number of records to enable us to
restore to their rightful place in history this great king, and the
people whose power he developed more than any other sovereign.

Assyria had thus lost all her possessions in the northern and eastern
parts of her empire; turning to the west, how much still remained
faithful to her? After the expedition of 775 B.C. to the land of Cedars,
two consecutive campaigns are mentioned against Damascus (773) and
Hadrach (772); it was during this latter expedition, or immediately
after it, that Shalmaneser IV. died. Northern Syria seems to have been
disturbed by revolutions which seriously altered the balance of power
within her borders. The ancient states, whose growth had been
arrested by the deadly blows inflicted on them in the ninth century
by Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., had become reduced to the
condition of second-rate powers, and their dominions had been split up.
The Patina was divided into four small states--the Patina proper, Unki,
Iaudi, and Samalla, the latter falling under the rule of an Aramaean
family;* perhaps the accession of Qaral, the founder of this dynasty,
had been accompanied by convulsions, which might explain the presence of
Shalmaneser IV. in the Amanos in 775.

* The inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III. mention Unku,
Iaudi, Samalla, and the Patin, in the districts where the
texts of Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., only know of
the Patina.

All these principalities, whether of ancient or recent standing, ranged
themselves under one of two kingdoms--either Hadrach or Arpad, whose
names henceforth during the following half-century appear in the front
rank whenever a coalition is formed against Assyria. Carchemish, whose
independence was still respected by the fortresses erected in its
neighbourhood, could make no move without exposing itself to an
immediate catastrophe: Arpad, occupying a prominent position a little
in front of the Afrin, on the main route leading to the Orontes, had
assumed the _role_ which Carchemish was no longer in a position to fill.
Agusi became the principal centre of resistance; all battles were fought
under the walls of its fortresses, and its fall involved the submission
of all the country between the Euphrates and the sea, as in former times
had been the case with Kinalua and Khazazu.*

* That Arpad was in Agusi is proved, among other places, by
the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III., which