undertakings was unimportant.  Tandai of Kirbit, a petty chief, was continually engaged in harassing the inhabitants of Yamutbal; he bore down upon them every year, and, after dealing a blow, retreated to his hiding-place in the mountains.  He was attacked in his stronghold, and carried away captive with all his people into Egypt, at the furthest extremity of the empire, to serve in Assyrian garrisons in the midst of the fellahin.**

* In the numerous documents relating to the reign of Assur- bani-pal the facts are arranged in geographical order, not by the dates of the successive expeditions, and the chronological order of the campaigns is all the more difficult to determine accurately, as Pinches’ Babylonian Chronicle fails us after the beginning of this reign, immediately after the mention of the above-mentioned war with Kirbit.  Even the Eponym Canon is only accurate down to 666 B.C.; in that year there is a break, and although we possess for the succeeding period more than forty names of eponyms, their classification is not at present absolutely certain.

** The expedition against Kirbit is omitted in certain documents; it is inserted in the others in the fourth place, between the wars in Asia Minor and the campaign against the Mannai.  The place assigned to it in the Bab.  Chron. quite in the beginning of the reign, is confirmed by a fragment of a tablet quoted by Winckler.  Perhaps it was carried out by a Babylonian army:  although Assur-bani-pal claimed the glory of it, by reason of his suzerainty over Karduniash.

Meanwhile, the army which Esarhaddon had been leading against Taharqa pursued its course under command of the Tartan.* Syria received it submissively, and the twenty-two kings who still possessed a shadow of autonomy in the country sent assurances of their devotion to the new monarch:  even Yakinlu, King of Arvad, who had aroused suspicion by frequent acts of insubordination,** thought twice before rebelling against his terrible suzerain, and joined the rest in paying both homage and tribute.  Cyprus and also Phoenicia remained faithful to their allegiance, and, what was of still more consequence, the states which lay nearest to Egypt—­Philistia, Judah, Moab, and Ammon; the Assyrians were thus able to push forward to the Delta without losing time in repressing rebellions along their route.  The Ethiopians had entrenched themselves at Karbaniti;*** they were, however, once more defeated, and left; so many of their soldiers dead upon the field, that Taharqa had not sufficient troops left to defend Memphis.

     * The text of Tablet K 2675-K 228 of the Brit.  Mus., states
     distinctly that the Tartan commanded the first army.