Esar-haddon after this was engaged in a war with Edom.  He there took a city which bore the same name as the country—­a city previously, he tells us, taken by his father—­and transported the inhabitants into Assyria, at the same time carrying off certain images of the Edomite gods.  Hereupon the king, who was named Hazael, sent an embassy to Nineveh, to make submission and offer presents, while at the same time he supplicated Isar-haddon to restore his gods and allow them to be conveyed back to their own proper country.  Esarhaddon granted the request, and restored the images to the envoy; but as a compensation for this boon, he demanded an increase of the annual tribute, which was augmented in consequence by sixty-five camels.  He also nominated to the Edomite throne, either in succession or in joint sovereignty, a female named Tabua, who had been born and brought up in his own palace.

The expedition next mentioned on Esar-haddon’s principal cylinder is one presenting some difficulty.  The scene of it is a country called Bazu, which is said to be “remote, on the extreme confines of the earth, on the other side of the desert.”  It was reached by traversing it hundred and forty farsakhs (490 miles) of sandy desert, then twenty farsakhs (70 miles) of fertile land, and beyond that a stony region.  None of the kings of Assyria, down to the time of Esar-haddon, had ever penetrated so far.  Bazu lay beyond Khazu, which was the name of the stony tract, and Bazu had for its chief town a city called Yedih, which was under the rule of a king named Laile.  It is thought, from the combinaqon of these names, and from the general description of the region—­of its remoteness and of the way in which it was reached—­that it was probably the district of Arabia beyond Nedjif which lies along the Jebel Shammer, and corresponds closely with the modern Arab kingdom of Hira.  Esar-haddon boasts that he marched into the middle of the territory, that he slew eight of its sovereigns, and carried into Assyria their gods, their treasures, and their subjects; and that, though Laile escaped him, he too lost his gods, which were seized and conveyed to Nineveh.  Then Laile, like the Idumaean monarch above mentioned, felt it necessary to humble himself.  He went in person to the Assyrian capital, prostrated himself before the royal footstool, and entreated for the restoration of his gods; which Esar-haddon consented to give back, but solely on the condition that Laile became thenceforth one of his tributaries.

If this expedition was really carried into the quarter here supposed, Esar-haddon performed a feat never paralleled in history, excepting by Augustus and Nushirvan.  He led an army across the deserts which everywhere guard Arabia on the land side, and penetrated to the more fertile tracts beyond them, a region of settled inhabitants and of cities.  He there took and spoiled several towns; and he returned to his own country without suffering disaster.  Considering