e crucial moment of the engagement, when
they would charge in a body among the combatants, and decide the victory
by sheer strength of arm.*

* Tiglath-pileser I. mentions a pitched battle against the
Muskhu, who numbered 20,000 men; and another against
Kiliteshub, King of Kummukh, in his first campaign. In one
of the following campaigns he overcame the people of Saraush
and those of Maruttash, and also 6000 Sugi; later on he
defeated 23 allied kings of Nairi, and took from them 120
chariots and 20,000 people of Kumanu. The other wars are
little more than raids, during which he encountered merely
those who were incapable of offering him any resistance.

The pursuit of the enemy was never carried to any considerable distance,
for the men were needed to collect the spoil, despatch the wounded, and
carry off the trophies of war. Such of the prisoners as it was deemed
useful or politic to spare were stationed in a safe place under a guard
of sentries. The remainder were condemned to death as they were brought
in, and their execution took place without delay; they were made to
kneel down, with their backs to the soldiery, their heads bowed, and
their hands resting on a flat stone or a billet of wood, in which
position they were despatched with clubs. The scribes, standing before
their tent doors, registered the number of heads cut off; each soldier,
bringing his quota and throwing it upon the heap, gave in his name and
the number of his company, and then withdrew in the hope of receiving a
reward proportionate to the number of his victims.*

* The details of this bringing of heads are known to us by
representations of a later period. The allusions contained
in the _Annals of Tiglath-pileser I_. show that the custom
was in full force under the early Assyrian conquerors.

When the king happened to accompany the army, he always presided at this
scene, and distributed largesse to those who had shown most bravery; in
his absence he required that the heads of the enemy's chiefs should be
sent to him, in order that they might be exposed to his subjects on the
gates of his capital. Sieges were lengthy and arduous undertakings. In
the case of towns situated on the plain, the site was usually chosen
so as to be protected by canals, or an arm of a river on two or three
sides, thus leaving one side only without a natural defence, which the
inhabitants endeavoured to ma