desert.

** Partakka and Partukka seem to be two different
adaptations of the name Paraituka, the Parsetakeno of the
Greek geographers; Tiele thinks of Parthyeno. I think that
these two names designate the northern districts of
Partetakeno, the present Ashnakhor or the country near to
it.

They represented that the whole of Media was torn asunder by countless
strifes, prince against prince, city against city, and an iron will was
needed to bring the more turbulent elements to order. Esarhaddon lent
a favourable ear to their prayers; he undertook to protect them on
condition of their paying an annual tribute, and he put them under
the protection of the Assyrian governors who were nearest to their
territory. Kharkhar, securely entrenched behind its triple ramparts,
assumed the position of capital to these Iranian marches.

It is difficult to determine the precise dates of these various events;
we learn merely that they took place before 673, and we surmise that
they must have occurred between the second and sixteenth year of the
king's reign.*

* The facts relating to the submission of Patusharra and of
Partukka are contained in Cylinder A, dated from the
eponymous year of Akhazilu, in 673. Moreover, the version
which this document contains seems to have been made up of
two pieces placed one at the end of the other: the first an
account of events which occurred during an earlier period of
the reign, and in which the exploits are classified in
geographical order, from Sidon in the west the Arabs
bordering on Chaldaea in the east; and the second consisting
of additional campaigns carried out after the completion of
the former--which is proved by the place which these
exploits occupy, out of their normal position in the
geographical series--and making mention of Partusharra and
Partuhka, as well as of Belikisha. The editor of the _Broken
Cylinder_ has tried to combine these latter elements with
the former in the order adopted by the original narrator. As
far as can be seen in what is left of the columns, he has
placed, after the Chaldsean events, the facts concerning
Partukka, then those concerning Patusharra, and finally the
campaign against Bazu, the extreme limit of Esarhaddon's
activity in the south. Knowing that the campaign in the
desert and the death of Abdimilkot to