It is possible that he may have thought this a favourable moment for presenting to the people the son whom he had chosen from among his children to succeed him.  At any rate, Assur-dain-pal, fearing that one of his brothers might be preferred before him, “proclaimed himself king,” and nearly the whole of Assyria gathered around his standard.  Assur and twenty-six more of the most important cities revolted in his favour—­Nineveh, Imgur-bel, Sibaniba, Dur-balat, Arbela, Zaban in the Chaldaean marches, Arrapkha in the valley of the Upper Zab, and most of the colonies, both of ancient and recent foundation—­Amidi on the Tigris, Khindanu near the mouths of the Kha-bur and Tul-Abni on the southern slopes of the Masios.  The aged king remained in possession only of Calah and its immediate environs—­Nisibis, Harran, Tushkhan, and the most recently subdued provinces on the banks of the Euphrates and the Orontes.  It is probable, however, that the army remained faithful to him, and the support which these well-tried troops afforded him enabled the king to act with promptitude.  The weight of years did not permit him to command in person; he therefore entrusted the conduct of operations to his son Samsi-ramman, but he did not live to see the end of the struggle.  It embittered his last days, and was not terminated till 822 B.C., at which date Shalmaneser had been dead two years.  This prolonged crisis had shaken the kingdom to its foundations; the Syrians, the Medes, the Babylonians, and the peoples of the Armenian and Aramaean marches were rent from it, and though Samsi-ramman IV. waged continuous warfare during the twelve years that he governed, he could only partially succeed in regaining the territory which had been thus lost.*

* All that we know of the reign of Samsi-ramman IV. comes from an inscription in archaic characters containing the account of four campaigns, without giving the years of each reign or the limmu, and historians have classified them in different ways.

His first three campaigns were-directed against the north-eastern and eastern provinces.  He began by attempting to collect the tribute from Nairi, the payment of which had been suspended since the outbreak of the revolution, and he re-established the dominion of Assyria from the district of Paddir to the township of Kar-Shulmanasharid, which his father had founded at the fords of the Euphrates opposite to Carchemish (821 B.C.).  In the following campaign he did not personally take part, but the Rabshakeh Mutarriz-assur pillaged the shores of Lake Urumiah, and then made his way towards Urartu, where he destroyed three hundred towns (820).  The third expedition was directed against Misi and Gizilbunda beyond the Upper Zab and Mount Zilar.* The inhabitants of Misi entrenched themselves on a wooded ridge commanded by three peaks, but were defeated in spite of the advantages which their position secured for them;** the people of Gizilbunda were not more fortunate than their neighbours, and six thousand of them perished at the assault of Urash, their capital.***