laid waste the country, and Sharduris III., the king who succeeded Argistis, had done nothing towards permanently incorporating them with Urartu.** Sharduris, while still heir-apparent to the throne, had been appointed by his father governor of the recently annexed territory belonging to Etius and the Mannai:*** he made Lununis his headquarters, and set himself to subdue the barbarians who had settled between the Kur and the Araxes.  When he succeeded to the throne, about 760 B.C., the enjoyment of supreme power in no way lessened his activity.  On the contrary, he at once fixed upon the sort of wide isthmus which separates the Araxes from Lake Urumiah, as the goal of his incursions, and overran the territory of the Babilu; there he carried by storm three royal castles, twenty-three cities, and sixty villages; he then fell back upon Etius, passing through Dakis, Edias, and Urmes on his way, and brought back with him 12,735 children, 46,600 women, 12,000 men capable of bearing arms, 23,335 oxen, 58,100 sheep, and 2,500 horses; these figures give some idea of the importance of his victories and the wealth of the conquered territory.

     * The list of Aramaean tribes, and the positions occupied by
     them towards the middle of the eighth century, have been
     given us by Tiglath-pileser III. himself.

** Tiglath-pileser did not encounter any Urartian forces in these regions, as would almost certainly have been the case had these countries remained subject to Urartu from the invasions of Menuas and Argistis onwards.

*** Argistis tells us in the Annals that he had made his son satrap over the provinces won from the Mannai and Etius:  though his name is not mentioned, Sayce believes this son must have been Sharduris.

So far as we can learn, he does not seem to have attacked Khubushkia,* nor to have entered into open rivalry with Assyria; even under the rule of Assur-nirari III.  Assyria showed a bold enough front to deter any enemy from disturbing her except when forced to do so.  Sharduris merely strove to recover those portions of his inheritance to which Assyria attached but little value, and his inscriptions tell us of more than one campaign waged by him with this object against the mountaineers of Melitene, about the year 758.  He captured most of their citadels, one after another:  Dhumeskis, Zapsas, fourteen royal castles, and a hundred towns, including Milid itself, where King Khitaruadas held his court.**

* It is evident from the account of the campaigns that Tiglath-pileser occupied Khubushkia from the very commencement of his reign; we must therefore assume that the invasions of Argistis had produced only transient effects.

** These campaigns must have preceded the descent into Syria, and I believe this latter to have been anterior to the expedition of Assur-nirari against Arpad in 754 B.C.  Assur-nirari probably