favourable opportunity, it argued neither weakness nor discouragement, and he was ready to give a fierce reception to any Assyrian monarch who should venture within his domain.  Sennacherib, knowing both the character and resources of the Elamite king, did not attempt to meet him in the open field, but wreaked his resentment on the frontier tribes who had rebelled at the instigation of the Elamites, on the Cossoans, on Ellipi and its king Ishpabara.  He pursued the inhabitants into the narrow valleys and forests of the Khoatras, where his chariots were unable to follow:  proceeding with his troops, sometimes on horseback, at other times on foot, he reduced Bit-kilamzak, Khardishpi, and Bit-kubatti to ashes, and annexed the territories of the Cossoans and the Yasubigalla to the prefecture of Arrapkha.  Thence he entered Ellipi, where Ishpabara did not venture to come to close quarters with him in the open field, but led him on from town to town.  He destroyed the two royal seats of Marubishti and Akkuddu, and thirty-four of their dependent strongholds; he took possession of Zizirtu, Kummalu, the district of Bitbarru, and the city of Elinzash, to which he gave the name Kar-Sennacherib,—­the fortress of Sennacherib,—­and annexed them to the government of Kharkhar.  The distant Medes, disquieted at his advance, sent him presents, and renewed the assurances of devotion they had given to Sargon, but Sennacherib did not push forward into their territory as his predecessors had done:  he was content to have maintained his authority as far as his outlying posts, and to have strengthened the Assyrian empire by acquiring some well-situated positions near the main routes which led from the Iranian table-land to the plains of Mesopotamia.  Having accomplished this, he at once turned his attention towards the west, where the spirit of rebellion was still active in the countries bordering on the African frontier.  Sabaco, now undisputed master of Egypt, was not content, like Pionkhi, to bring Egypt proper into a position of dependence, and govern it at a distance, by means of his generals.  He took up his residence within it, at least during part of every year, and played the role of Pharaoh so well that his Egyptian subjects, both at Thebes and in the Delta, were obliged to acknowledge his sovereignty and recognise him as the founder of a new dynasty.  He kept a close watch over the vassal princes, placing garrisons in Memphis and the other principal citadels, and throughout the country he took in hand public works which had been almost completely interrupted for more than a century owing to the civil wars:  the highways were repaired, the canals cleaned out and enlarged, and the foundations of the towns raised above the level of the inundation.  Bubastis especially profited under his rule, and regained the ascendency it had lost ever since the accession of the second Tanite dynasty; but this partiality was not to the detriment of other cities.  Several of the temples