In his first campaign he thus reduced the upper and eastern half of Kummukh, namely, the part extending to the north of the Tigris, while in the following campaign he turned his attention to the regions bounded by the Euphrates and by the western spurs of the Kashiari. The Alzi and the Purukuzzi had been disconcerted by his victories, and had yielded him their allegiance almost without a struggle. To the southward, the Kashku and the Urumi, who had, to the number of four thousand, migrated from among the Khâti and compelled the towns of the Shubarti to break their alliance with the Ninevite kings, now made no attempt at resistance; they laid down their arms and yielded at discretion, giving up their goods and their hundred and twenty war-chariots, and resigning themselves to the task of colonising a distant corner of Assyria. Other provinces, however, were not so easily dealt with; the inhabitants entrenched themselves within their wild valleys, from whence they had to be ousted by sheer force; in the end they always had to yield, and to undertake to pay an annual tribute. The Assyrian empire thus regained on this side the countries which Shalmaneser I. had lost, owing to the absorption of his energies and interests in the events which were taking place in Chaldæa.
In his third campaign Tiglath-pileser succeeded in bringing about the pacification of the border provinces which shut in the basin of the Tigris to the north and east. The Kurkhi did not consider themselves conquered by the check they had received at the Nâmi; several of their tribes were stirring in Kharia, on the highlands above the Arzania, and their restlessness threatened to infect such of their neighbours as had already submitted themselves to the Assyrian yoke. “My master Assur commanded me to attack their proud summits, which no king has ever visited. I assembled my chariots and my foot-soldiers, and I passed between the Idni and the Ala, by a difficult country, across cloud-capped mountains whose peaks were as the point of a dagger, and unfavourable to the progress of my chariots; I therefore left my chariots in reserve, and I climbed these steep mountains. The community of the Kurkhi assembled its numerous troops, and in order to give me battle they entrenched themselves upon the Azubtagish; on the slopes of the mountain, an incommodious position, I came into conflict with them, and I vanquished them.” This lesson cost them twenty-five towns, situated at the feet of the Aîa, the Shuîra, the Idni, the Shizu, the Silgu, and the Arzanabiu*—all twenty-five being burnt to the ground.
* The site of Kharia must be sought for probably between the
sources of the Tigris and the Batman-tchaî.
The dread of a similar fate impelled the neighbouring inhabitants of Adaush to beg for a truce, which was granted to them;* but the people of Saraush and of Ammaush, who “from all time had never known what it was to obey,” were cut to pieces, and their survivors incorporated into the empire—a like fate overtaking the Isua and the Daria, who inhabited Khoatras.**
* According to the context, the Adaush ought to be between
the Kharia and the Saraush; possibly between the Batman-
tchaî and the Bohtân-tchaî, in the neighbourhood of Mildîsh.
** As Tiglath-pileser was forced to cross Mount Aruma in
order to reach the Ammaush and the Saraush, these two
countries, together with Isua and Daria, cannot be far from
Mildîsh; Isua is, indeed, mentioned as near to Anzitene in
an inscription of Shalmaneser II., which obliges us to place
it somewhere near the sources of the Batman-tchaî. The
position of Muraddash and Saradaush is indirectly pointed
out by the mention of the Lower Zab and the Lulumê; the name
of Saradaush is perhaps preserved in that of Surtash, borne
by the valley through which runs one of the tributaries of
the Lower Zab.
Beyond this, again, on the banks of the Lesser Zab and the confines of Lulumô, the principalities of Muraddash and of Saradaush refused to come to terms. Tiglath-pileser broke their lines within sight of Muraddash, and entered the town with the fugitives in the confusion which ensued; this took place about the fourth hour of the day. The success was so prompt and complete, that the king was inclined to attribute it to the help of Rammân, and he made an offering to the temple of this god at Assur of all the copper, whether wrought or in ore, which was found among the spoil of the vanquished. He was recalled almost immediately after this victory by a sedition among the Kurkhi near the sources of the Tigris. One of their tribes, known as the Sugi, who had not as yet suffered from the invaders, had concentrated round their standards contingents from some half-dozen cities, and the united force was, to the number of six thousand, drawn up on Mount Khirikhâ. Tiglath-pileser was again victorious, and took from them twenty-five statues of their gods, which he despatched to Assyria to be distributed among the sanctuaries of Belît at Assur, of Anu, Bammân, and of Ishtar. Winter obliged him to suspend operations. When he again resumed them at the beginning of his third year, both the Kummukh and the Kurkhi were so peaceably settled that he was able to carry his expeditions without fear of danger further north, into the regions of the Upper Euphrates between the Halys and Lake Van, a district then known as Naîri. He marched diagonally across the plain of Diarbekîr, penetrated through dense forests, climbed sixteen mountain ridges one after the other by paths hitherto considered impracticable, and finally crossed the Euphrates by improvised bridges, this being, as far as we know, the first time that an Assyrian monarch had ventured into the very heart of those countries which had formerly constituted the Hittite empire.
He found them occupied by rude and warlike tribes, who derived considerable wealth from working the mines, and possessed each their own special sanctuary, the ruins of which still appear above ground, and invite the attention of the explorer. Their fortresses must have all more or less resembled that city of the Pterians which flourished for so many ages just at the bend of the Halys;* its site is still marked by a mound rising to some thirty feet above the plain, resembling the platforms on which the Chaldæan temples were always built—a few walls of burnt brick, and within an enclosure, among the débris of rudely built houses, the ruins of some temples and palaces consisting of large irregular blocks of stone.
* The remains of the palace of the city of the Pterians, the
present Euyuk, are probably later than the reign of Tiglath-
pileser, and may be attributed to the Xth or IXth century
before our era; they, however, probably give a very fair
idea of what the towns of the Cappadocian region were like
at the time of the first Assyrian invasions.
