The war with Assyria, however, saved Israel from being swallowed up by its Syrian neighbour.  Hazael’s strength was exhausted in struggling for his own existence; he had none left for the conquest of Samaria.  Shalmaneser himself, towards the end of his life, was no longer in a position to attack others.  A great revolt broke out against him, headed by his son Assur-dain-pal, the Sardanapallos of the Greeks, who established himself at Nineveh, and there reigned as rival king for about seven years.  His brother Samas-Rimmon, who had remained faithful to his father, at last succeeded in putting down the rebellion.  Nineveh was taken, and its defenders slain.  Henceforth Samas-Rimmon reigned with an undisputed title.

But Assyria was long in recovering from the effects of the revolt, which had shaken her to the foundations.  The dynasty itself never recovered.  Samas-Rimmon, indeed, at the head of the army which had overcome his brother, continued the military policy of his predecessors; the tribes of Media and southern Armenia were defeated, and campaigns were carried on against Babylonia, the strength of which was now completely broken.  In B.C. 812 Babylon was taken, but two years later Samas-Rimmon himself died, and was succeeded by his son Rimmon-nirari III.  His reign was passed in constant warfare on the frontiers of the empire, and in B.C. 804 Damascus was surrendered to him by its king Mariha, who became an Assyrian tributary.  In the following year a pestilence broke out, and when his successor, Shalmaneser III., mounted the throne in B.C. 781, he found himself confronted by a new and formidable power, that of Ararat or Van.  The eastern and northern possessions of Assyria were taken from her, and the monarchy fell rapidly into decay.  In B.C. 763 an eclipse of the sun took place on the 15th of June, and was the signal for the outbreak of a revolt in Assur, the ancient capital of the kingdom.  It spread rapidly to other parts of the empire, and though for a time the government held its own against the rebels, the end came in B.C. 745.  Assur-nirari, the last of the old dynasty, died or was put to death, and Pulu or Pul, one of his generals, was proclaimed king on the 13th of Iyyar or April under the name of Tiglath-pileser III.

Tiglath-pileser III. was the founder of the Second Assyrian empire, which was based on a wholly different principle from that of the first.  Occupation and not plunder was the object of its wars.  The ancient empire of Babylonia in western Asia was to be restored, and the commerce of the Mediterranean to be diverted into Assyrian hands.  The campaigns of Tiglath-pileser and his successors were thus carried on in accordance with a deliberate line of policy.  They aimed at the conquest of the whole civilised world, and the building up of a great organisation of which Nineveh and its ruler were the head.  It was a new principle and a new idea.  And measures were at once adopted to realise it.