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arried his daughter to the uncle and predecessor of Burna-buryas, and his grandson became king of Babylon. A revolt on the part of the Kassite troops gave the Assyrians an excuse for interfering in the affairs of Babylonia, and from this time forward their eyes were turned covetously towards the kingdom of the south. As Assyria grew stronger, Babylonia became weaker. Calah, now _Nimrud_, was founded about B.C. 1300 by Shalmaneser I., and his son and successor Tiglath-Ninip threw off all disguise and marched boldly into Babylonia in the fifth year of his reign. Babylon was taken, the treasures of its temple sent to Assur, and Assyrian governors set over the country, while a special seal was made for the use of the conqueror. For seven years the Assyrian domination lasted. Then Tiglath-Ninip was driven back to Assyria, where he was imprisoned and murdered by his son, and the old line of Kassite princes was restored in the person of Rimmon-sum-uzur. But it continued only four reigns longer. A new dynasty from the town of Isin seized the throne, and ruled for 132 years and six months. It was while this dynasty was reigning that a fresh line of energetic monarchs mounted the Assyrian throne. Rimmon-nirari I., the father of Shalmaneser I. (B.C. 1330-1300) had already extended the frontiers of Assyria to the Khabur in the west and the Kurdish mountains in the north, and his son settled an Assyrian colony at the head-waters of the Tigris, which served to garrison the country. But after the successful revolt of the Babylonians against Tiglath-Ninip the Assyrian power decayed. More than a century later Assur-ris-isi entered again on a career of conquest and reduced the Kurds to obedience. His son, Tiglath-pileser I., was one of the great conquerors of history. He carried his arms far and wide. Kurdistan and Armenia, Mesopotamia and Comagene, were all alike overrun by his armies in campaign after campaign. The Hittites paid tribute, as also did Phoenicia, where he sailed on the Mediterranean in a ship of Arvad and killed a dolphin in its waters. The Pharaoh of Egypt, alarmed at the approach of so formidable an invader, sent him presents, which included a crocodile and a hippopotamus, and on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, near Carchemish and Pethor, he hunted wild elephants, as Thothmes III. had done before him. His son still claimed supremacy in the west, as is shown by the fact that he erected statues in "the land of the
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