the mere mass of such a force, to crush their enemy
in a single battle; but Ben-hadad was supported by his vassals, and
their combined army must have been as formidable numerically as that of
the Assyrians. As usual, after the engagement, Shalmaneser claimed
the victory, but he did not succeed in intimidating the allies or in
wresting from them a single rood of territory.*

* The care which the king takes to specify that "with
120,000 men he crossed the Euphrates in flood-time" very
probably shows that this number was for him in some respects
an unusual one.

Discouraged, doubtless, by so many fruitless attempts, he decided to
suspend hostilities, at all events for the present. In 845 B.C. he
visited Nairi, and caused an "image of his royal Majesty" to be carved
at the source of the Tigris close to the very spot where the stream
first rises. Pushing forward through the defiles of Tunibuni, he
next invaded Urartu, and devastated it as far as the sources of the
Euphrates; on reaching these he purified his arms in the virgin spring,
and offered a sacrifice to the gods. On his return to the frontier,
the chief of Dayaini "embraced his feet," and presented him with some
thoroughbred horses. In 844 B.C. he crossed the Lower Zab and plunged
into the heart of Namri; this country had long been under Babylonian
influence, and its princes bore Semitic names. Mardukmudammiq, who was
then its ruler, betook himself to the mountains to preserve his life;
but his treasures, idols, and troops were carried off to Assyria, and
he was superseded on the throne by Ianzu, the son of Khamban, a noble
of Cossaean origin. As might be expected after such severe exertions,
Shalmaneser apparently felt that he deserved a time of repose, for his
chroniclers merely note the date of 843 B.C. as that of an inspection,
terminating in a felling of cedars in the Amanos. As a fact, there was
nothing stirring on the frontier. Chaldaea itself looked upon him as a
benefactor, almost as a suzerain, and by its position between Elam and
Assyria, protected the latter from any quarrel with Susa. The nations
on the east continued to pay their tribute without coercion, and Namri,
which alone entertained pretensions to independence, had just received
a severe lesson. Urartu had not acknowledged the supremacy of Assur,
but it had suffered in the last invasion, and Arame had shown no
further sign of hostility. The tribes of the Upper Tigris--Kummukh