d after his father's death.

One half of the army proclaimed Sharezer king; the northern provinces
espoused his cause; and Esarhaddon must for the moment have lost all
hope of the succession. His father's tragic fate overwhelmed him with
fear and grief; he rent his clothes, groaned and lamented like a lion
roaring, and could be comforted only by the oracles pronounced by
the priests of Babylon. An assurance that the gods favoured his cause
reached him even from Assyria, and Nineveh, after a few weeks of
vacillation, acknowledged him as its sovereign, the rebellion being
mercilessly crushed on the 2nd of Adar.*

* The Bible alone tells us that Sharezer retired to Urartu
(2 Kings xix. 37). To explain the plan of this campaign, it
is usually supposed that at the time of his father's death
Esarhaddon was either beyond Mount Taurus or else on the
Armenian frontier; the sequence of the dates in the
_Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches_, compels me to revert to
the opinion that Esarhaddon marched from Babylon against the
rebels, and pursued them as far as Mount Taurus, and beyond
it to Khanigalbat.

Although this was a considerable advantage to Esarhaddon's cause,
it could not be considered as decisive, since the provinces of the
Euphrates still declared for Sharezer; the gods, therefore, once more
intervened. Ishtar of Arbela had long been considered as the recognised
patroness and oracle of the dynasty. Whether it were a question of a
foreign expedition or a rebellion at home, of a threatened plague or
invasion, of a marriage or an alliance with some powerful neighbour, the
ruling sovereign would invariably have recourse to her, always with the
same formula, to demand counsel of her for the conduct of affairs in
hand, and the replies which she vouchsafed in various ways were
taken into consideration; her will, as expressed by the mouth of her
ministers, would hasten, suspend, or modify the decisions of the king.
Esarhaddon did not neglect to consult the goddess, as well as Assur and
Sin, Shamash, Bel, Nebo, and Nergal; and their words, transcribed upon
a tablet of clay, induced him to act without further delay: "Go, do not
hesitate, for we march with thee and we will cast down thine enemies!"
Thus encouraged, he made straight for the scene of danger without
passing through Nineveh, so as to prevent Sharezer and his party having
time to recover. His biographers depict Esarhaddon hur