mpaigns against Assyria, and as these
latter follow continuously after 781, it is probable that
the former must be placed in 783-782, which would give 783
or 784 for the year of his accession.

He was engaged up to the last in a quarrel with the princes who occupied
the mountainous country to the north of the Araxes, and his son Argistis
spent the first few years of his reign in completing his conquests in
this region.* He crushed with ease an attempted revolt in Dayaini, and
then invaded Etius, systematically devastating it, its king, Uduris,
being powerless to prevent his ravages. All the principal towns
succumbed one after another before the vigour of his assault, and, from
the numbers killed and taken prisoners, we may surmise the importance of
his victories in these barbarous districts, to which belonged the names
of Seriazis, Silius, Zabakhas, Zirimutaras, Babanis, and Urmias,**
though we cannot definitely locate the places indicated.

* The _Annals of Argistis_ are inscribed on the face of the
rock which crowns the citadel of Van. The inscription
contains (as stated in note above) the history of the first
fourteen yearly campaigns of Argistis.

** The site of these places is still undetermined. Seriazis
and Silius (or Tarius) lay to the north-east of Dayaini, and
Urmias, Urme, recalls the modern name of Lake Urumiah, but
was probably situated on the left bank of the Araxes.

On a single occasion, the assault on Ureyus, for instance, Argistis took
prisoners 19,255 children, 10,140 men fit to bear arms, 23,280 women,
and the survivors of a garrison which numbered 12,675 soldiers at the
opening of the siege, besides 1104 horses, 35,016 cattle, and more than
10,000 sheep. Two expeditions into the heart of the country, conducted
between 784 and 782 B.C., had greatly advanced the work of conquest,
when the accession of a new sovereign in Assyria made Argistis decide to
risk a change of front and to concentrate the main part of his forces
on the southern boundary of his empire. Ramman-nirari, after his last
contest in Khubushkia in 784, had fought two consecutive campaigns
against the Aramaean tribes of Itua, near the frontiers of Babylon, and
he was still in conflict with them when he died in 782 B.C. His son,
Shalmaneser IV., may have wished to signalise the commencement of his
reign by delivering from the power of Urartu the provinces which the
kings of that