The campaign against Babylon was the most important one undertaken by Tukulti-Ninib, and its successful issue was the crowning point of his military career.  The king relates that the great gods Ashur, Bel, and Shamash, and the goddess Ishtar, the queen of heaven and earth, marched at the head of his warriors when he set out upon the expedition.  After crossing the border and penetrating into Babylonian territory he seems to have had some difficulty in forcing Bitiliashu, the Kassite king who then occupied the throne of Babylon, to a decisive engagement.  But by a skilful disposition of his forces he succeeded in hemming him in, so that the Babylonian army was compelled to engage in a pitched battle.  The result of the fighting was a complete victory for the Assyrian arms.  Many of the Babylonian warriors fell fighting, and Bitiliashu himself was captured by the Assyrian soldiers in the midst of the battle.  Tukulti-Ninib boasts that he trampled his lordly neck beneath his feet, and on his return to Assyria he carried his captive back in fetters to present him with the spoils of the campaign before Ashur, the national god of the Assyrians.

Before returning to Assyria, however, Tukulti-Ninib marched with his army throughout the length and breadth of Babylonia, and achieved the subjugation of the whole of the Sumer and Akkad.  He destroyed the fortifications of Babylon to ensure that they should not again be used against himself, and all the inhabitants who did not at once submit to his decrees he put co the sword.  He then appointed his own officers to rule the country and established his own system of administration, adding to his previous title of “King of Assyria,” those of “King of Karduniash (i. e.  Babylonia)” and “King of Sumer and Akkad.”  It was probably from this period that he also adopted the title of “King of the Poor Quarters of the World.”  As a mark of the complete subjugation of their ancient foe, Tukulti-Ninib and his army carried back with them to Assyria not only the captive Babylonian king, but also the statue of Marduk, the national god of Babylon.  This they removed from B-sagila, his sumptuous temple in Babylon, and they looted the sacred treasures from the treasure-chambers, and carried them off together with the spoil of the city.

Tukulti-Ninib no doubt left a sufficient proportion of his army in Babylon to garrison the city and support the governors and officials into whose charge he committed the administration of the land, but he himself returned to Assyria with the rich spoil of the campaign, and it was probably as a use for this large increase of wealth and material that he decided to found another city which should bear his own name and perpetuate it for future ages.  The king records that he undertook this task at the bidding of Bel (i.e. the god Ashur), who commanded that he should found a new city and build a dwelling-place for him therein.  In accordance with the desire of Ashur and the gods, which was thus