* The province of Bit-Adini was specially that part of the country which lay between the Euphrates and the Balikh, but it extended also to other Syrian provinces between the Euphrates and the Aprie.

It was, as we have seen, a complete breaking up of the old nationalities, and we have evidence also of a similar disintegration in the countries to the north of the Taurus, in the direction of the Black Sea.  Of the mighty Khati with whom Thutmosis III. had come into contact, there was no apparent trace:  either the tribes of which they were composed had migrated towards the south, or those who had never left their native mountains had entered into new combinations and lost even the remembrance of their name.  The Milidu, Tabal (Tubal), and Mushku (Meshech) stretched behind each other from east to west on the confines of the Tokhma-Su, and still further away other cities of less importance contended for the possession of the Upper Saros and the middle region of the Halys.  These peoples, at once poor and warlike, had been attracted, like the Hittites of some centuries previous, by the riches accumulated in the strongholds of Syria.  Eevolutions must have been frequent in these regions, but our knowledge of them is more a matter of conjecture than of actual evidence.  Towards the year 1170 B.C. the Mushku swooped down on Kummukh, and made themselves its masters; then pursuing their good fortune, they took from the Assyrians the two provinces, Alzi and Purukuzzi, which lay not far from the sources of the Tigris and the Balikh.*

* The Annals of Tiglath-pileser I. place their invasion fifty years before the beginning of his reign.  Ed. Meyer saw a connexion between this and the invasion of the People of the Sea, which took place under Ramses III.  I think that the invasion of the Mushku was a purely local affair, and had nothing in common with the general catastrophe occasioned by the movement of the Asiatic armies.

A little later the Kashku, together with some Aramaeans, broke into Shubarti, then subject to Assyria, and took possession of a part of it.  The majority of these invasions had, however, no permanent result:  they never issued in the establishment of an empire like that of the Khati, capable by its homogeneity of offering a serious resistance to the march of a conqueror from the south.  To sum up the condition of affairs:  if a redistribution of races had brought about a change in Northern Syria, their want of cohesion was no less marked than in the time of the Egyptian wars; the first enemy to make an attack upon the frontier of one or other of these tribes was sure of victory, and, if he persevered in his efforts, could make himself master of as much territory as he might choose.  The Pharaohs had succeeded in welding together their African possessions, and their part in the drama of conquest had been played long ago; but the cities of the Tigris and the Lower Euphrates—­Nineveh and Babylon-were ready to enter the lists as soon as they felt themselves strong enough to revive their ancient traditions of foreign conquest.