too many royal youths, may have been impatient of the long life of his father, and have conceived the guilty desire, with which our fourth Henry is said to have taxed his first-born, a “hunger for the empty chair” of which the aged monarch, still held possession.  At any rate, whatever may have been the motive that urged him on, it is certain that Asshur-danin-pal rebelled against his sire’s authority, and, raising the standard of revolt, succeeded in carrying with him a great part of the kingdom.  At Asshur, the old metropolis, which may have hoped to lure back the Court by its subservience, at Arbela in the Zab region, at Amidi on the Upper Tigris, at Tel-Apni near the site of Orfa, and at more than twenty other fortified places, Asshur-danin-pal was pro-claimed king, and accepted by the inhabitants for their sovereign.  Shalmaneser must have felt himself in imminent peril of losing his crown.  Under these circumstances he called to his assistance his second son Shamas-Vul, and placing him at the head of such of his troops as remained firm to their allegiance, invested him with full power to act as he thought best in the existing emergency.  Shamas-Vul at once took the field, attacked and reduced the rebellious cities one after another, and in a little time completely crushed the revolt and reestablished peace throughout the empire.  Asshur-danin-pal, the arch conspirator, was probably put to death; his life was justly forfeit; and neither Shamas-Vul nor his father is likely to have been withheld by any inconvenient tenderness from punishing treason in a near relative, as they would have punished it in any other person.  The suppressor of the revolt became the heir of the kingdom; and when, shortly afterwards, Shalmaneser died, the piety or prudence if his faithful son was rewarded by the rich inheritance of the Assyrian Empire.

Shalmaneser reigned, in all, thirty-five years, from B.C. 858 to B.C. 823.  His successor, Shamas-Vul, held the throne for thirteen years, from B.C. 823 to B.C. 810.  Before entering upon the consideration of this latter monarch’s reign, it will be well to cast your eyes once more over the Assyrian Empire, such as it has now become, and over the nations with which its growth had brought it into contact.  Considerable changes had occurred since the time of Tiglath-Pileser I., the Assyrian boundaries having been advanced in several directions, while either this progress, or the movements of races beyond the frontier, had brought into view many new and some very important nations.

The chief advance which the “Terminus” of the Assyrians had made was towards the west and the north-west.  Instead of their dominion in this quarter being bounded by the Euphrates, they had established their authority over the whole of Upper Syria, over Phoenicia, Hamath, and Samaria, or the kingdom of the Israelites.  These countries were not indeed reduced to the form of provinces; on the contrary, they still retained their own laws, administration,