nce of escape, but the governor was seldom
likely to hesitate between almost certain condemnation and the vague
possibility of a successful rising; in such a case, therefore, he staked
everything on a single throw.

[Illustration: 312.jpg TIGLATH-PILESER III. BESIEGING A REVELLIOUS
CITY.]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Mansell.

The system was a defective on, in that it exposed to strong temptation
the very functionaries whose loyalty was most essential to the proper
working of the administration, but its dangers were out weighed by
such important advantages that we cannot but regard it as a very real
improvement on the haphazard methods of the past. In the first place,
it opened up a larger recruiting-ground for the army, and, in a measure,
guaranteed it against that premature exhaustion which had already led
more than once to an eclipse of the Assyrian power. It may be that the
pick of these provincial troops were, preferably, told off for police
duties, or for the defence of the districts in which they were levied,
and that they seldom left it except to do battle in the adjacent
territory;* but, even with these limitations they were none the less
of inestimable value, since they relieved the main army of Assyria from
garrison duties in a hundred scattered localities, and allowed the king
to concentrate it almost in its entirety about his own person, and
to direct it _en masse_ upon those points where he wished to strike a
decisive blow.

* Thus, in the reign of Assur-bani-pal, we find the militia
of the governor of Uruk marching to battle against the
Gambulu.

On the other hand, the finances of the kingdom were put on a more
stable and systematic basis. For nearly the whole of the two previous
centuries, during which Assyria had resumed its victorious career, the
treasury had been filled to some extent by taxes in kind or in money,
and by various dues claimed from the hereditary kingdom and its few
immediate dependencies, but mainly by booty and by tribute levied after
each campaign from the peoples who had been conquered or had voluntarily
submitted to Assyrian rule. The result was a budget which fluctuated
greatly, since all forays were not equally lucrative, and the new
dependencies proved so refractory at the idea of perpetual tribute, that
frequent expeditions were necessary in order to persuade them to pay
their dues. We do not know how Tiglath-pileser III. organised the
fina