ble to accomplish; she exacted
lasting obedience from the conquered nations, ruling them with a firm
hand, and accustoming them to live on good terms with one another in
spite of diversity of race, and this with a light rein, with unfailing
tact, and apparently with but little effort. The system of deportation
so resolutely carried out by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon began to
produce effect, and up to this time the most happy results only were
discernible. The colonies which had been planted throughout the empire
from Palestine to Media, some of them two generations previously, others
within recent years, were becoming more and more acclimatised to their
new surroundings, on which they were producing the effect desired by
their conquerors; they were meant to hold in check the populations in
whose midst they had been set down, to act as a curb upon them, and also
to break up their national unity and thus gradually prepare them for
absorption into a wider fatherland, in which they would cease to be
exclusively Damascenes, Samaritans, Hittites, or Aramaeans, since they
would become Assyrians and fellow-citizens of a mighty empire. The
provinces, brought at length under a regular system of government,
protected against external dangers and internal discord, by a
well-disciplined soldiery, and enjoying a peace and security they
had rarely known in the days of their independence, gradually became
accustomed to live in concord under the rule of a common sovereign, and
to feel themselves portions of a single empire. The speech of Assyria
was their official language, the gods of Assyria were associated with
their national gods in the prayers they offered up for the welfare of
the sovereign, and foreign nations with whom they were brought into
communication no longer distinguished between them and their conquerors,
calling their country Assyria, and regarding its inhabitants as
Assyrians. As is invariably the case, domestic peace and good
administration had caused a sudden development of wealth and commercial
activity. Although Nineveh and Calah never became such centres of trade
and industry as Babylon had been, yet the presence of the court and the
sovereign attracted thither merchants from all parts of the world.

[Illustration: 079.jpg SENNACHERIB]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.

The Medes, reaching the capital by way of the passes of Kowandiz and
Suleimaniyeh, brought in the lapis-lazuli, precious stones, me