the opposite coast, defeated the
refugees, and embarking his prisoners on board, returned in triumph to
the mainland. Another expedition was that of Shalmaneser IV. against the
island Tyre. Assyrians are said to have been personally engaged in it;
but here again we are told that they embarked in ships furnished to then
by the Phoenicians, and maimed chiefly by Phoenician sailors.

When a country was regarded as subjugated, the Assyrian monarch commonly
marked the establishment of his sovereignty by erecting a memorial in
some conspicuous or important situation within the territory conquered,
as an enduring sign of his having taken possession. These memorials were
either engraved on the natural rock or on solid blocks of stone cut into
the form of a broad low stele. They contained a figure of the king,
usually enclosed in an arched frame; and an inscription, of greater or
less length, setting forth his name, his titles, and some of his
exploits. More than thirty such memorials are mentioned in the extant
Inscriptions, and the researches of recent times have recovered some ten
or twelve of them. They uniformly represent the king in his sacerdotal
robes, with the sacred collar round his neck, and the emblems of the
gods above his head, raising the right hand in the act of adoration, as
if he were giving thanks to Asshur and his guardian deities on account
of his successes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It is now time to pass from the military customs of the Assyrians to a
consideration of their habits and usages in time of peace, so far as
they are made known to us either by historical records or by the
pictorial evidence of the has reliefs. And here it may be convenient to
treat separately of the public life of the king and court, and of the
private life of the people.

In Assyria, as in most Oriental countries, the keystone of the social
arch, the central point of the system, round which all else revolved,
and on which all else depended, was the monarch. "_L'etat, c'est moi_"
might have been said with more truth by an Assyrian prince than even by
the "_Grand Monarque_," whose dictum it is reported to have been. Alike
in the historical notices, and in the sculptures, we have the person of
the king presented to us with consistent prominence, and it is
consequently with him that we most naturally commence the present
portion of our inquiry.

The ordinary dress of the monarch in time of p