[Illustration:  379.jpg THE SEAL OF URZANA, KING OF MUZAZIR]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an impression of the original
     seal which is preserved at the Hague.

The disaster at Muzazir was the final blow to Urartu; it is impossible to say what took place where Eusas himself was, and whether the feudatories refused him any further allegiance, but in a short time he found himself almost forsaken, without friends, troops, or a place of refuge, and reduced to choose between death or the degradation of appealing to the mercy of the conqueror.  He stabbed himself rather than yield; and Sargon, only too thankful to be rid of such a dangerous adversary, stopped the pursuit.  Argistis II. succeeded to what was left of his father’s kingdom,* and, being anxious above all things to obtain peace for his subjects, suspended hostilities, without however disarming his troops.

* No text states positively that Argistis II. immediately succeeded his father; but he is found mentioned as King of Urartu from 708 onwards, and hence it has been concluded, not without some reason, that such was the fact.  The Vannic inscriptions have not as yet given us this sovereign’s name.

As was the case under Tiglath-pileser III., Urartu neither submitted to Assyria, nor was there any kind of treaty between the belligerents to prescribe the conditions of this temporary truce.  Both sides maintained their positions on their respective territories:  Sargon kept the frontier towns acquired by him in previous years, and which he had annexed to the border provinces, retaining also his suzerainty over Muzazir, the Mannai, and the Median states implicated in the struggle; Argistis, on his side, strengthened himself in the regions around the sources of the Euphrates and Lake Van—­in Biainas, in Etius, and in the plains of the Araxes.  The material injuries which he had received, however considerable they may appear, were not irreparable, and, as a fact, the country quickly recovered from them, but the people’s confidence in their prince and his chiefs was destroyed.  The defeat of Sharduris, following as it did on a period of advantageous victories, may have seemed to Argistis one of those unimportant occurrences which constantly take place in the career of the strongest nations; the disaster of Rusas proved to him that, in attempting to wipe out his first repulse, he had only made matters worse, and the conviction was borne in upon his princes that they were not in a position to contest the possession of Western Asia with the Assyrians.  They therefore renounced, more from instinct than as the result of deliberation, the project of enlarging their borders to the south, and if they subsequently reappeared on the Mesopotamian plains, it was in search of booty, and not to acquire territory.  Any attempt to stop their incursions, or to disturb them in their mountain fastnesses, found them prepared to hold their own with the same obstinacy as of old, and they were quite able to safeguard their independence against an intruder.  Besides this, the Cimmerians and the Scythians were already pressing on their frontier, and were constantly harassing them.