and the Masios—­a race always impatient of the yoke, and ready to make common cause with any fresh enemy of Assyria.  An insurrection broke out in Bit-Zamani and the neighbouring districts.  Dayan-assur quelled it offhand; then, quitting the basin of the Tigris by the defiles of Armash, he crossed the Arzania, and entered Urartu.  Sharduris came out to meet him, and was defeated, if we may give credence to the official record of the campaign.  Even if the account be an authentic one, the victory was of no advantage to the Assyrians, for they were obliged to retreat before they had subjugated the enemy, and an insurrection among the Patina prevented them from returning to the attack in the following year.  With obligations to their foreign master on one hand and to their own subjects on the other, the princes of the Syrian states had no easy life.  If they failed to fulfil their duties as vassals, then an Assyrian invasion would pour in to their country, and sooner or later their ruin would be assured; they would have before them the prospect of death by impaling or under the knife of the flayer, or, if they escaped this, captivity and exile in a far-off land.  Prudence therefore dictated a scrupulous fidelity to their suzerain.  On the other hand, if they resigned themselves to their dependent condition, the people of their towns would chafe at the payment of tribute, or some ambitious relative would take advantage of the popular discontent to hatch a plot and foment a revolution, and the prince thus threatened would escape from an Assyrian reprisal only to lose his throne or fall by the blow of an assassin.  In circumstances such as these the people of the Patina murdered their king, Lubarna II., and proclaimed in his room a certain Sum, who had no right to the crown, but who doubtless undertook to liberate them from the foreigner.  Dayan-assur defeated the rebels and blockaded the remains of their army in Kinalua.  They defended themselves at first energetically, but on the death of Surri from some illness, their courage failed them and they offered to deliver over the sons of their chief if their own lives might be spared.  Dayan-assur had the poor wretches impaled, laid the inhabitants under a heavy contribution, and appointed a certain Sasi, son of Uzza, to be their king.  The remainder of Syria gave no further trouble—­a fortunate circumstance, for the countries on the Armenian border revolted in 832 B.C., and the whole year was occupied in establishing order among the herdsmen of Kirkhi.  In 831 B.C., Dayan-assiir pushed forward into Khubushkia, and traversed it from end to end without encountering any resistance.  He next attacked the Mannai.  Their prince, Ualki, quailed before his onslaught; he deserted his royal city Zirtu,* and took refuge in the mountains.  Dayan-assur pursued him thither in vain, but he was able to collect considerable booty, and turning in a south-easterly direction, he fought his way along the base of the Gordysean mountains till he reached