man roareth." Khumba-undash, the Elamite general, was killed in one
of the first encounters, and many of his officers perished around him,
"of those who wore golden daggers at their belts, and bracelets of
gold on their wrists." They fell one after the other, "like fat bulls
chained" for the sacrifice, or like sheep, and their blood flowed on the
broad plain as the water after a violent storm: the horses plunged in it
up to their knees, and the body of the royal chariot was reddened with
it. A son of Merodach-baladan, Nabu-shumishkun, was taken prisoner, but
Umman-minanu and Mushezib-marduk escaped unhurt from the fatal field. It
seems as if fortune had at last decided in favour of the Assyrians, and
they proclaimed the fact loudly, but their success was not so evident as
to preclude their adversaries also claiming the victory with some show
of truth. In any case, the losses on both sides were so considerable as
to force the two belligerents to suspend operations; they returned each
to his capital, and matters remained much as they had been before the
battle took place.*

* _Pinches' Babylonian Chronicle_ attributes the victory to
the Elamites, and says that the year in which the battle was
fought was unknown. The testimony of this chronicle is so
often marred by partiality, that to prefer it always to that
of the Ninevite inscriptions shows deficiency of critical
ability: the course of events seems to me to prove that the
advantage remained with the Assyrians, though the victory
was not decisive. The date, which necessarily falls between
692 and 689 B.C., has been decided by general considerations
as 691 B.C., the very year in which the _Taylor Cylinder_
was written.

Years might have elapsed before Sennacherib could have ventured to
recommence hostilities: he was not deluded by the exaggerated estimate
of his victory in the accounts given by his court historians, and he
recognised the fact that the issue of the struggle must be uncertain
as long as the alliance subsisted between Elam and Chaldaea. But fortune
came to his aid sooner than he had expected. Umman-minanu was not
absolute in his dominions any more than his predecessors had been,
and the losses he had sustained at Khalule, without obtaining any
compensating advantages in the form of prisoners or spoil, had lowered
him in the estimation of his vassals; Mushezib-marduk, on the other
hand, had emptied his