of their court and people, and the countless riches which the commerce of the world had brought into the great ports of the Mediterranean—­ebony, ivory, gold and silver, purple, precious woods, household furniture, and objects of value from all parts in such quantities that it was long before the treasury at Nineveh needed any replenishing.* The reverses of the Cimmerians did not serve as a warning to the Scythians.  Settled on the borders of Manna, partly, no doubt, on the territory formerly dependent on that state,** they secretly incited the inhabitants to revolt, and to join in the raids which they made on the valley of the Upper Zab, and they would even have urged their horses up to the very walls of Nineveh had the occasion presented itself.

* The importance of the event and the amount of the spoil captured are apparent, if we notice that Esarhaddon does not usually record the booty taken after each campaign; he does so only when the number of objects and of prisoners taken from the enemy is extraordinary.  The Babylonian Chronicle of Pinches places the capture of Sidon in the second, and the death of Abdimilkot in the fifth year of his reign.  Hence Winckler has concluded that Abdimilkot held out for fully two years after the loss of Sidon.  The general tenor of the account, as given by the inscriptions, seems to me to be that the capture of the king followed closely on the fall of the town:  Abdimilkot and Sanduarri probably spent the years between 679 and 676 in prison.

     ** One of the oracles of Shamash speaks of the captives as
     dwelling in a canton of the Mannai.

Esarhaddon, warned of their intrigues by the spies which he sent among them, could not bring himself either to anticipate their attack or to assume the offensive, but anxiously consulted the gods with regard to them:  “O Shamash,” he wrote to the Sun-god, “great lord, thou whom I question, answer me in sincerity!  From this day forth, the 22nd day of this month of Simanu, until the 21st day of the month of Duzu of this year, during these thirty days and thirty nights, a time has been foreordained favourable to the work of prophecy.  In this time thus foreordained, the hordes of the Scythians who inhabit a district of the Mannai, and who have crossed the Mannian frontier,—­will they succeed in their undertaking?  Will they emerge from the passes of Khubushkia at the towns of Kharrania and Anisuskia; will they ravage the borders of Assyria and steal great booty, immense spoil? that doth thy high divinity know.  Is it a decree, and in the mouth of thy high divinity, O Shamash, great lord, ordained and promulgated?  He who sees, shall he see it; he who hears, shall he hear it?"*

     * The town of Anisuskia is not mentioned elsewhere, but
     Kharrania is met with in the account of the thirty-first
     campaign of Shalmaneser III. with Kharrana as its variant.