While his lieutenants were settling outstanding issues in this fashion, Tiglath-pileser held open courts at Damascus, where he received the visits and homage of the Syrians.  They came to assure themselves by the evidence of their own eyes of the downfall of the power which had for more than one hundred years checked the progress of Assyria.  Those who, like Uassarmi of Tabal, showed any sign of disaffection were removed, the remainder were confirmed in their dignities, subject to payment of the usual tribute, and Mutton of Tyre was obliged to give one hundred talents of gold to ransom his city.  Ahaz came to salute his preserver, and to obtain a nearer view of the soldiers to whom he owed continued possession of Jerusalem;* the kings of Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Askalon, the Philistines and the nomads of the Arabian desert, carried away by the general example, followed the lead of Judah, until there was not a single prince or lord of a city from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt who had not acknowledged himself the humble vassal of Nineveh.

     * 2 Kings xvi. 10-12.  The Nimroud Inscrip. merely mentions
     his tribute among that of the Syrian kings.

With the downfall of rezin, Syria’s last hope of recovery had vanished; the few states which still enjoyed some show of independence were obliged, if they wished to retain it, to make a parade of unalterable devotion to their Ninevite master, or—­if they found his suzerainty intolerable—­had to risk everything by appealing to Egypt for help.

Much as they may have wished from the very first to do so, it was too early to make the attempt so soon after the conference at Damascus; Tiglath-pileser had, therefore, no cause to fear a rebellion among them, at any rate for some years to come, and it was just as well that this was so, for at the moment of his triumph on the shores of the Mediterranean his interests in Chaldaea were threatened by a serious danger.  Nabonazir, King of Karduniash, had never swerved from the fidelity which he had sworn to his mighty ally after the events of 745, but the tranquillity of his reign had been more than once disturbed by revolt.  Borsippa itself had risen on one occasion, and endeavoured to establish itself as an independent city side by side with Babylon.

When Nabonazir died, in 734, he was succeeded by his son Nabunadinziri, but at the end of a couple of years the latter was assassinated during a popular outbreak, and Nabushumukin, one of his sons, who had been implicated in the rising, usurped the crown (732).  He wore it for two months and twelve days, and then abdicated in favour of a certain Ukinzir.*

* The following is as complete a list as can at present be compiled of this Babylonian dynasty, the eighth of those registered in Pinches’ Canons (cf.  Rost, Untersucli. zur altorient.  Gesch., p. 27):—­

[Illustration:  292.jpg TABLE OF THIS BABYLONIAN DYNASTY]