His reign was, on the whole, a calm and peaceful one; the Kalda, the Medes, Urartu, and the races of Mount Taurus remained quiet, or, at any rate, such disorders as may have arisen among them were of too trifling a nature to be deemed worthy of notice in the records of the time.  Syria alone was disturbed, and several of its independent states took advantage of the change of rulers to endeavour to shake off the authority of Assyria.

* It was, for a long time, an open question with the earlier Assyriologists whether or not Shalmaneser and Sargon were different names for one and the same monarch.  As for monuments, we possess only one attributed to Shalmaneser, a weight in the form of a lion, discovered by Layard at Nimroud, in the north-west palace.  The length of his reign, and the scanty details we possess concerning it, have been learnt from the Eponym Canon and Pinches’ Babylonian Chronicle, and also from the Hebrew texts (2 Kings xvii. 3- 6; xviii. 9-12).

** The identity of Ululai and Shalmaneser V., though still questioned by Oppert, has been proved by the comparison of Babylonian records, in some of which the names Pulu and Ululai occur in positions exactly corresponding with those occupied, in others, by Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser.  The name Ululai was given to the king because he was born in the month of Ulul; in Pinches’ list we find a gloss, “Dynasty of Tinu,” which probably indicates the Assyrian town in which Tiglath-pileser III. and his son were born.

Egypt continued to give them secret encouragement in these tactics, though its own internal dissensions prevented it from offering any effective aid.  The Tanite dynasty was in its death-throes.  Psamuti, the last of its kings, exercised a dubious sovereignty over but a few of the nomes on the Arabian frontier.*

* He is the Psammous mentioned by Manetho.  The cartouches attributed to him by Lepsius really belong to the Psammuthis of the XXIXth dynasty.  It is possible that one of the marks found at Karnak indicating the level of the Nile belong to the reign of this monarch.

His neighbours the Saites were gradually gaining the upper hand in the Delta and in the fiefs of middle Egypt, at first under Tafnakhti, and then, after his death, under his son Bukunirinif, Bocchoris of the Greek historians.  They held supremacy over several personages who, like themselves, claimed the title and rank of Pharaoh; amongst others, over a certain Rudamanu Miamun, son of Osorkon:  their power did not, however, extend beyond Siut, near the former frontier of the Theban kingdom.  The withdrawal of Pionkhi-Miamun, and his subsequent death, had not disturbed the Ethiopian rule in the southern half of Egypt, though it somewhat altered its character.  While an unknown Ethiopian king filled the place of the conquerer at Napata, another Ethiopian, named Kashta, made his way to the throne in Thebes.