But while it appears to be probable that consequences of some importance followed on the Pelusiac calamity, it is tolerably certain that no such tremendous results flowed from it as some writers have imagined.  The murder of the disgraced Sennacherib “within fifty-five days” of his return to Nineveh, seems to be an invention of the Alexandrian Jew who wrote the Book of Tobit.  The total destruction of the empire in consequence of the blow, is an exaggeration of Josephus, rashly credited by some moderns.  Sennacherib did not die till B.C. 681, seventeen years after his misfortune; and the Empire suffered so little that we find Esar-haddon, a few years later, in full possession of all the territory that any king before him had over held, ruling from Babylonia to Egypt, or (as he himself expresses it) “from the rising up of the sun to the going down of the same.”  Even Sennacherib himself was not prevented by his calamity from undertaking important wars during the latter part of his reign.  We shall see shortly that he recovered Babylon, chastised Susiana, and invaded Cilicia, in the course of the seventeen years which intervened between his flight from Pelusium and his decease.  Moreover, there is evidence that he employed himself during this part of his reign in the consolidation of the Western provinces, which first appear about his twelfth year as integral portions of the Empire, furnishing eponyms in their turn, and thus taking equal rank with the ancient provinces of Assyria Proper, Adiabene, and Mesopotamia.

The fifth campaign of Sennacherib, according to his own annals, was partly in a mountainous country which he calls Nipur or Nibur—­probably the most northern portion of the Zagros range where it abuts on Ararat.  He there took a number of small towns, after which he proceeded westward and contended with a certain Maniya king of Dayan, which was a part of Taurus bordering on Cilicia.  He boasts that he penetrated further into this region than any king before him; and the boast is confirmed by the fact that the geographical names which appear are almost entirely new to us.  The expedition was a plundering raid, not an attempt at conquest.  Sennacherib ravaged the country, burnt the towns, and carried away with him all the valuables, the flocks and herds, and the inhabitants.

After this it appears that for at least three years he was engaged in a fierce struggle with the combined Babylonians and Susianians.  The troubles recommenced by an attempt of the Chaldaeans of Beth-Yakin to withdraw themselves from the Assyrian territory, and to transfer their allegiance to the Elymaean king.  Carrying with them their gods and their treasures, they embarked in their ships, and crossing “the Great Sea of the Rising Sun”—­i.e., the Persian Gulf—­landed on the Elamitic coast, where they were kindly received and allowed to take up their abode.  Such voluntary removals are not uncommon in the East; and they constantly give rise to complaints