* 2 Kings xvi. 10-12. The Nimroud Inscrip. merely mentions
his tribute among that of the Syrian kings.
With the downfall of rezin, Syria’s last hope of recovery had vanished; the few states which still enjoyed some show of independence were obliged, if they wished to retain it, to make a parade of unalterable devotion to their Ninevite master, or—if they found his suzerainty intolerable—had to risk everything by appealing to Egypt for help.
Much as they may have wished from the very first to do so, it was too early to make the attempt so soon after the conference at Damascus; Tiglath-pileser had, therefore, no cause to fear a rebellion among them, at any rate for some years to come, and it was just as well that this was so, for at the moment of his triumph on the shores of the Mediterranean his interests in Chaldæa were threatened by a serious danger. Nabonazîr, King of Karduniash, had never swerved from the fidelity which he had sworn to his mighty ally after the events of 745, but the tranquillity of his reign had been more than once disturbed by revolt. Borsippa itself had risen on one occasion, and endeavoured to establish itself as an independent city side by side with Babylon.
When Nabonazîr died, in 734, he was succeeded by his son Nabunâdinzîri, but at the end of a couple of years the latter was assassinated during a popular outbreak, and Nabushumukîn, one of his sons, who had been implicated in the rising, usurped the crown (732). He wore it for two months and twelve days, and then abdicated in favour of a certain Ukînzîr.*
* The following is as complete a list as can at present be
compiled of this Babylonian dynasty, the eighth of those
registered in Pinches’ Canons (cf. Rost, Untersucli. zur
altorient. Gesch., p. 27):—
It included twenty-two kings, and lasted for about three hundred and fifty years.
The latter was chief of the Bît-Amukkâni, one of the most important among the Chaldæan communities;* the descendants of the Aramaean nomads were thus once more placed upon the throne, and their accession put an end to the relations which had existed for several centuries between Assyria and Karduniash.
* The chronicle is silent with regard to the origin of
Ukînzîr, but Tiglath-pileser, who declines to give him the
title of “King of Babylon,” says that he was mar Amuhlcâni = son of Amukkâni. Pinches’ Canon indicates that Ukînzîr
belonged to a dynasty the name of which may be read either
Shashi or Shapi. The reading Shapi at once recalls the name
of Shapîa, one of the chief cities of the Bît Amukkâni; it
would thus confirm the evidence of the Nimroud Inscription.