Asshur-bani-pal’s next important war was against the Arabs.  Some of the desert tribes had, as already mentioned, lent assistance to Saul-Mugina during his revolt against his suzerain, and it was to punish this audacity that Asshur-bani-pal undertook his expedition.  His principal enemy was a certain Vaiteha, who had for allies Natun, or Nathan, king of the Nabathivans, and Ammu-ladin, king of Kedar.  The fighting seems to have extended along the whole country bordering the Euphrates valley from the Persian Gulf to Syria, and thence southwards by Damascus to Petra.  Petra itself, Muhab (or Moab), Hudumimtukrab (Edom), Zaharri (perhaps Zoar), and several other cities were taken by the Assyrians.  The final battle was fought at a place called Kutkhuruna, in he mountains near Damascus, where the Arabians were defeated with great slaughter, and the two chief, who had led the Arab contingent to the assistance of Saul-Mugina were made prisoners by the Assyrians.  Asshur-bani-pal had them conducted to Nineveh, and there publicly executed.

The annals of Asshur-bani-pal here terminate.  They exhibit him to us as a warrior more enterprising and more powerful than any of his predecessors, and as one who enlarged in almost every direction the previous limits of the empire.  In Egypt he completed the work which his father Esar-haddon had begun, and established the Assyrian dominion for some years, not only at Sais and at Memphis, but at Thebes.  In Asia Minor he carried the Assyrian arms far beyond any former king, conquering large tracts which had never before been invaded, and extending the reputation of his greatness to the extreme western limits of the continent.  Against his northern neighbors he contended with unusual success, and towards the close of his reign he reckoned, not only the Minni, but the Urarda, or true Armenians, among his tributaries.  Towards the south, he added to the empire the great country of Susiana, never subdued until his reign:  and on the west, he signally chastised if he did not actually conquer, the Arabs.

To his military ardor Asshur-bani-pal added a passionate addiction to the pleasure of the chase.  Lion-hunting was his especial delight.  Sometimes along the banks of reedy streams, sometimes borne mid-channel in his pleasure galley, he sought the king of beasts in his native haunts, roused him by means of hounds and beaters from his lair, and despatched him with his unerring arrows.  Sometimes he enjoyed the sport in his own park of paradise.  Large and fierce beasts, brought from a distance, were placed in traps about the grounds, and on his approach were set free from their confinement, while he drove among them in his chariot, letting fly his shafts at each with a strong and steady hand, which rarely failed to attain the mark it aimed at.  Aided only by two or three attendants armed with spears, he would encounter the terrific spring of the bolder beasts, who rushed frantically at the royal marksman and endeavored to tear him from the chariot-board.  Sometimes he would even voluntarily quit this vantage-ground, and, engaging with the brutes on the same level, without the protection of armor, in his everyday dress, with a mere fillet upon his head, he would dare a close combat, and smite them with sword or spear through the heart.