erved a list of these cities, and
among them we find Arrapkha, capital of the province of Arrapachitis,
Amida (now Diarbekr), Arbela, Ellasar, and all the towns of the banks of
the Tigris. War broke out between the father and his rebellious son; the
army embraced the cause of the latter; he was recognized by all the
provinces, and kept Shalmaneser until his death shut up and closely
blockaded in his capital.

Shalmaneser died in B.C. 870; his son, Shamash-Bin, continued the
legitimate line. He succeeded in repressing the revolt of his brother
Asshurdaninpal and in depriving him of the authority he had usurped. The
monument recording the exploits of his first years gives no details,
however, of the civil war; it merely records, after enumerating the
cities that had joined the revolt of Asshurdaninpal, "With the aid of
the great gods, my masters, I subjected them to my sceptre."

The usurpation of the second son of Shalmaneser and a civil war of five
years had introduced many disorders into the empire and shaken the
fidelity of many provinces. The early years of Shamash-Bin were occupied
in reducing the whole to order. In the narrative which has been
preserved, extending only to his fourth year, we find that the King
overran and chastised with terrible severity Osrhoene or Aramaean
Mesopotamia, where the people had been in rebellion, and reduced to
obedience the mountainous districts, where are the sources of the Tigris
and Euphrates, and finally Armenia proper. In his fourth year he marched
against Mardukbalatirib, king of Babylon, who had taken advantage of the
disorders in Assyria to assert his independence, and who was supported
by the Susianians or Elamites. He completely defeated him and compelled
him to fly to the desert, killed very many of his army in the battle,
took two hundred war chariots, and made seven thousand prisoners, of
whom five thousand were put to death on the field of battle as an
example. Unfortunately our information ceases at that period and we know
absolutely nothing of the greater part of the reign of Shamash-Bin, or
of the expeditions to the west of Asia, Syria, and Palestine, that must
have been made after the termination of the campaigns by which the royal
authority was reestablished in all the ancient provinces of the empire.
This King remained on the throne until 857. In 859 and 858 he had to
repress a great revolt in Babylon and Chaldaea.

Binlikhish [or Binnirari] III, the next king,