it without much difficulty, and after that there
would have been nothing to prevent his soldiers from pressing on, if
need be, to the walls of Samaria or even of Jerusalem itself. Indeed, he
seems to have at last made up his mind to embark on this venture, when
the revival of Assyrian power put a stop to his ambitious schemes.
Tiglath-pileser, hard pressed on every side by daring and restless foes,
began by attacking those who were at once the most troublesome and most
vulnerable--the Aramaean tribes on the banks of the Tigris. To give these
incorrigible banditti, who boldly planted their outposts not a score of
leagues from his capital, a free hand on his rear, and brave the fortune
of war in Armenia or Syria, without first teaching them a lesson in
respect, would have been simply to court serious disaster; an Aramaean
raid occurring at a time when he was engaged elsewhere with the bulk
of his army, might have made it necessary to break off a successful
campaign and fall back in haste to the relief of Nineveh or Calah
(Kalakh), just as he was on the eve of gaining some decisive advantage.
Moreover, the suzerainty of Assyria over Karduniash entailed on him the
duty of safeguarding Babylon from that other horde of Aramaeans which
harassed it on the east, while the Kalda were already threatening its
southern frontier. It is not quite clear whether Nabunazir who then
occupied the throne implored his help:* at any rate, he took the field
as soon as he felt that his own crown was secure, overthrew the Aramaeans
at the first encounter, and drove them back from the banks of the Lower
Zab to those of the Uknu: all the countries which they had seized to the
east of the Tigris at once fell again into the hands of the Assyrians.

* Nabunazir is the Nabonassar who afterwards gave his name
to the era employed by Ptolemy.

This first point gained, Tiglath-pileser crossed the river, and made a
demonstration in force before the Babylonian fortresses. He visited, one
after another, Sippar, Nipur, Babylon, Borsippa, Kuta, Kishu, Dilbat,
and Uruk, "cities without peer," and offered in all of them sacrifices
to the gods,--to Bel, to Zirbanit, to Nebo, to Tashmit, and to Nirgal.
Karduniash bowed down before him, but he abstained from giving any
provocation to the Kalda, and satisfied with having convinced Nabunazir
that Assyria had lost none of her former vigour, he made his way back to
his hereditary kingdom.*

* Most his