an official document as the inscription on the
statue of the god Nebo. She is the only princess mentioned in any of the
Assyrian texts, as we might naturally suppose; for unless under such
very exceptional circumstances as we imagine in the case of Sammuramat,
there can have been no queens, but only favorite concubines, under the
organization of harem life, such as it was under the Assyrian kings, and
as it still is in our days.

The exaggerated development of the Assyrian empire was quite unnatural;
the kings of Nineveh had never succeeded in welding into one nation the
numerous tribes whom they subdued by force of arms, or in checking in
them the spirit of independence; they had not even attempted to do so.
The empire was absolutely without cohesion; the administrative system
was so imperfect, the bond attaching the various provinces to each
other, and to the centre of the monarchy, so weak that at the
commencement of almost every reign a revolt broke out, sometimes at one
point, sometimes at another.

It was therefore easy to foresee that, so soon as the reins of
government were no longer in a really strong hand--so soon as the king
of Assyria should cease to be an active and warlike king, always in the
field, always at the head of his troops--the great edifice laboriously
built up by his predecessors of the tenth and ninth centuries would
collapse, and the immense fabric of empire would vanish like smoke with
such rapidity as to astonish the world. And this is exactly what
occurred after the death of Binlikhish III.

The tablet in the British Museum allows us to follow year by year the
events and the progress of the dissolution of the empire. Under
Shalmaneser V, who reigned from B.C. 828 to 818, some foreign
expeditions were still made, as, for instance, to Damascus in B.C. 819;
but the forces of the empire were especially engaged during many
following years in attempting to hold countries already subdued, such as
Armenia, then in a chronic state of revolt; the wars in one and the same
province were constant, and occupied some six successive campaigns--the
Armenian war was from B.C. 827 to 822--proving that no decisive results
were obtained.

Under Asshur-edil-ilani II, who reigned from B.C. 818 to 800, we do not
see any new conquests; insurrections constantly broke out, and were no
longer confined to the extremities of the empire; they encroached on the
heart of the country, and gradually approached nearer to