country had wrested from his ancestors; or, perhaps,
Argistis thought that a change of ruler offered him an excellent
opportunity for renewing the struggle at the point where Menuas had left
it, and for conquering yet more of the territory which still remained
to his rival. Whatever the cause, the Assyrian annals show us the two
adversaries ranged against each other, in a struggle which lasted from
781 to 778 B.C. Argistis had certainly the upper hand, and though
his advance was not rapid, it was never completely checked. The first
engagement took place at Nirbu, near the sources of the Supnat and the
Tigris: Nirbu capitulated, and the enemy pitilessly ravaged the Hittite
states, which were subject to Assyria, penetrating as far as the heart
of Melitene (781). The next year the armies encountered each other
nearer to Nineveh, in the basin of the Bitlis-tchai, at Khakhias; and,
in 779, Argistis expressly thanks his gods, the Khaldises, for having
graciously bestowed upon him as a gift the armies and cities of Assur.
The scene of the war had shifted, and the contest was now carried on in
the countries bordering on Lake Urumiah, Bustus and Parsua. The natives
gained nothing by the change of invader, and were as hardly used by the
King of Urartu as they had been by Shalmaneser III. or by Samsiramman:
as was invariably the case, their towns were given over to the flames,
their fields ravaged, their cattle and their families carried into
captivity. Their resistance, however, was so determined that a second
campaign was required to complete the conquest: and this time the
Assyrians suffered a serious defeat at Surisidas (778), and a year
at least was needed for their recovery from the disaster. During this
respite, Argistis hastened to complete the pacification of Bustus,
Parsua, and the small portion of Man which had not been reduced to
subjection by Menuas. When the Assyrians returned to the conflict, he
defeated them again (776), and while they withdrew to the Amanus, where
a rebellion had broken out (775), he reduced one by one the small states
which clustered round the eastern and southern shores of Lake Urumiah.
He was conducting a campaign in Namri, when Shalmaneser IV. made a last
effort to check his advance; but he was again victorious (774), and from
henceforth these troubled regions, in which Nineveh had so persistently
endeavoured for more than a century to establish her own supremacy,
became part of the empire of Ur