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