Parsua, which he laid under tribute.  In 830 B.C. it was the turn of Muzazir, which hitherto had escaped invasion, to receive a visit from the Tartan.  Zapparia, the capital, and fifty-six other towns were given over to the flames.  From thence, Dayan-assur passed into Urartu proper; after having plundered it, he fell back on the southern provinces, collecting by the way the tribute of Guzan, of the Mannai, of Andiu,** and Parsua; he then pushed on into the heart of Namri, and having razed to the ground two hundred and fifty of its towns, returned with his troops to Assyria by the defiles of Shimishi and through Khalman.

     * The town is elsewhere called Izirtu, and appears to have
     been designated in the inscriptions of Van by the name of
     Sisiri-Khadiris.

** Andia or Andiu is contiguous to Nairi, to Zikirtu and to Karalla, which latter borders on Manna; it bordered on the country of Misa or Misi, into which it is merged under the name of Misianda in the time of Sargon.  Delattre places Andiu in the country of the classical Matiense, between the Mationian mountains and Lake Urumiah.  The position of Misu on the confines of Araziash and Media, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Talvantu-Dagh, obliges us to place Andiu lower down to the south-east, near the district of Kurdasir.

This was perhaps the last foreign campaign of Shalmaneser III.’s reign; it is at all events the last of which we possess any history.  The record of his exploits ends, as it had begun more than thirty years previously, with a victory in Namri.

[Illustration:  137.jpg BLACK OBELISK OF SHALMANESER III]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast in the Louvre. [The
     original is in the Brit.  Mus.—­Tr.]

The aged king had, indeed, well earned the right to end his allotted days in peace.  Devoted to Calah, like his predecessor, he had there accumulated the spoils of his campaigns, and had made it the wealthiest city of his empire.  He continued to occupy the palace of Assur-nazir-pal, which he had enlarged.  Wherever he turned within its walls, his eyes fell upon some trophy of his wars or panegyric of his virtues, whether recorded on mural tiles covered with inscriptions and bas-reliefs, or celebrated by statues, altars, and triumphal stelae.  The most curious among all these is a square-based block terminating in three receding stages, one above the other, like the stump of an Egyptian obelisk surmounted by a stepped pyramid.  Five rows of bas-reliefs on it represent scenes most flattering to Assyrian pride;—­the reception of tribute from Gilzan, Muzri, the Patina, the Israelitish Jehu, and Marduk-abal-uzur, King of the land of Sukhi.  The latter knew his suzerain’s love of the chase, and he provided him with animals for his preserves, including lions, and rare species of deer.

[Illustration:  142.jpg STAG AND LIONS OF THE COUNTRY OF SUKHI]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
     Black Obelisk.