feast of Gula, he presented their new lord to all the inhabitants of Assyria, both small and great, who had assembled to be present at the ceremony, which ended in the installation of the prince in the palace of Bitriduti, reserved for the heirs-apparent.  A few weeks later Esarhaddon set out for Egypt, but his malady became more serious on the journey, and he died on the 10th of Arakhsamna, in the twelfth year of his reign.*

     * Arakhsamna corresponds to the Jewish Marcheswan, and to
     our month of May.

When we endeavour to conjure up his image before us, we fancy we are right in surmising that he was not cast in the ordinary mould of Assyrian monarchs.  The history of his campaigns shows that he was as active and resolute as Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III., but he did not add to these good qualities their inflexible harshness towards their subjects, nor their brutal treatment of conquered foes.  Circumstances in which they would have shown themselves merciless, he seized upon as occasions for clemency, and if massacres and executions are recorded among the events of his reign, at least he does not class them among the most important:  the records of his wars do not continually speak of rebels flayed alive, kings impaled before the gates of their cities, and whole populations decimated by fire and sword.  Of all the Assyrian conquerors, he is almost the only one for whom the historian can feel any regard, or from the study of whose reign he passes on with regret to pursue that of others in due course.

As soon as Esarhaddon had passed away, the separation of the two parts of the empire which he had planned was effected almost automatically:  Assur-bani-pal proclaimed himself King of Assyria, and Shamash-shumukin, in like manner, King of Babylon.  One fact, which seems insignificant enough to us when we read it in the Annals, but was decisive in the eyes of their contemporaries, sanctioned the transformation thus accomplished:  Bel and the gods of Accad quitted Assur in the month of Iyyar and returned to their resting-place in Babylon.  The restoration of the images to their own country became necessary as soon as it was decided to have a king in Karduniash, even though he were an Assyrian.  To enable him to exercise legitimate authority, he must have celebrated the rites and “taken the hands of Bel,” but it was a question whether this obligation could be fulfilled if Bel remained a prisoner in the neighbouring capital.  Assur-bani-pal believed for a moment that this difficulty could be obviated, and consulted Shamash on this delicate question:  “Shamash-shumukin, the son of Esarhaddon, the King of Assyria, can he in this year take the hands of Bel, the mighty lord Marduk, in this very city, and then go to Babylon with the favour of Bel!  If that would be pleasing to thy great divinity and to the mighty lord Marduk, thy great divinity must know it.”  The reply was not favourable, and Shamash gave it as his opinion that Bel could not act as a sovereign lord while still languishing in prison in a city which was not his own.  Assur-bani-pal had to resign himself to the release of his captive, and he did it with a good grace.  He proceeded in pomp to the temple of Assur, where Marduk was shut up, and humbly entreated the exiled deity to vouchsafe to return to his own country.