ably certain that no such
tremendous results flowed from it as some writers have imagined. The
murder of the disgraced Sennacherib "within fifty-five days" of his
return to Nineveh, seems to be an invention of the Alexandrian Jew who
wrote the Book of Tobit. The total destruction of the empire in
consequence of the blow, is an exaggeration of Josephus, rashly credited
by some moderns. Sennacherib did not die till B.C. 681, seventeen years
after his misfortune; and the Empire suffered so little that we find
Esar-haddon, a few years later, in full possession of all the territory
that any king before him had over held, ruling from Babylonia to Egypt,
or (as he himself expresses it) "from the rising up of the sun to the
going down of the same." Even Sennacherib himself was not prevented by
his calamity from undertaking important wars during the latter part of
his reign. We shall see shortly that he recovered Babylon, chastised
Susiana, and invaded Cilicia, in the course of the seventeen years which
intervened between his flight from Pelusium and his decease. Moreover,
there is evidence that he employed himself during this part of his reign
in the consolidation of the Western provinces, which first appear about
his twelfth year as integral portions of the Empire, furnishing eponyms
in their turn, and thus taking equal rank with the ancient provinces of
Assyria Proper, Adiabene, and Mesopotamia.

The fifth campaign of Sennacherib, according to his own annals, was
partly in a mountainous country which he calls Nipur or Nibur--probably
the most northern portion of the Zagros range where it abuts on Ararat.
He there took a number of small towns, after which he proceeded westward
and contended with a certain Maniya king of Dayan, which was a part of
Taurus bordering on Cilicia. He boasts that he penetrated further into
this region than any king before him; and the boast is confirmed by the
fact that the geographical names which appear are almost entirely new to
us. The expedition was a plundering raid, not an attempt at conquest.
Sennacherib ravaged the country, burnt the towns, and carried away with
him all the valuables, the flocks and herds, and the inhabitants.

After this it appears that for at least three years he was engaged in a
fierce struggle with the combined Babylonians and Susianians. The
troubles recommenced by an attempt of the Chaldaeans of Beth-Yakin to
withdraw themselves from the Assyrian territory, and to tran