The exaggerated development of the Assyrian empire was quite unnatural; the kings of Nineveh had never succeeded in welding into one nation the numerous tribes whom they subdued by force of arms, or in checking in them the spirit of independence; they had not even attempted to do so.  The empire was absolutely without cohesion; the administrative system was so imperfect, the bond attaching the various provinces to each other, and to the centre of the monarchy, so weak that at the commencement of almost every reign a revolt broke out, sometimes at one point, sometimes at another.

It was therefore easy to foresee that, so soon as the reins of government were no longer in a really strong hand—­so soon as the king of Assyria should cease to be an active and warlike king, always in the field, always at the head of his troops—­the great edifice laboriously built up by his predecessors of the tenth and ninth centuries would collapse, and the immense fabric of empire would vanish like smoke with such rapidity as to astonish the world.  And this is exactly what occurred after the death of Binlikhish III.

The tablet in the British Museum allows us to follow year by year the events and the progress of the dissolution of the empire.  Under Shalmaneser V, who reigned from B.C. 828 to 818, some foreign expeditions were still made, as, for instance, to Damascus in B.C. 819; but the forces of the empire were especially engaged during many following years in attempting to hold countries already subdued, such as Armenia, then in a chronic state of revolt; the wars in one and the same province were constant, and occupied some six successive campaigns—­the Armenian war was from B.C. 827 to 822—­proving that no decisive results were obtained.

Under Asshur-edil-ilani II, who reigned from B.C. 818 to 800, we do not see any new conquests; insurrections constantly broke out, and were no longer confined to the extremities of the empire; they encroached on the heart of the country, and gradually approached nearer to Nineveh.  The revolutionary spirit increased in the provinces, a great insurrection became imminent, and was ready to break out on the slightest excuse.  At this period, B.C. 804, it is that the British Museum tablet registers, as a memorable fact in the column of events, “Peace in the land.”  Two great plagues are also mentioned under this reign, in 811 and 805, and on the 13th of June, B.C. 809—­30 Sivan in the eponymos of Bur-el-salkhi—­an almost total eclipse of the sun, visible at Nineveh.

The revolution was not long in coming.  Asshurlikhish [Assurbanipal] ascended the throne in B.C. 800, and fixed his residence at Nineveh, instead of Ellasar, where his predecessor had lived after quitting Nineveh; he is the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, the ever-famous prototype of the voluptuous and effeminate prince.  The tablet in the British Museum only mentions two expeditions in his reign, both of small importance, in 795 and 794; to all the other years the only notice is “in the country,” proving that nothing was done and that all thought of war was abandoned.