* This is the prince whom the Assyrian documents name Shuzub, and whom we might call Shuzub the Babylonian, in contradistinction to Mushezib-marduk, who is Shuzub the Kaldu.

His preliminary efforts were successful:  he ravaged the frontier along the Turnat with the help of the Elamites, and took by assault the city of Nipur, which refused to desert the cause of Sennacherib (693 B.C.).  Meanwhile the Assyrian generals had captured Uruk (Erech) on the 1st of Tisri, after the retreat of Khalludush; and having sacked the city, were retreating northwards with their spoil when they were defeated on the 7th near Nipur by Nergal-ushezib.  He had already rescued the statues of the gods and the treasure, when his horse fell in the midst of the fray, and he could not disengage himself.  His vanquished foes led him captive to Nineveh, where Sennacherib exposed him in chains at the principal gateway of his palace:  the Babylonians, who owed to him their latest success, summoned a Kaldu prince, Mushezib-marduk, son of Gahut, to take command.  He hastened to comply, and with the assistance of Blamite troops offered such a determined resistance to all attack, that he was finally left in undisturbed possession of his kingdom (692 B.C.):  the actual result to Assyria, therefore, of the ephemeral victory gained by the fleet had been the loss of Babylon.

[Illustration:  054.jpg THE HORSE OF NERGAL-USHEZIB FALLING IN THE BATTLE]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.

A revolution in Elam speedily afforded Assyria an opportunity for revenge.  When Nergal-ushezib was taken prisoner, the people of Susa, dissatisfied with the want of activity displayed by Khalludush, conspired to depose him:  on hearing, therefore, the news of the revolutions in Chaldaea, they rose in revolt on the 26th of Tisri, and, besieging him in his palace, put him to death, and elected a certain Kutur-nakhunta as his successor.  Sennacherib, without a moment’s hesitation, crossed the frontier at Durilu, before order was re-established at Susa, and recovered, after very slight resistance, Baza and Bit-khairi which Shutruk-nakhunta had taken from Sargon.  This preliminary success laid the lower plain of Susiana at his mercy, and he ravaged it pitilessly from Baza to Bit-bunaki.  “Thirty-four strongholds and the townships depending on them, whose number is unequalled, I besieged and took by assault, their inhabitants I led into captivity, I demolished them and reduced them to ashes:  I caused the smoke of their burning to rise into the wide heaven, like the smoke of one great sacrifice.”  Kutur-nakhunta, still insecurely seated on the throne of Susa, retreated with his army towards Khaidalu, in the almost unexplored regions which bordered the Banian plateau,* and entrenched himself strongly in the heart of the mountains.

     * Khaidalu is very probably the present Dis Malkan.