as
elsewhere. Never had the empire been so respected; never had it united
so many diverse nations under one sceptre--Egyptians, Syrians, tribes of
the Taurus, and the mountain districts round the Tigris and Euphrates,
Mannai, Medes, Babylonians, and Arabs; never, moreover, had it possessed
greater resources wherewith to compel obedience from the provinces or
defend them against foreign attack.

[Illustration: 187.jpg ASSUR-BANI-PAL]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs from
Kouyunjik in the British Museum.

Doubtless the population of Assyria proper, and the ancient districts
whose contingents formed the nucleus of the army, were still suffering
from the results of the civil war which had broken out more than fifteen
years before, after the assassination of Sennacherib; but under the easy
rule of Esarhaddon the natural increase of population, unchecked by any
extraordinary call for recruits, must have almost repaired their losses.
The Egyptian campaigns, partially carried out by Syrian auxiliaries,
had not sensibly retarded this progress, and, provided that peace were
maintained for some years longer, the time seemed at hand when the king,
having repaired his losses, could call upon the nation to make fresh
efforts in offensive or defensive warfare, without the risk of seeing
his people melt and disappear before his eyes. It seems, indeed, as if
Assur-bani-pal, either by policy or natural disposition, was inclined
for peace. But this did not preclude, when occasion demanded, his
directing his forces and fighting in person like any other Assyrian
monarch; he, however, preferred repose, and when circumstances forced
war upon him, he willingly delegated the conduct of the army to his
generals. He would probably have renounced possession of Egypt if he
could have done so with safety and such a course would not have been
without wisdom, the retention of this newly acquired province being
difficult and costly. Not to speak of differences in language, religion,
and manners, which would prevent it from ever becoming assimilated to
Assyria as Damascus, Hamath, and Samaria, and most of the Asiatic states
had been, it was merely connected with the rest of the empire by the
thin chain of rocks, desert, and marshes stretching between the Red Sea
and the Mediterranean. A revolt of the cities of the Philistines, or
of one of the Idumsean sheikhs, would have sufficed to isolate it, and,
communications once