it would be impossible for Babylon to be victorious, and its fall would be a mere question of time.  The opening of the campaign was a difficult matter.  Khumban-igash, having sold his support dearly, had at all events spared no pains to satisfy his employer, and had furnished him with the flower of his nobility, comprising Undashi, one of the sons of Tiumman; Zazaz, prefect of Billate; Parru, chief of Khilmu; Attamitu, commanding the archers; and Nesu, commander-in-chief of his forces.  In order to induce Undashi to serve under him, he had not hesitated to recall to his memory the sad fate of Tiumman:  “Go, and avenge upon Assyria the murder of the father who begat thee!” The two opposing forces continued to watch one another’s movements without any serious engagement taking place during the greater part of the year 651 B.C.; though the Assyrians won some slight advantages, killing Attamitu in a skirmish and sending his head to Nineveh, some serious reverses soon counterbalanced these preliminary successes.  Nabo-bel-shumi had arrived on the scene with his Aramaean forces, and had compelled the troops engaged in the defence of Uruk and Uru to lay down their arms:  their leaders, including Sin-tabni-uzur himself, had been forced to renounce the supremacy of Assyria, and had been enrolled in the rebel ranks.*

* The official accounts say nothing of the intervention of Nabo-bel-shumi at this juncture, but the information furnished by Tablet K 159 in the British Museum makes up for their silence.  The objection raised by Tielo to the interpretation given by G. Smith that this passage cannot refer to Assyrian deserters, falls to the ground if one admits that the Assyrian troops led into Elam at a subsequent period by Nabo-bel-shumi, were none other than the garrisons of the Lower Euphrates which were obliged to side with the insurgents in 651 B.C.  The two despatches, K 4696 and K 28 in the British Museum, which refer to the defection of Sin-tabni-uzur, are dated the 8th and 11th Abu in the eponymous year of Zagabbu, corresponding to the year 651 B.C., as indicated by Tiele with very good reason.

Operations seemed likely to be indefinitely prolonged, and Assur-bani-pal, anxious as to the issue, importunately besought the gods to intervene on his behalf, when discords breaking out in the royal family of Elam caused the scales of fortune once more to turn in his favour.  The energy with which Khumban-igash had entered on the present struggle had not succeeded in effacing the disagreeable impression left on the minds of the majority of his subjects, by the fact that he had returned to his country in the chariots of the stranger and had been enthroned by the decree of an Assyrian general.  Tammaritu, of Khaidalu, who had then fought at his side in the ranks of the invaders, was now one of those who reproached him most bitterly for his conduct.  He frankly confessed that his hand had cut off the head of Tiumman, but