ngs of respect and almost of awe: the rumour
of her fall, spread through the Eastern world, filled them with
astonishment and pity. The Hebrews saw in it the chastisement inflicted
by their God on the tyrant who had oppressed their ancestors, and their
prophets used it to impress upon the minds of their contemporaries the
vanity of human prosperity. Half a century later, when Nineveh, menaced
in her turn, was desperately arming herself to repel the barbarians,
Nahum the Elkoshite demanded of her, amid his fierce denunciations,
whether she vaunted herself to be better than "No-amon (city of Amon),
that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about her;
whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? Ethiopia and
Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite. Put and Lubim (Libya and
the Nubians) came to her succour. Yet was she carried away, she went
into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top
of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all
her great men were bound in chains." Assur-bani-pal, lord of Egypt and
conqueror of Ethiopia, might reasonably consider himself invincible;
it would have been well for the princes who trembled at the name of
Assur-bani-pal, if they had taken this lesson to heart, and had learned
from the downfall of Tanuata-manu what fate awaited them in the event
of their daring to arouse the wrath of Assyria by any kind of intrigue.
Unfortunately, many of them either failed to see the warning or refused
to profit by it. The Mannai had quickly recovered from the defeat
inflicted on them by Esarhaddon, and their king, Akhsheri, in spite of
his advancing years, believed that his own energy and resources were
sufficient to warrant him in anticipating a speedy revenge. Perhaps
a further insight into the real character of Assur-bani-pal may have
induced him to venture on hostilities. For the king's contemporaries had
begun to realise that, beneath his apparent bravery and ostentation,
he was by nature indolent, impatient of restraint, and fond of ease and
luxury. When not absorbed in the routine of the court and the pleasures
of the harem, he spent his leisure in hunting on the Mesopotamian
plains, or in the extensive parks which had been laid out by himself or
his predecessors in the vicinity of their summer palaces. Urus-stalking
had become merely a memory of the past: these animals had been so
persistently hunted for centuries tha