Tanutamon, a son of Pharaoh Shabaka, succeeded Taharka, and in 663 B.C. marched northward from Thebes with a strong army.  He captured Memphis.  It is believed Necho was slain, and Herodotus relates that his son Psamtik took refuge in Syria.  In 661 B.C.  Ashur-bani-pal’s army swept through Lower Egypt and expelled the Ethiopians.  Tanutamon fled southward, but on this occasion the Assyrians followed up their success, and besieged and captured Thebes, which they sacked.  Its nobles were slain or taken captive.  According to the prophet Nahum, who refers to Thebes as No (Nu-Amon = city of Amon), “her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets:  and they (the Assyrians) cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains".[548] Thebes never again recovered its prestige.  Its treasures were transported to Nineveh.  The Ethiopian supremacy in Egypt was finally extinguished, and Psamtik, son of Necho, who was appointed the Pharaoh, began to reign as the vassal of Assyria.

When the kings on the seacoasts of Palestine and Asia Minor found that they could no longer look to Egypt for help, they resigned themselves to the inevitable, and ceased to intrigue against Assyria.  Gifts were sent to Ashur-bani-pal by the kings of Arvad, Tyre, Tarsus, and Tabal.  The Arvad ruler, however, was displaced, and his son set on his throne.  But the most extraordinary development was the visit to Nineveh of emissaries from Gyges, king of Lydia, who figures in the legends of Greece.  This monarch had been harassed by the Cimmerians after they accomplished the fall of Midas of Phrygia in 676 B.C., and he sought the help of Ashur-bani-pal.  It is not known whether the Assyrians operated against the Cimmerians in Tabal, but, as Gyges did not send tribute, it would appear that he held his own with the aid of mercenaries from the State of Caria in southwestern Asia Minor.  The Greeks of Cilicia, and the Achaeans and Phoenicians of Cyprus remained faithful to Assyria.

Elam gave trouble in 665 B.C. by raiding Akkad, but the Assyrian army repulsed the invaders at Dur-ilu and pushed on to Susa.  The Elamites received a crushing defeat in a battle on the banks of the River Ula.  King Teumman was slain, and a son of the King of Urtagu was placed on his throne.  Elam thus came under Assyrian sway.

The most surprising and sensational conspiracy against Ashur-bani-pal was fomented by his brother Shamash-shum-ukin of Babylon, after the two had co-operated peacefully for fifteen years.  No doubt the priestly party at E-sagila were deeply concerned in the movement, and the king may have been strongly influenced by the fact that Babylonia was at the time suffering from severe depression caused by a series of poor harvests.  Merodach, according to the priests, was angry; it was probably argued that he was punishing the people because they had not thrown off the yoke of Assyria.