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 been discovered, as well as autograph letters of the kings themselves, more especially of Khammurabi. Among the latter is one ordering the despatch of 240 soldiers from Assyria and Situllum, a proof that Assyria was at the time a Babylonian dependency. Constant intercourse was kept up between Babylonia and the west, Babylonian officials and troops passing to Syria and Canaan, while “Amorite” colonists were established in Babylonia for the purposes of trade. One of these Amorites, Abi-ramu or Abram by name, is the father of a witness to a deed dated in the reign of Khammurabi’s grandfather. Ammi-ditana, the great-grandson of Khammurabi, still entitles himself “king of the land of the Amorites,” and both his father and son bear the Canaanitish (and south Arabian) names of Abēsukh or Abishua and Ammi-zadok.

One of the most important works of this “First Dynasty of Babylon,” as it was called by the native historians, was the compilation of a code of laws (see ). This was made by order of Khammurabi after the expulsion of the Elamites and the settlement of his kingdom. A copy of the Code has been found at Susa by J. de Morgan and is now in the Louvre, The last king of the dynasty was Samsu-ditana the son of Ammi-zadok. He was followed by a dynasty of 11 Sumerian kings, who are said to have reigned for 368 years, a number which must be much exaggerated. As yet the name of only one of them has been found in a contemporaneous document. They were overthrown and Babylonia was conquered by Kassites or Kossaeans from the mountains of Elam, with whom Samsu-iluna had already come into conflict in his 9th year. The Kassite dynasty was founded by Kandis, Gandis or Gaddas (about 1780 ), and lasted for 576 years. Under this foreign dominion, which offers a striking analogy to the contemporary rule of the Hyksos in Egypt, Babylonia lost its empire over western Asia, Syria and Palestine became independent, and the high-priests of Assur made themselves kings of Assyria. The divine attributes with which the Semitic kings of Babylonia had been invested disappeared at the same time; the title of “god” is never given to a Kassite sovereign. Babylon, however, remained the capital of the kingdom and the holy city of western Asia, where the priests were all-powerful, and the right to the inheritance of the old Babylonian empire could alone be conferred.

—Under Khammurabi a Samsi-Hadad (or Samsi-Raman) seems to have been vassal-prince at Assur, and the names of several of the high-priests of Assur who succeeded him have been made known to us by the recent German excavations. The foundation of the monarchy was ascribed to Zulilu, who is described as living after Bel-kapkapi or Belkabi (1900 ), the ancestor of Shalmaneser I. Assyria grew in power at the expense of Babylonia, and a time came when the Kassite king of Babylonia was glad to marry the daughter of Assur-yuballidh of Assyria, whose letters to Amenophis (Amon-hotep) IV. of Egypt have been found at Tell el-Amarna. The marriage, however, led to disastrous results, as the Kassite faction at court murdered the king and placed a pretender on the throne. Assur-yuballidh promptly marched into Babylonia and avenged his son-in-law, making Burna-buryas of the royal line king in his stead. Burna-buryas, who reigned 22 years, carried on a correspondence with Amenophis IV. of Egypt. After his death, the Assyrians, who were still nominally the vassals of Babylonia, threw off all disguise, and Shalmaneser I. (1300 ), the great-great-grandson of Assur-yuballidh, openly claimed the supremacy in western Asia. Shalmaneser was the founder of Calah, and his annals, which have recently been discovered at Assur, show how widely extended the Assyrian empire already was. Campaign after campaign was carried on against the Hittites and the wild tribes of the north-west, and Assyrian colonists were settled in Cappadocia. His son Tukulti-In-aristi conquered Babylon, putting its king Bitilyasu to death, and thereby made Assyria the mistress of the oriental world. Assyria had taken the place of Babylonia.

For 7 years Tukulti-In-aristi ruled at Babylon with the old imperial title of “king of Sumer and Akkad.” Then the Babylonians revolted. The Assyrian king was murdered by his son, Assur-nazir-pal I., and Hadad-nadin-akhi made king of Babylonia. But it was not until several years later, in the reign of the Assyrian king Tukulti-Assur, that a reconciliation was effected between the two rival kingdoms. The next Assyrian monarch, Bel-kudur-uzur, was the last of the old royal line. He seems to have been slain fighting against the Babylonians, who were still under the rule of Hadad-nadin-akhi, and a new dynasty was established at Assur by In-aristi-pileser, who claimed to be a descendant of the ancient prince Erba-Raman. His fourth successor was Tiglath-pileser I., one of the great conquerors of Assyria, who carried his arms towards Armenia on the north and Cappadocia on the west; he hunted wild bulls in the Lebanon and was presented with a crocodile by the Egyptian king. In 1107, however, he sustained a temporary defeat at the hands of Merodach-nadin-akhi (Marduk-nadin-akhē) of Babylonia, where the Kassite dynasty had finally succumbed to Elamite attacks and a new line of kings was on the throne.

Of the immediate successors of Tiglath-pileser I. we know little, and it is with Assur-nazir-pal III. (883–858 ) that our knowledge of Assyrian history begins once more to be fairly full. The empire of Assyria was again extended in all directions, and the palaces, temples and other buildings raised by him bear witness to a considerable development of wealth and art. Calah became the favourite residence of a monarch who was distinguished even among Assyrian conquerors for his revolting cruelties. His son Shalmaneser II. had a long reign of 35 years, during which the Assyrian capital was converted into a sort of armed camp. Each year the Assyrian armies marched out of it to plunder and destroy. Babylon was occupied and the country reduced to vassalage. In the west the confederacy of Syrian princes headed by Benhadad of Damascus and including Ahab of Israel (see, § 10) was shattered in 853 , and twelve years later the forces of Hazael were annihilated and the ambassadors of Jehu of Samaria brought tribute to “the great king.” The last few years of his life, however, were disturbed by the rebellion of his eldest son, which well-nigh proved fatal. Assur, Arbela and other places joined the pretender, and the revolt was with difficulty put down by Samsi-Raman (or Samsi-Hadad), Shalmaneser’s second son, who soon afterwards succeeded him (824 ). In 804 Damascus was captured by his successor Hadad-nirari IV., to whom tribute was paid by Samaria.

With Nabu-nazir, the Nabonassar of classical writers, the so-called Canon of Ptolemy begins. When he ascended the throne of Babylon in 747 Assyria was in the throes of a revolution. Civil war and pestilence were devastating the country, and its northern provinces had been wrested from it by Ararat. In 746 Calah joined the rebels, and on the 13th of Iyyar in the following year, Pulu or Pul, who took the name of Tiglath-pileser III., seized the crown and inaugurated a new and vigorous policy.

—Under Tiglath-pileser III. arose the second Assyrian empire, which differed from the first in its greater consolidation. For the first time in history the idea of centralization was introduced into politics; the conquered provinces were organized under an elaborate bureaucracy at the head of which was the king, each district paying a fixed tribute and providing a military contingent. The Assyrian forces became a standing army, which, by successive improvements and careful discipline, was moulded into an irresistible fighting machine, and Assyrian policy was directed towards the definite object of reducing the whole civilized world into a single empire and thereby throwing its trade and wealth into Assyrian hands. With this object, after terrorizing Armenia and the Medes and breaking the power of the Hittites, Tiglath-pileser III. secured the high-roads of commerce to the Mediterranean together with the Phoenician seaports and then made himself master of Babylonia. In 729 the summit of his ambition was attained, and he was invested with the sovereignty of Asia in the holy city of Babylon.