Assur-nirari III. spent his short reign of eight years in helpless inaction; he lost Syria, he carried on hostilities in Namri from 749 to 748—­whether against the Aramaeans or Urartians is uncertain—­then relapsed into inactivity, and a popular sedition drove him finally from Calah in 746.  He died some months later, without having repressed the revolt; none of his sons succeeded him, and the dynasty, having fallen into disrepute through the misfortunes of its last kings, thus came to an end; for, on the 12th of Iyyar, 742 B.C., a usurper, perhaps, the leader of the revolt at Calah, proclaimed himself king under the name of Tiglath-pileser.* The second Assyrian empire had lasted rather less than a century and a half, from Tukulti-ninip II. to Assur-nirari III.**

* Many historians have thought that Tiglath-pileser III. was of Babylonian origin; most of them, however, rightly considers that he was an Assyrian.  The identity of Tiglath- pileser III. with Pulu, the Biblical Pul (2 Kings xv. 19) has been conclusively proved by the discovery of the Babylonian Chronicle, where the Babylonian reigns of Tiglath-pileser III. and his son Shalmaneser V. are inserted where the dynastic lists give Pulu and Ululai, the Poros and Eluloos of Ptolemy.

     ** Here is the concluding portion of the dynasty of the
     kings of Assyria, from Irba-ramman to Assur-nirari III.:—­

[Illustration:  169.jpg TABLE OF THE DYNASTY OF THE KINGS OF ASSYRIA]

In the manner in which it had accomplished its work, it resembled the Egyptian empire of eight hundred years before.  The Egyptians, setting forth from the Nile valley, had overrun Syria and had at first brought it under their suzerainty, though without actually subduing it.  They had invaded Amurru and Zahi, Naharaim and Mitanni, where they had pillaged, burnt, and massacred at will for years, without obtaining from these countries, which were too remote to fall naturally within their sphere of influence, more than a temporary and apparent submission; the regions in the neighbourhood of the isthmus alone had been regularly administered by the officers of Pharaoh, and when the country between Mount Seir and Lebanon seemed on the point of being organised into a real empire the invasion of the Peoples of the Sea had overthrown and brought to nought the work of three centuries.  The Assyrians, under the leadership of ambitious kings, had in their turn carried their arms over the countries of the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, but, like those of the Egyptians before them, their expeditions resembled rather the destructive raids of a horde in search of booty than the gradual and orderly advance of a civilised people aiming at establishing a permanent empire.  Their campaigns in Cole-Syria and Palestine had enriched their own cities and spread the terror of their name throughout the Eastern world, but their supremacy had only taken firm root in the plains bordering