Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a
photograph published by Luschan.

The cities and fortresses which he raised throughout the length and breadth of Assyria proper and its more recently acquired provinces have similarly disappeared; we can only conjecture that the nobles of his court, fired by his example, must have built and richly endowed more than one city on their hereditary estates, or in the territories under their rule. Bel-harrân-beluzur, the marshal of the palace, who twice gave his name to years of the king’s reign, viz. in 741 and 727 B.C., possessed, it would seem, an important fief a little to the north of Assur, near the banks of the Tharthar, on the site of the present Tel-Abta. The district was badly cultivated, and little better than a wilderness; by express order of the celestial deities—Marduk, Nabu, Shamash, Sin, and the two Ishtars—he dug the foundations of a city which he called Dur-Bel-harrân-beluzur. The description he gives of it affords conclusive evidence of the power of the great nobles, and shows how nearly they approached, by their wealth and hereditary privileges, to the kingly rank. He erected, we are told, a ziggurât on a raised terrace, in which he placed his gods in true royal fashion; he assigned slaves, landed property, and a yearly income to their priests, in order that worship might be paid to them in perpetuity; he granted sanctuary to all freemen who settled within the walls or in the environs, exemption from forced labour, and the right to tap a water-course and construct a canal. A decree of foundation was set up in the temple in memory of Bel-harrân-beluzur, precisely as if he were a crowned king. It is a stele of common grey stone with a circular top. The dedicator stands erect against the background of the carving, bare-foot and bare-headed, his face cleanshaven, dressed in a long robe embroidered in a chessboard pattern, and with a tunic pleated in horizontal rows; his right elbow is supported by the left hand, while the right is raised to a level with his eyes, his fist is clenched, and the thumb inserted between the first and second fingers in the customary gesture of adoration.

What the provost of the palace had done on his land, the other barons in all probability did on theirs; most of the departments which had fallen away and languished during the disturbances at the close of the previous dynasty, took a new lease of life under their protection. Private documents—which increase in number as the century draws to an end—contracts, official reports, and letters of scribes, all give us the impression of a wealthy and industrious country, stirred by the most intense activity, and in the enjoyment of unexampled prosperity. The excellent administration of Tiglath-pileser and his nobles had paved the way for this sudden improvement, and had helped to develop it, and when Shalmaneser V. succeeded his father on the throne it continued unchecked.* The new-comer made no changes in the system of government which had been so ably inaugurated. He still kept Assyria separate from Karduniash; his Babylonian subjects, faithful to ancient custom, soon devised a nickname for him, that of Ululai, as though seeking to persuade themselves that they had a king who belonged to them alone; and it is under this name that their annalists have inscribed him next to Pulu in the list of their dynasties.**

His reign was, on the whole, a calm and peaceful one; the Kaldâ, the Medes, Urartu, and the races of Mount Taurus remained quiet, or, at any rate, such disorders as may have arisen among them were of too trifling a nature to be deemed worthy of notice in the records of the time. Syria alone was disturbed, and several of its independent states took advantage of the change of rulers to endeavour to shake off the authority of Assyria.

* It was, for a long time, an open question with the earlier
Assyriologists whether or not Shalmaneser and Sargon were
different names for one and the same monarch. As for
monuments, we possess only one attributed to Shalmaneser, a
weight in the form of a lion, discovered by Layard at Nimroud,
in the north-west palace. The length of his reign, and
the scanty details we possess concerning it, have been
learnt from the Eponym Canon and Pinches’ Babylonian
Chronicle, and also from the Hebrew texts (2 Kings xvii. 3-
6; xviii. 9-12).
** The identity of Ululai and Shalmaneser V., though still
questioned by Oppert, has been proved by the comparison of
Babylonian records, in some of which the names Pulu and
Ululai occur in positions exactly corresponding with those
occupied, in others, by Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser. The
name Ululai was given to the king because he was born in the
month of Ulul; in Pinches’ list we find a gloss, “Dynasty
of Tinu,” which probably indicates the Assyrian town in
which Tiglath-pileser III. and his son were born.

Egypt continued to give them secret encouragement in these tactics, though its own internal dissensions prevented it from offering any effective aid. The Tanite dynasty was in its death-throes. Psamuti, the last of its kings, exercised a dubious sovereignty over but a few of the nomes on the Arabian frontier.*

* He is the Psammous mentioned by Manetho. The cartouches
attributed to him by Lepsius really belong to the Psammuthis
of the XXIXth dynasty. It is possible that one of the marks
found at Karnak indicating the level of the Nile belong to
the reign of this monarch.

His neighbours the Saites were gradually gaining the upper hand in the Delta and in the fiefs of middle Egypt, at first under Tafnakhti, and then, after his death, under his son Bukunirînif, Bocchoris of the Greek historians. They held supremacy over several personages who, like themselves, claimed the title and rank of Pharaoh; amongst others, over a certain Rudamanu Mîamun, son of Osorkon: their power did not, however, extend beyond Siut, near the former frontier of the Theban kingdom. The withdrawal of Piônkhi-Mîamun, and his subsequent death, had not disturbed the Ethiopian rule in the southern half of Egypt, though it somewhat altered its character. While an unknown Ethiopian king filled the place of the conquerer at Napata, another Ethiopian, named Kashta, made his way to the throne in Thebes.

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