The king, however, soon demolished its walls by sapping and by the use of the ram, killed 800 of its garrison, burned its houses, and carried off 2400 men with their families, whom he installed in one of the suburbs of Calah. Akhuni, who was then reigning in Bît-Adini, had not anticipated that the invasion would reach his neighbourhood: he at once sent hostages and purchased peace by a tribute; the Lord of Tul-Abnî followed his example, and the dominion of Assyria was carried at a blow to the very frontier of the Khâti. It was about two centuries before this that Assurirba had crossed these frontiers with his vanquished army, but the remembrance of his defeat had still remained fresh in the memory of the people, as a warning to the sovereign who should attempt the old hazardous enterprise, and repeat the exploits of Sargon of Agadê or of Tiglath-pileser I. Assur-nazir-pal made careful preparations for this campaign, so decisive a one for his own prestige and for the future of the empire. He took with him not only all the Assyrian troops at his disposal, but requisitioned by the way the armies of his most recently acquired vassals, incorporating them with his own, not so much for the purpose of augmenting his power of action, as to leave no force in his rear when once he was engaged hand to hand with the Syrian legions. He left Calah in the latter days of April, 876 B.C.,* receiving the customary taxes from Bît-Bakhiâni, Izalla, and Bît-Adini, which comprised horses, silver, gold, copper, lead, precious stuffs, vessels of copper and furniture of ivory; having reached Tul-Barsip, he accepted the gifts offered by Tul-Abni, and crossing the Euphrates upon rafts of inflated skins, he marched his columns against Oarchemish.
* On the 8th Iyyâr, but without any indication of limmu, or
any number of the year or of the campaign; the date 876 B.C.
is admitted by the majority of historians.
The political organisation of Northern Syria had remained entirely unaltered since the days when Tiglath-pileser made his first victorious inroad into the country. The Cilician empire which succeeded to the Assyrian—if indeed it ever extended as far as some suppose—did not last long enough to disturb the balance of power among the various races occupying Syria: it had subjugated them for a time, but had not been able to break them up and reconstitute them. At the downfall of the Cilician Empire the small states were still intact, and occupied, as of old, the territory comprising the ancient Naharaim of the Egyptians, the plateau between the Orontes and the Euphrates, the forests and marshy lowlands of the Amanos, the southern slopes of Taurus, and the plains of Cilicia.
Of these states, the most famous, though not then the most redoubtable, was that with which the name of the Khâti is indissolubly connected, and which had Carchemish as its capital. This ancient city, seated on the banks of the Euphrates, still maintained its supremacy there, but though its wealth and religious ascendency were undiminished, its territory had been curtailed. The people of Bît-Adini had intruded themselves between this state and Kummukh, Arazik hemmed it in on the south, Khazazu and Khalmân confined it on the west, so that its sway was only freely exercised in the basin of the Sajur. On the north-west frontier of the Khâti lay Gurgum, whose princes resided at Marqasi and ruled over the central valley of the Pyramos together with the entire basin of the Ak-su. Mikhri,* Iaudi, and Samalla lay on the banks of the Saluara, and in the forests of the Amanos to the south of Gurgum. Kuî maintained its uneventful existence amid the pastures of Cilicia, near the marshes at the mouth of the Pyramos. To the south of the Sajur, Bît-Agusi** barred the way to the Orontes; and from their lofty fastness of Arpad, its chiefs kept watch over the caravan road, and closed or opened it at their will.
* Mikhri or Ismikhri, i.e. “the country of larches,” was the
name of a part of the Amanos, possibly near the Pyramos.
** The real name of the country was Iakhânu, but it was
called Bît-Gusi or Bît-Agusi, like Bît-Adini, Bît-Bakhiâni,
Bît-Omri, after the founder of the reigning dynasty. We must
place Iakhânu to the south of Azaz, in the neighbourhood of
Arpad, with this town as its capital.
They held the key of Syria, and though their territory was small in extent, their position was so strong that for more than a century and a half the majority of the Assyrian generals preferred to avoid this stronghold by making a detour to the west, rather than pass beneath its walls. Scattered over the plateau on the borders of Agusi, or hidden in the valleys of Amanos, were several less important principalities, most of them owing allegiance to Lubarna, at that time king of the Patina and the most powerful sovereign of the district. The Patina had apparently replaced the Alasia of Egyptian times, as Bît-Adini had superseded Mitâni; the fertile meadow-lands to the south of Samalla on the Afrîn and the Lower Orontes, together with the mountainous district between the Orontes and the sea as far as the neighbourhood of Eleutheros, also belonged to the Patina.
