The danger would have been serious if the suppressed hatred of all had found vent at the same moment, and if insurrections in five or six different parts of his empire had to be faced by the sovereign simultaneously; but as a rule these local wars broke out without any concentrated plan, and in localities too remote from each other to permit of any possible co-operation between the assailants; each chief, before attempting to assert his independence, seemed to wait until the Assyrians had had ample time to crush the rebel who first took the field, having done which they could turn the whole of their forces against the latest foe.  Thus Iaubidi did not risk a campaign till the fall of Elam and Karduniash had been already decided on the field of Durilu; in the same way, the nations of the North and East refrained from entering the lists till they had allowed Sargon time to destroy the league of Hamath and repel the attack of Bharaoh.

They were secretly incited to rebellion by a power which played nearly the same part with regard to them that Egypt had played in Southern Syria.  Urartu had received a serious rebuff in 735 B.C., and the burning of Dhuspas had put an end to its ascendency, but the victory had been effected at the cost of so much bloodshed that Tiglath-pileser was not inclined to risk losing the advantage already gained by pushing it too far:  he withdrew, therefore, without concluding a treaty, and did not return, being convinced that no further hostilities would be attempted till the vanquished enemy had recovered from his defeat.  He was justified in his anticipations, for Sharduris died about 730, without having again taken up arms, and his son Busas I. had left Shalmaneser V. unmolested:* but the accession of Sargon and the revolts which harassed him had awakened in Busas the warlike instincts of his race, and the moment appeared advantageous for abandoning his policy of inactivity.

* The name of this king is usually written Ursa in the Assyrian inscriptions, but the Annals of Sargon give in each case the form Rusa, in accordance with which Sayce had already identified the Assyrian form Ursa or Rusa with the form Rusas found on some Urartian monuments.  Belck and Lehmann have discovered several monuments of this Rusas I., son of Sharduris.

The remembrance of the successful exploits of Menuas and Argistis still lived in the minds of his people, and more than one of his generals had entered upon their military careers at a time when, from Arpad and Carchemish to the country of the Medes, quite a third of the territory now annexed to Assyria had been subject to the king of Urartu; Eusas, therefore, doubtless placed before himself the possibility of reconquering the lost provinces, and even winning, by a stroke of fortune, more than had been by a stroke of fortune wrested from his father.  He began by intriguing with such princes as were weary of the Assyrian rule, among the Mannai, in Zikartu,* among the Tabal, and even among the Khati.