population, wealth, and power. In historical times it was destroyed
by the Medes, under King Cyaxares, and by the Babylonians, under
Nebuchadnezzar, about B.C. 607.

We are indebted to the monuments, tablets, and "books" recently
discovered for the history of Assyria and other ancient oriental
nations. Layard unearthed the greater portion, on the site of
ancient Nineveh, of the Assyrian "books" (for so are named the
tablets of clay, sometimes enamelled, at others only sun-dried or
burnt). The writing on these "books" is the cuneiform, and was
done by impressing the "style" on the clay while in a waxlike
condition. Many of the tablets were broken when Layard and
Rawlinson gave them over to the British Museum. The reconstruction
of these tablets was undertaken by George Smith, an English
Assyriologist of the British Museum, who displayed great skill and
earnest application in the deciphering of the cuneiform text.

In each reign the history of the king and his acts was written by a
poet or historian detailed to that office. The "books" were
collected and kept in great libraries, the largest of these being
made by Sardanapalus.

The greater part of the expeditions of Shalmaneser IV, succeeding each
other year after year, were directed, like those of his father,
sometimes to the north, into Armenia and Pontus; sometimes to the east,
into Media, never completely subdued; sometimes to the south, into
Chaldaea, where revolts were of constant occurrence; and finally
westward, toward Syria and the region of Amanus. In this direction he
advanced farther than his predecessors, and came into contact with some
personages mentioned in Bible history. The part of his annals relating
to the campaigns that brought him into collision with the kings of
Damascus and Israel possesses peculiar interest for us, much greater
than that attaching to the narrative of any other wars.

The sixteenth campaign of Shalmaneser IV (B.C. 890) commenced a new
series of wars; the King crossed the Zab, or Zabat; to make war on the
mountain people of Upper Media, and afterward on the Scythian tribes
around the Caspian Sea. He did not, however, abandon the western
countries, where he soon found himself opposed by the new King whom the
revolution arising from the influence of Elisha the prophet had placed
on the throne of Damascus in the room of Benhidai.

"In