This is the name given by the Assyrians to the
     Mediterranean.

Tiglath-pileser embarked on its waters, made a cruise into the open, and killed a porpoise, but we have no record of any battles fought, nor do we know how he was received by the Phoenician towns.  He pushed on, it is thought, as far as the Nahr el-Kelb, and the sight of the hieroglyphic inscriptions which Ramses had caused to be cut there three centuries previously aroused his emulation.  Assyrian conquerors rarely quitted the scene of their exploits without leaving behind them some permanent memorial of their presence.  A sculptor having hastily smoothed the surface of a rock, cut out on it a figure of the king, to which was usually added a commemorative inscription.  In front of this stele was erected an altar, upon which sacrifices were made, and if the monument was placed near a stream or the seashore, the soldiers were accustomed to cast portions of the victims into the water in order to propitiate the river-deities.

[Illustration:  231.jpg PORTIONS OF THE SACRIFICIAL VICTIMS THROWN INTO THE WATER]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
     bronze gates of Balawat.

One of the half-effaced Assyrian stelae adjoining those of the Egyptian conqueror is attributed to Tiglath-pileser.*

Boscawen thinks that we may attribute to Tiglath-pileser I. the oldest of the Assyrian stelae at Nahr el-Kelb; no positive information has as yet confirmed this hypothesis, which is in other respects very probable.

It was on his return, perhaps, from this campaign that he planted colonies at Pitru on the right, and at Mutkinu on the left bank of the Euphrates, in order to maintain a watch over Carchemish, and the more important fords connecting Mesopotamia with the plains of the Aprie and the Orontes.

     * The existence of these colonies is known only from an
     inscription of Shalmaneser II.

The news of Tiglath-pileser’s expedition was not long in reaching the Delta, and the Egyptian monarch then reigning at Tanis was thus made acquainted with the fact that there had arisen in Syria a new power before which his own was not unlikely to give way.  In former times such news would have led to a war between the two states, but the time had gone by when Egypt was prompt to take up arms at the slightest encroachment on her Asiatic provinces.  Her influence at this time was owing merely to her former renown, and her authority beyond the isthmus was purely traditional.  The Tanite Pharaoh had come to accept with resignation the change in the fortunes of Egypt, and he therefore contented himself with forwarding to the Assyrian conqueror, by one of the Syrian coasting vessels, a present of some rare wild beasts and a few crocodiles.  In olden times Assyria had welcomed the arrival of Thutmosis III. on the Euphrates by making him presents, which