their sovereigns; when, for instance, after some rebellion, one of these princes had been impaled or decapitated, his successor was always chosen from among the members of his own family, usually one of his sons, who was enthroned almost before his father had ceased to breathe.  He was obliged to humiliate his own gods before Assur, to pay a yearly tribute, to render succour in case of necessity to the commanders of neighbouring garrisons, to send his troops when required to swell the royal army, to give his sons or brothers as hostages, and to deliver up his own sisters and daughters, or those of his nobles, for the harem or the domestic service of the conqueror.  The unfortunate prince soon resigned himself to this state of servitude; he would collect around him and reorganise his scattered subjects, restore them to their cities, rebuild their walls, replant the wasted orchards, and sow the devastated fields.  A few years of relative peace and tranquillity, during which he strove to be forgotten by his conqueror, restored prosperity to his country; the population increased with extraordinary rapidity, and new generations arose who, unconscious of the disasters suffered by their predecessors, had, but one aim, that of recovering their independence.  We must, however, beware of thinking that the defeat of these tribes was as crushing or their desolation as terrible as the testimony of the inscriptions would lead us to suppose.  The rulers of Nineveh were but too apt to relate that this or that country had been conquered and its people destroyed, when the Assyrian army had remained merely a week or a fortnight within its territory, had burnt some half-dozen fortified towns, and taken two or three thousand prisoners.*

* For example, Tiglath-pileser I. conquers the Kummukli in the first year of his reign, burning, destroying, and depopulating the towns, and massacring “the remainder of the Kummukh” who had taken refuge in the mountains, after which, in his second campaign, he again pillages, burns, destroys, and depopulates the towns, and again massacres the remainder of the inhabitants hiding in the mountains.  He makes the same statements with regard to most of the other countries and peoples conquered by him, but we find them reappearing with renewed vigour on the scene, soon after their supposed destruction.

If we were to accept implicitly all that is recorded of the Assyrian exploits in Nairi or the Taurus, we should be led to believe that for at least half a century the valleys of the Upper Tigris and Middle Euphrates were transformed into a desert; each time, however, that they are subsequently mentioned on the occasion of some fresh expedition, they appear once more covered with thriving cities and a vigorous population, whose generals offer an obstinate resistance to the invaders.  We are, therefore, forced to admit that the majority of these expeditions must be regarded as mere raids.  The population, disconcerted by