reover, did not last long; Bau-akhiddin, who
had succeeded Marduk-balatsu-ikbi, refused to observe the terms of the
treaty, and hostilities again broke out on the Turnat and the Tigris, as
they had done six years previously. This war was prolonged from 813
to 812 B.C., and was still proceeding when Samsi-ramman died. His son
Bamman-nirari III. quickly brought it to a successful issue. He carried
Bau-akhiddin captive to Assyria, with his family and the nobles of his
court, and placed on the vacant throne one of his own partisans, while
he celebrated festivals in honour of his own supremacy at Babylon, Kuta,
and Borsippa. Karduniash made no attempt to rebel against Assyria during
the next half-century. Bamman-nirari proved himself an energetic and
capable sovereign, and the thirty years of his reign were by no means
inglorious. We learn from the eponym lists what he accomplished during
that time, and against which countries he waged war; but we have not yet
recovered any inscription to enable us to fill in this outline, and put
together a detailed account of his reign. His first expeditions were
directed against Media (810), Gozan (809), and the Mannai (808-807); he
then crossed the Euphrates, and in four successive years conducted as
many vigorous campaigns against Arpad (806), Kkazaiu (808), the town
of Baali (804), and the cities of the Phoenician sea-board (803). The
plague interfering with his advance in the latter direction, he again
turned his attention eastward and attacked Khubushkia in 802, 792, and
784; Media in 801-800, 794-793, and 790-787; Lushia in 799; Namri in
798; Diri in 796-795 and 785; Itua in 791, 783-782; Kishki in 785. This
bare enumeration conjures up a vision of an enterprising and victorious
monarch of the type of Assur-nazir-pal or Shalmaneser III., one who
perhaps succeeded even where his redoubtable ancestors had failed.
The panoramic survey of his empire, as unfolded to us in one of his
inscriptions, includes the mountain ranges of Illipi as far as Mount
Sihina, Kharkhar, Araziash, Misu, Media, the whole of Gizilbunda, Man,
Parsua, Allabria, Abdadana, the extensive territory of Istairi, far-off
Andiu, and, westwards beyond the Euphrates, the Khati, the entire
country of the Amorites, Tyre, Sidon, Israel, Edom, and the Philistines.
Never before had the Assyrian empire extended so far east in the
direction of the centre of the Iranian tableland, nor so far to the
south-west towards the frontiers