devastating by the way the districts through which he passed:  he carried off everything—­men, slaves, and herds of cattle—­and he never retired from a city or village without previously setting it on fire.  Paddir, Arsiyanish, and Eristiana were thus laid waste, after which the Assyrians returned to their camp, having re-established the authority of their master over several districts which had been lost to them for some generations previously.  Akhsheri had shown no sign of yielding, but his people, weary of a hopeless resistance, put him to death, and hurling his corpse over the wall of Adrana, proclaimed his son Ualli as king.  The new sovereign hastened to conclude a treaty with the Assyrians on reasonable terms:  he gave up his eldest son, Erisinni, and one of his daughters as hostages, and promised to pay the former tribute augmented by an annual present of thirty horses; peace was not again disturbed on this side except by some unimportant skirmishes.  In one of these, a Median chieftain, named Biriz-khadri, made an alliance with two princes of the people of the Sakhi, Sarati, and Parikhia, sons of Gagu,* to ravage the marches of the Greater Zab; but their territory was raided in return, and they themselves taken prisoners.

* The name of Biriz-khadri has an Iranian appearance.  The first element Biriz recalls the Zend bereza, berez, “tall, large;” the second, which appears in the names Bisi- khadir and Khali-khadri, is of uncertain derivation, and has been connected with atar, “fire,” or with Ichwathra, “brilliance.”  Gagu, which is found as the name of a people (Gagati) in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, has been identified from the first with the name of Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal (Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix.) The name of the country of Sakhi, which has not been met with elsewhere, has been compared with that of the Sacaj, which seems to have existed not only in the name of the province of Sakascno mentioned by the classical geographers, but in that of Shake known to the old Armenian geographers; the country itself, however, as it seems to me, cannot be sought in the direction of Sakaseno, and consequently the proposed identification cannot hold good.

A little later, Andaria, prince of Lubdi, forgetful of his oath of allegiance to the aged Esarhad-don, made a night attack on the towns of Kullimir and Ubbumi:  the inhabitants armed in haste, and he was not only defeated, but was taken captive, and his head cut off to be sent to Nineveh.  The garrisons and military colonies along the north-east frontier were constantly required to be on the alert; but they usually had sufficient available resources to meet any emergency, and the enemies who molested them were rarely dangerous enough to necessitate the mobilisation of a regular army.