He made war upon the southern kingdom, and with such success that he felt himself entitled to claim its conquuest, and to inscribe upon his signet-seal the proud title of “Conqueror of Babylonia.”  This signet-seal, left by him (as is probable) at Babylon, and recovered about six hundred years later by Sennacherib, shows to us that he reigned for some time in person at the southern capital, where it would seem that he afterwards established an Assyrian dynasty—­a branch perhaps of his own family.  This is probably the exact event of which Berosus spoke as occurring 526 years before Phul or Pul, and which Herodotus regarded as marking the commencement of the Assyrian “Empire.”  We must not, however, suppose that Babylonia was from this time really subject continuously to the Court of Nineveh.  The subjection may have been maintained for a little less than a century; but about that time we find evidence that the yoke of Assyria had been shaken off, and that the Babylonian monarchs, who have Semitic names, and are probably Assyrians by descent, had become hostile to the Ninevite kings, and were engaged in frequent wars with them.  No real permanent subjection of the Lower country to the Upper was effected till the time of Sargon; and even under the Sargonid dynasty revolts were frequent; nor were the Babylonians reconciled to the Assyrian sway till Esarhaddon united the two Crowns in his own person, and reigned alternately at the two capitals.  Still, it is probable that, from the time of Tiglathi-Nin, the Upper country was recognized as the superior of the two:  it had shown its might by a conquest and the imposition of a dynasty—­proofs of power which were far from counterbalanced by a few retaliatory raids adventured upon under favorable circumstances by the Babylonian princes.  Its influence was therefore felt, even while its yoke was refused; and the Semitizing of the Chaldaeans, commenced under Tiglathi-Nin, continued during the whole time of Assyrian preponderance; no effectual Turanian reaction ever set in; the Babylonian rulers, whether submissive to Assyria or engaged in hostilities against her, have equally Semitic names; and it does not appear that any effort was at any time made to recover to the Turanian element of the population its early supremacy.

The line of direct descent, which has been traced in uninterrupted succession through eight monarchs, beginning with Asshur-bel-nisi-su, here terminates; and an interval occurs which can only be roughly estimated as probably not exceeding fifty years.  Another consecutive series of eight kings follows, known to us chiefly through the famous Tiglath-Pileser cylinder (which gives the succession of five of them), but completed from the combined evidence of several other documents.  These monarchs, it is probable, reigned from about B.C. 1230 to B C. 1070.

Bel-kudur-uzur, the first monarch of this second series, is known to us wholly through his unfortunate war with the contemporary king of Babylon.  It seems that the Semitic line of kings, which the Assyrians had established in Babylon, was not content to remain very long in a subject position.  In the time of Bel-kudur-uzur, Vul-baladan, the Babylonian vassal monarch, revolted; and a war followed between him and his Assyrian suzerain, which terminated in the defeat and death of the latter, who fell in a great battle, about B.C. 1210.