A few details have come clown to us with respect to the Babylonian war of Asshur-ris-ilim.  It appears that Nebuchadnezzar was the assailant.  He began the war by a march up the Diyalch and an advance on Assyria along the outlying Zegros hills, the route afterwards taken by the great Persian road described by Herodotus.  Asshur-ris-ilim went out to meet him in person, engaged him in the mountain region, and repulsed his attack.  Upon this the Babylonian monarch retired, and after an interval; the duration of which is unknown, advanced a second time against Assyria, but took now the direct line across the plain.  Asshur-ris-ilim on this occasion was content to employ a general against the invader.  He “sent” his chariots and his soldiers towards his southern border, and was again successful, gaining a second victory over his antagonist, who fled away, leaving in his hands forty chariots and a banner.

Tiglath-Pileser I., who succeeded Asshur-ris-ilim about B.C. 1130, is the first Assyrian monarch of whose history we possess copious details which can be set forth at some length.  This is owing to the preservation and recovery of a lengthy document belonging to his reign in which are recorded the events of his first five years.  As this document is the chief evidence we possess of the condition of Assyria, the character and tone of thought of the king, and indeed of the general state of the Eastern world, at the period in question—­which synchronizes certainly with some portion of the dominion of the Judges over Israel, and probably with the early conquests of the Dorians in Greece—­it is thought advisable to give in this place such an account of it, and such a number of extracts as shall enable the reader to form his own judgment on these several points.

The document opens with an enumeration and glorification of the “great gods” who “rule over heaven and earth,” and are “the guardians of the kingdom of Tiglath-Pileser.”  These are “Asshur, the great Lord, ruling supreme over the gods; Bel, the lord, father of the gods, lord of the world; Sin, the leader(?) the lord of empire(?); Shamus, the establisher of heaven and earth; Vul, he who causes the tempest to rage over hostile lands; Nin, the champion who subdues evil spirits and enemies; and Ishtar, the source of the gods, the queen of victory, she who arranges battles.”  These deities, who (it is declared) have placed Tiglath-Pileser upon the throne, have “made him firm, have confided to him the supreme crown, have appointed him in might to the sovereignty of the people of Bel, and have granted him preeminence, exaltation, and warlike power,” are invoked to make the “duration of his empire continue forever to his royal posterity, lasting as the great temple of Kharris-Matira.”