denied that he did so in obedience to the hereditary enemies of his country; he had but avenged his personal injuries, whereas Khumban-igash, following the promptings of ambition, had kissed the ground at the feet of a slave of Assur-bani-pal and had received the crown as a recompense for his baseness.  Putting his rival to death, Tammaritu seized the throne, and in order to prove that he was neither consciously nor unconsciously an instrument of Ninevite policy, he at once sent reinforcements to the help of Babylon without exacting in return any fresh subsidy.  The Assyrians, taking advantage of the isolated position of Shamash-shumukin, had pressed forward one of their divisions as far as the districts on the sea coast, which they had recovered from the power of Nabo-bel-shumi, and had placed under the administration of Belibni, a person of high rank.  The arrival of the Elamite force was on the point of further compromising the situation, and rekindling the flames of war more fiercely than ever, when a second revolution broke out, which shattered for ever the hopes of Shamash-shumukin.  Assur-bani-pal naturally looked upon this event as the result of his supplications and sacrifices; Assur and Ishtar, in answer to his entreaties, raised up Indabigash, one of the most powerful feudal lords of the kingdom of Susa, and incited him to revolt.  Tarnmaritu fled to the marshes which bordered the Nar-marratum, and seizing a vessel, put out to sea with his brothers, his cousins, seventeen princes of royal blood, and eighty-four faithful followers:  the ship, driven by the wind on to the Assyrian shore, foundered, and the dethroned monarch, demoralised by sea-sickness, would have perished in the confusion had not one of his followers taken him on his back and carried him safely to land across the mud.  Belibni sent him prisoner to Nineveh with all his suite, and Assur-bani-pal, after allowing him to humble himself before him, raised him from the ground, embraced him, and assigned to him apartments in the palace and a train of attendants befitting the dignity which he had enjoyed for a short time at Susa.  Indabigash was too fully occupied with his own affairs to interfere again in the quarrel between the two brothers:  his country, disorganised by the successive shocks it had sustained, had need of repose, for some years at least, before re-entering the lists, except at a disadvantage.  He concluded no direct treaty with the Assyrian king, but he at once withdrew the troops which had entered Karduniash, and abstained from all hostile demonstrations against the garrisons of the border provinces:  for the moment, indeed, this was all that was required of him (650 B.C.).