his body-guard was never a very numerous one, for the army would have
melted away in the course of a campaign or two, had it been necessary,
after each fresh conquest, to detach from it a sufficient force to
guard against rebellion. It was strengthened, it is true, by auxiliaries
enlisted on the spot, and the tributary chiefs included in the
provincial district were expected to furnish a reasonable quota of men
in case of need;* but the loyalty of all these people was, at the best,
somewhat doubtful, and in the event of their proving untrustworthy at
a critical moment, the little band of Assyrian horse and foot would be
left to deal with the revolt unaided until such time as the king could
come and relieve them.

* In a despatch from Belibni to Assur-bani-pal we find
Aramaeans from the Persian Gulf submitting to the authority
of an Assyrian officer, and fighting in Elam side by side
with his troops. Again, under Assur-bani-pal, an army sent
to repress a revolt on the part of Kedar and the Nabatseans
included contingents from Ammon, Moab, and Edom, together
with the Assyrian garrisons of the Hauran and Zobah.

The distance between the banks of the Jordan or Abana and those of the
Tigris was a long one, and in nearly every instance it would have been
a question of months before help could arrive. Meanwhile, Egypt was at
hand, jealous of her rival, who was thus encroaching on territory which
had till lately been regarded as her exclusive sphere of influence, and
vaguely apprehensive of the fate which might be in store for her if some
Assyrian army, spurred by the lust of conquest, were to cross the desert
and bear down upon the eastern frontiers of the Delta. Distrustful of
her own powers, and unwilling to assume a directly offensive attitude,
she did all she could to foment continual disturbances among the Hebrews
and Phoenicians, as well as in Philistia and Aram; she carried on secret
intrigues with the independent princes, and held out tempting hopes
of speedy intervention before the eyes of their peoples; her influence
could readily be traced in every seditious movement. The handful of men
assigned to the governors of the earlier provinces close to the capital
would have been of little avail against perils of this kind. Though
Tiglath-pileser added colony to colony in the distant regions annexed by
him, he organised them on a different plan from that which had prevailed
before his ti