opposing forces continued to
watch one another's movements without any serious engagement taking
place during the greater part of the year 651 B.C.; though the Assyrians
won some slight advantages, killing Attamitu in a skirmish and sending
his head to Nineveh, some serious reverses soon counterbalanced these
preliminary successes. Nabo-bel-shumi had arrived on the scene with his
Aramaean forces, and had compelled the troops engaged in the defence
of Uruk and Uru to lay down their arms: their leaders, including
Sin-tabni-uzur himself, had been forced to renounce the supremacy of
Assyria, and had been enrolled in the rebel ranks.*

* The official accounts say nothing of the intervention of
Nabo-bel-shumi at this juncture, but the information
furnished by _Tablet K 159_ in the British Museum makes up
for their silence. The objection raised by Tielo to the
interpretation given by G. Smith that this passage cannot
refer to Assyrian deserters, falls to the ground if one
admits that the Assyrian troops led into Elam at a
subsequent period by Nabo-bel-shumi, were none other than
the garrisons of the Lower Euphrates which were obliged to
side with the insurgents in 651 B.C. The two despatches, _K
4696_ and _K 28_ in the British Museum, which refer to the
defection of Sin-tabni-uzur, are dated the 8th and 11th Abu
in the eponymous year of Zagabbu, corresponding to the year
651 B.C., as indicated by Tiele with very good reason.

Operations seemed likely to be indefinitely prolonged, and
Assur-bani-pal, anxious as to the issue, importunately besought the
gods to intervene on his behalf, when discords breaking out in the royal
family of Elam caused the scales of fortune once more to turn in his
favour. The energy with which Khumban-igash had entered on the present
struggle had not succeeded in effacing the disagreeable impression left
on the minds of the majority of his subjects, by the fact that he had
returned to his country in the chariots of the stranger and had been
enthroned by the decree of an Assyrian general. Tammaritu, of Khaidalu,
who had then fought at his side in the ranks of the invaders, was
now one of those who reproached him most bitterly for his conduct. He
frankly confessed that his hand had cut off the head of Tiumman, but
denied that he did so in obedience to the hereditary enemies of
his country; he had but avenged his personal injuries, w