After the destruction of Babylon there is a pause in the history of the conqueror, and with him in that of Assyria itself.  It seems as if Nineveh had been exhausted by the greatness of her effort, and was stopping to take breath before setting out on a fresh career of conquest:  the other nations also, as if overwhelmed by the magnitude of the catastrophe, appear to have henceforth despaired of their own security, and sought only how to avoid whatever might rouse against them the enmity of the master of the hour.  His empire formed a compact and solid block in their midst, on which no human force seemed capable of making any impression.  They had attacked it each in turn, or all at once, Elam in the east, Urartu in the north, Egypt in the south-west, and their efforts had not only miserably failed, but had for the most part drawn down upon them disastrous reprisals.  The people of Urartu remained in gloomy inaction amidst their mountains, the Elamites had lost their supremacy over half the Aramaean tribes, and if Egypt was as yet inaccessible beyond the intervening deserts, she owed it less to the strength of her armies than to the mysterious fatality at Libnah.  In one half-century the Assyrians had effectually and permanently disabled the first of these kingdoms, and inflicted on the others such serious injuries that they were slow in recovering from them.  The fate of these proud nations had intimidated the inferior states—­Arabs, Medes, tribes of Asia Minor, barbarous Cimmerians or Scythians,—­all alike were careful to repress their natural inclinations to rapine and plunder.  If occasionally their love of booty overpowered their prudence, and they hazarded a raid on some defenceless village in the neighbouring border territory, troops were hastily despatched from the nearest Assyrian garrison, who speedily drove them back across the frontier, and pursuing them into their own country, inflicted on them so severe a punishment that they remained for some considerable time paralysed by awe and terror.  Assyria was the foremost kingdom of the East, and indeed of the whole world, and the hegemony which she exercised over all the countries within her reach cannot be accounted for solely by her military superiority.  Not only did she excel in the art of conquest, as many before her had done—­Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites, and Egyptians—­but she did what none of them had been able to accomplish; she exacted lasting obedience from the conquered nations, ruling them with a firm hand, and accustoming them to live on good terms with one another in spite of diversity of race, and this with a light rein, with unfailing tact, and apparently with but little effort.  The system of deportation so resolutely carried out by Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon began to produce effect, and up to this time the most happy results only were discernible.  The colonies which had been planted throughout the empire from Palestine to Media, some of them two generations