the Theban monarch regarded in the light of tribute:  the case was now reversed, the Egyptian Pharaoh taking the position formerly occupied by the Assyrian monarch.  Tiglath-pileser graciously accepted this unexpected homage, but the turbulent condition of the northern tribes prevented his improving the occasion by an advance into Phoenicia and the land of Canaan.  Nairi occupied his attention on two separate occasions at least; on the second of these he encamped in the neighbourhood of the source of the river Subnat.  This stream, had for a long period issued from a deep grotto, where in ancient times a god was supposed to dwell.  The conqueror was lavish in religious offerings here, and caused a bas-relief to be engraved on the entrance in remembrance of his victories.

[Illustration 233.jpg THE STELE AT SEBENNEH-SU]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by P. Taylor, in G.
     Rawlinson.

He is here represented as standing upright, the tiara on his brow, and his right arm extended as if in the act of worship, while his left, the elbow brought up to his side, holds a club.  The inscription appended to the figure tells, with an eloquence all the more effective from its brevity, how, “with the aid of Assur, Shamash, and Eamman, the great gods, my lords, I, Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, son of Assurishishi, King of Assyria, son of Mutakkilnusku, King of Assyria, conqueror from the great sea, the Mediterranean, to the great sea of Nairi, I went for the third time to Nairi.”

The gods who had so signally favoured the monarch received the greater part of the spoils which he had secured in his campaigns.  The majority of the temples of Assyria, which were founded at a time when its city was nothing more than a provincial capital owing allegiance to Babylon, were either, it would appear, falling to ruins from age, or presented a sorry exterior, utterly out of keeping with the magnitude of its recent wealth.  The king set to work to enlarge or restore the temples of Ishtar, Martu, and the ancient Bel;* he then proceeded to rebuild, from the foundations to the summit, that of Anu and Bamman, which the vicegerent Samsiramman, son of Ismidagan, had constructed seven hundred and one years previously.  This temple was the principal sanctuary of the city, because it was the residence of the chief of the gods, Assur, under his appellation of Anu.**

     * “Bel the ancient,” or possibly “the ancient master,”
     appears to have been one of the names of Anu, who is
     naturally in this connexion the same as Assur.

     ** This was the great temple of which the ruins still exist.

The soil was cleared away down to the bed-rock, upon which an enormous substructure, consisting of fifty courses of bricks, was laid, and above this were erected two lofty ziggurats, whose tile-covered surfaces shone like the rising sun in their brightness; the completion of the whole was commemorated by a magnificent festival.  The special chapel of Bamman and his treasury, dating from the time of the same Samsiramman who had raised the temple of Anu, were also rebuilt on a more important scale.*