xt proceeded
to demolish the other cities one after the other, carrying off into
captivity all the men and cattle who fell in his way.

* Three kings of Babylon at this period bore very similar
names--Marduk-ushezib, Nergal-ushezib, and Mushezib-marduk.
Nergal-ushezib is the elder of the two whom the texts call
Shuzub, and whom Assyriologists at first confused one with
another.

** Nagitu was bounded by the Nar-Marratum and the Ulai,
which allows us to identify it with the territory south of
Edrisieh.

The Elamites, disconcerted by the rapidity of his action, allowed him to
crush their allies unopposed; and as they had not openly intervened, the
conqueror refrained from calling them to account for their intrigues.
Babylon paid the penalty for all: its sovereign, Belibni, who had failed
to make the sacred authority of the suzerain respected in the city, and
who, perhaps, had taken some part in the conspiracy, was with his
family deported to Nineveh, and his vacant throne was given to
Assur-nadin-shumu, a younger son of Sargon (699 B.C.).*

* Berosus, misled by the deposition of Belibni, thought that
the expedition was directed against Babylon itself; he has
likewise confounded Assur-nadin-shumu with Esar-haddon, and
he has given this latter, whom he calls Asordancs, as the
immediate successor of Belibni. The date 699 B.C. for these
events is indicated in _Pinches' Babylonian Chronicle_,
which places them in the third year of Belibni.

Order was once more restored in Karduniash, but Sennacherib felt that
its submission would be neither sincere nor permanent, so long as
Merodach-baladan was hovering on its frontier possessed of an army, a
fleet, and a supply of treasure, and prepared to enter the lists as soon
as circumstances seemed favourable to his cause. Sennacherib resolved,
therefore, to cross the head of the Persian Gulf and deal him such a
blow as would once for all end the contest; but troubles which broke out
on the Urartian frontier as soon as he returned forced, him to put off
his project. The tribes of Tumurru, who had placed their strongholds
like eyries among the peaks of Nipur, had been making frequent descents
on the plains of the Tigris, which they had ravaged unchecked by any
fear of Assyrian power. Sennacherib formed an entrenched camp at the
foot of their mountain retreat, and there left the greater part of his
army, whil