o
decay. Freed from its enemies, Damascus again amassed wealth through the
trade across the desert, and was recognised as the head of the smaller
Aramaean states. In conjunction with the Israelitish king Pekah, Rezon
II. proposed to overthrow Judah and supplant the Davidic dynasty by a
Syrian vassal-prince. The fall of Judah would have meant the fall also
of Edom and the submission of the Philistines, as well as that of Moab
and Ammon. The strength of its capital made Judah the champion and
protector of southern Canaan; with Jerusalem in their hands, the
confederate rulers of Damascus and Samaria could do as they chose. Ahaz
of Judah turned in his despair to the Assyrians, who had once more
appeared on the scene. Tiglath-pileser III. had overthrown the older
Assyrian dynasty and put new life into the kingdom. In the interests of
the merchants of Nineveh he aimed at incorporating the whole of western
Asia and its commerce into his empire, and the appeal of Ahaz gave him
an excuse for interfering in the affairs of Palestine. Ahaz became his
vassal; Pekah was put to death, and an Assyrian nominee made king in his
place, while Rezon was shut up in his capital and closely besieged. For
two years the siege continued; then Damascus was taken, its last king
slain, and its territory placed under an Assyrian satrap.

Hamath had already fallen. A portion of its population had been
transported to the north, and their places filled with settlers from
Babylonia. Its king had become an Assyrian vassal, who along with the
other subject princes of Asia attended the court held by Tiglath-pileser
at Damascus after its capture, there to pay homage to the conqueror and
swell his triumph. A few years later, on the accession of Sargon, Hamath
made a final effort to recover its freedom. But the effort was
ruthlessly crushed, and henceforward the last of the Aramaean kingdoms
was made an Assyrian province. When an Aramaean tribe again played a part
in history it was in the far south, among the rocky cliffs of Petra and
the desert fortress of the Nabathean merchants.

In the Book of Genesis, Mesopotamia, the country between the Euphrates
and Tigris, is called not only Aram-Naharaim, "Aram of the Two Rivers,"
but also Padan-Aram, "the acre of Aram." Padan, as we learn from the
Assyrian inscriptions, originally signified as much land as a yoke of
oxen could plough; then it came to denote the "cultivated land" or
"acre" itself. The word still surv