[Illustration:  105.jpg KING URNINA AND HIS FAMILY.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the Louvre.  Cf. another bas-relief of the same king, p. 244; and for the probable explanation of these pierced plaques, see p. 258 of the present work.

His reign was, on the whole, a glorious and successful one.  He conquered the mountain district of Elam, rescued Uruk and Uru, which had both fallen into the hands of the people of Gishban, organized an expedition against the town of Az and killed its vicegerent, in addition to which he burnt Arsua, and devastated the district of Mishime.  He next directed an attack against Zuran, king of Udban, and, by vanquishing this Prince on the field of battle, he extended his dominion over nearly the whole of Babylonia.

The prosperity of his dynasty was subjected to numerous and strange vicissitudes.  Whether it was that its resources were too feeble to stand the exigencies and strain of war for any length of time, or that intestine strife had been the chief cause of its decline, we cannot say.  Its kings married many wives and became surrounded with a numerous progeny:  Urnina had at least four sons.  They often entrusted to their children or their sons-in-law the government of the small towns which together made up the city:  these represented so many temporary fiefs, of which the holders were distinguished by the title of “vicegerents.”  This dismemberment of the supreme authority in the interest of princes, who believed for the most part that they had stronger claims to the throne than its occupant, was attended with dangers to peace and to the permanence of the dynasty.  The texts furnish us with evidence of the existence of at least half a dozen descendants of Akurgal—­Inannatuma I., Intemena, his grandson Inannatuma II, all of whom seem to have been vigorous rulers who energetically maintained the supremacy of their city over the neighbouring estates.  Inannatuma I., however, proved no match in the end against Urlamma, the vicegerent of Gishban, and lost part, at least, of the territory acquired by Idingiranagin, but his son Intemena defeated Urlamma on the banks of the Lumasirta Canal, and, having killed or deposed him, gave the vicegerency of Gishban to a certain Hi, priest of Ninab, who remained his loyal vassal to the end of his days.  With his aid Intemena restored the stelae and walls which had been destroyed during the war; he also cleared out the old canals and dug new ones, the most important of which was apparently an arm of the Shatt-el-Hai, and ran from the Euphrates to the Tigris, through the very centre of the domains of Ghirsu.