ses to
the shores of the Salt Sea; these facts, of little moment to us now,
appeared to the people of those days of decisive importance. No king who
was not actually master of the country would have been tolerated within
the temple of the eponymous god, for the purpose of celebrating
the rites which the sovereign alone was empowered to perform.
Marduk-nadin-shumu, in recognising Shalmaneser's right to act thus,
thereby acknowledged that he himself was not only the king's ally, but
his liegeman. This bond of supremacy doubtless did not weigh heavily
upon him; as soon as his suzerain had evacuated the country, the two
kingdoms remained much on the same footing as had been established by
the treaties of the three previous generations. Alliances were made
between private families belonging to both, peace existed between the
two sovereigns, interchange of commerce and amenities took place between
the two peoples, but with one point of difference which had not existed
formerly: Assur protected Babel, and, by taking precedence of Marduk, he
became the real head of the peoples of the Euphrates valley. Assured of
the subordination, or at least of the friendly neutrality of Babylon,
Shalma-neser had now a free hand to undertake a campaign in the remoter
regions of Syria, without being constantly haunted by the fear that his
rival might suddenly swoop down upon him in the rear by the valleys of
the Badanu or the Zabs. He now ran no risks in withdrawing his troops
from the south-eastern frontier, and in marshalling his forces on the
slopes of the Armenian Alps or on the banks of the Orontes, leaving
merely a slender contingent in the heart of Assyria proper to act as the
necessary guardians of order in the capital.

Since the indecisive battle of Qarqar, the western frontier of the
empire had receded as far as the Euphrates, and Shalmaneser had been
obliged to forego the collection of the annual Syrian tribute. It would
have been an excellent opportunity for the Khati, while they enjoyed
this accidental respite, to come to an understanding with Damascus, for
the purpose of acting conjointly against a common enemy; but they let
the right moment slip, and their isolation made submission inevitable.
The effort to subdue them cost Shalmaneser dear, both in time and men;
in the spring of each year he appeared at the fords of Tul-barsip and
ravaged the environs of Carchemish, then marched upon the Orontes to
accomplish the systematic dev