ch) stretched behind each other from east to west on the confines
of the Tokhma-Su, and still further away other cities of less importance
contended for the possession of the Upper Saros and the middle region of
the Halys. These peoples, at once poor and warlike, had been attracted,
like the Hittites of some centuries previous, by the riches accumulated
in the strongholds of Syria. Eevolutions must have been frequent in
these regions, but our knowledge of them is more a matter of conjecture
than of actual evidence. Towards the year 1170 B.C. the Mushku swooped
down on Kummukh, and made themselves its masters; then pursuing their
good fortune, they took from the Assyrians the two provinces, Alzi and
Purukuzzi, which lay not far from the sources of the Tigris and the
Balikh.*

* The _Annals of Tiglath-pileser I_. place their invasion
fifty years before the beginning of his reign. Ed. Meyer saw
a connexion between this and the invasion of the People of
the Sea, which took place under Ramses III. I think that the
invasion of the Mushku was a purely local affair, and had
nothing in common with the general catastrophe occasioned by
the movement of the Asiatic armies.

A little later the Kashku, together with some Aramaeans, broke into
Shubarti, then subject to Assyria, and took possession of a part of it.
The majority of these invasions had, however, no permanent result: they
never issued in the establishment of an empire like that of the Khati,
capable by its homogeneity of offering a serious resistance to the march
of a conqueror from the south. To sum up the condition of affairs: if
a redistribution of races had brought about a change in Northern Syria,
their want of cohesion was no less marked than in the time of the
Egyptian wars; the first enemy to make an attack upon the frontier of
one or other of these tribes was sure of victory, and, if he persevered
in his efforts, could make himself master of as much territory as he
might choose. The Pharaohs had succeeded in welding together their
African possessions, and their part in the drama of conquest had
been played long ago; but the cities of the Tigris and the Lower
Euphrates--Nineveh and Babylon-were ready to enter the lists as soon as
they felt themselves strong enough to revive their ancient traditions of
foreign conquest.

The successors of Agumkakrime were not more fortunate than he had been
in attempting to raise Babylon once m