or perhaps merely unfortunate, king appeared on the scene, and lost in a few years all the ground which had been gained at the cost of such tremendous exertions: then the subject races would rebel, the neighbouring peoples would pluck up courage and reconquer the provinces which they had surrendered, till the dismembered empire gradually shrank back to its original dimensions. As the fortunes of Babylon rose, those of Nineveh suffered a corresponding depression: Babylon soon became so powerful that Eammânshumusur was able to adopt a patronising tone in his relations with Assur-nirâri I. and Nabodaînâni, the descendants of Tukultiassurbel, who at one time shared the throne together.*

* All that we know of these two kings is contained in the
copy, executed in the time of Assurbanipal, of a letter
addressed to them by Eammânshumusur. They have been placed,
at one time or another, either at the beginning of Assyrian
history before Assurbelnishishu, or after Tigiath-pileser
I., about the XIth or Xth, or even the VIIIth century before
our era. It has since been discovered that the
Rammânshumusur who wrote this letter was the successor of
Tukulti-ninip I. in Chaldæa.