[Illustration:  155.jpg THE SABRE OF RAMMAN-NIRARI]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sketch published in the
     Transactions of the Bibl.  Arch.  Soc.

His reign seems to have been one continuous war against the various races then in a state of ferment on the frontiers of his kingdom.  He appears in the main to have met with success, and in a few years had doubled the extent of his dominions.* His most formidable attacks were directed against the Aramaeans** of Mount Masios, whose numerous tribes had advanced on one side till they had crossed the Tigris, while on the other they had pushed beyond the river Balikh, and had probably reached the Euphrates.***

     * Shalmanu-asharid, or Shulmanu-asharid, signifies “the god
     Shulmanu (Shalmanu) is prince,” as Pinches was the first to
     point out.

** Some of the details of these campaigns have been preserved on the much-mutilated obelisk of Assur-nazir-pal.  This was a compilation taken from the Annals of Assyria to celebrate the important acts of the king’s ancestors.  The events recorded in the third column were at first attributed to the reign of Tiglath-pileser I.; Fr. Delitzsch was the first to recognise that they could be referred to the reign of this Shalmaneser, and his opinion is now admitted by most of the Assyriologists who have studied the question.

     *** The identity of the Arami (written also Armaya, Arumi,
     Arimi) with the Aramoans, admitted by the earlier Kammin-
     nikabi Assyriologists.

He captured their towns one after another, razed their fortresses, smote the agricultural districts with fire and sword, and then turned upon the various peoples who had espoused their cause—­the Kirkhu, the Euri, the Kharrin,* and the Muzri, who inhabited the territory between the basins of the two great rivers;** once, indeed, he even crossed the Euphrates and ventured within the country of Khanigalbat, a feat which his ancestors had never even attempted.***

* The people of the country of Kilkhi, or Kirkhi, the Kurkhi, occupied the region between the Tigris at Diarbekir and the mountains overlooking the lake of Urumiah.  The position of the Ruri is not known, but it is certain that on one side they joined the Aramaeans, and that they were in the neighbourhood of Tushkhan.  Kharran is the Harran of the Balikh, mentioned in vol. iv. pp. 37, 38 of the present work.

** The name of Muzri frequently occurs, and in various positions, among the countries mentioned by the Assyrian conquerors; the frequency of its occurrence is easily explained if we are to regard it as a purely Assyrian term used to designate the military confines or marches of the kingdom at different epochs of its history.  The Muzri here in question is the borderland situated in the vicinity of Cilicia, probably the Sophene and the Gumathene of classical geographers.  Winckler appears to me to exaggerate their importance when he says they were spread over the whole of Northern Syria as early as the time of Shalmaneser I.

     *** Khanigalbat is the name of the province in which Milid
     was placed.