It was neither indolence nor fear which had kept Assur-bani-pal from marching to the succour of his subjects as soon as the movement under Tanuatamanu became manifest, but serious complications had arisen in the south-east which had for the moment obliged him to leave Egypt to itself.  Elam had at last laid aside the mask, and Urtaku, yielding to the entreaties of the Aramaean sheikhs, who were urged on by Marduk-shumibni, had crossed the Tigris.  Shamash-shumukin, thus taken unawares, could only shut himself up in Babylon, and in all haste send information of his plight to his brother and suzerain.  Assur-bani-pal, preoccupied with the events taking place on the Nile, was for a moment in doubt whether this incursion was merely a passing raid or the opening of a serious war, but the reports of his scouts soon left no doubt as to the gravity of the danger:  “The Elamite, like a swarm of grasshoppers, covers the fields, he covers Accad; against Babylon he has pitched his camp and drawn out his lines.”  The city was too strong to be taken by storm.  The Assyrians hastened to relieve it, and threatened to cut off the retreat of the aggressors:  the latter, therefore, gave up the siege, and returned to their own country, but their demeanour was still so undaunted that Assur-bani-pal did not cross the frontier in pursuit of them (665 B.C.).  He doubtless fully expected that they would soon return in larger numbers, and perhaps his fear would not have proved unfounded had not fate suddenly deprived them of all their leaders.  Bel-ikisha was killed in hunting by a wild boar, Nabu-shumirish was struck down by dropsy, and Marduk-shumibni perished in a mysterious manner.  Finally Urtaku succumbed to an attack of apoplexy, and the year which had been so fatal to his allies proved not less so to himself (664 B.C.).  It now seemed as if Assur-bani-pal might breathe freely, and inflict his long-deferred vengeance on Tanuatamanu, but the death of Urtaku did not remove all causes of uneasiness.  Peace was not yet concluded, and it depended on the new King of Elam whether hostilities would be renewed.  Fortunately for the Assyrians, the transmission of power had rarely taken place at Susa for a century past without a disturbance, and Urtaku himself had gained the throne by usurpation, possibly accompanied by murder.  As he had treated his elder brother Khumban-khaldash and the children of the latter, so did his younger brother Tammaritu now treat his sons.  Tammaritu was “a devil” incarnate, whose whole thoughts were of murder and rapine; at least, this was the idea formed of him by his Assyrian contemporaries, who declared that he desired to put to death the sons of his two predecessors out of sheer cruelty.  But we do not need a very vivid imagination to believe that these princes were anxious to dethrone him, and that in endeavouring to rid himself of them he was merely forestalling their secret plots.  They escaped his murderous designs, however, and fled to Assyria,—­Khumban-igash,