The latter days of this great Assyrian prince were thus, unhappily, clouded by disaster.  Neither he, nor his descendants, nor any Assyrian monarch for four centuries succeeded in recovering the lost idols, and replacing them in the shrines from which they were taken.  A hostile and jealous spirit appears henceforth in the relations between Assyria and Babylon; we find no more intermarriages of the one royal house with the other; wars are frequent—­almost constant—­nearly every Assyrian monarch, whose history is known to us in any detail, conducting at least one expedition into Babylonia.

A work still remains, belonging to the reign of this king, from which it appears that the peculiar character of Assyrian mimetic art was already fixed in his time, the style of representation being exactly such as prevailed at the most flourishing period, and the workmanship, apparently, not very inferior.  In a cavern from which the Tsupnat river or eastern branch of the Tigris rises, close to a village called Korkhar, and about fifty or sixty miles north of Drarbekr, is a bas-relief sculptured on the natural rock, which has been smoothed for the purpose, consisting of a figure of the king in his sacerdotal dress with the right arm extended and the left hand grasping the sacrificial mace, accompanied by an inscription which is read as follows:—­“By the grace of Asshur, Shamas, and Vul, the Great Gods, I., Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, son of Asshurris-ilim, king of Assyria, who was the son of Mutaggil-Nebo, king of Assyria, marching from the great sea of Akhiri’ (the Mediterranean) to the sea of Nairi” (Lake of Van) “for the third time have invaded the country of Nairi.” [PLATE CXLIV Fig. 3.]

The fact of his having warred in Lower Mesopotamia is almost the whole that is known of Tiglath-Pileser’s son and successor, Asshur-bil-kala.  A contest in which he was engaged with the Babylonian prince, Merodach-shapik-ziri (who seems to have been the successor of Merodach-iddin-akhi), is recorded on the famous synchronistic tablet, in conjunction with the Babylonian wars of his father and grandfather; but the tablet is so injured in this place that no particulars can be gathered from it.  From a monument of Asshur-bil-kala’s own time—­one of the earliest Assyrian sculptures that has cone down to us—­we may perhaps further conclude that he inherited something of the religious spirit of his father, and gave a portion of his attention to the adornment of temples, and the setting up of images.

The probable date of the reign of Asshur-bil-kala is about B.C. 1110-1090.  He appears to have been succeeded on the throne by his younger brother, Shamas-Vul, of whom nothing is known, but that he built, or repaired, a temple at Nineveh.  His reign probably occupied the interval between B.. 1090 and 1070.  He would thus seem to have been contemporary with Smendes in Egypt and with Samuel or Saul in Israel.  So apparently insignificant an event as the establishment