In all his wars Sargon largely employed the system of whole-sale deportation.  The Israelites were removed from Samaria, and planted partly in Gozan or Mygdonia, and partly in the cities recently taken from the Medes.  Hamath and Damascus were peopled with captives from Armenia and other regions of the north.  A portion of the Tibareni were carried captive to Assyria, and Assyrians were established in the Tibarenian country.  Vast numbers of the inhabitants of the Zagros range were also transported to Assyria; Babylonians, Cuthaeans, Sepharvites, Arabians, and others, were placed in Samaria; men from the extreme east (perhaps Media) in Ashdod.  The Commukha were removed from the extreme north to Susiana; and Chaldaeans were brought from the extreme south to supply their place.  Everywhere Sargon changed the abodes of his subjects, his aim being, as it would seem, to weaken the stronger races by dispersion, and to destroy the spirit of the weaker ones by severing at a blow all the links which attach a patriotic people to the country it has long inhabited.  The practice had not been unknown to previous monarchs, but it had never been employed by any so generally or on so grand a scale as it was by this king.

From this sketch of Sargon’s wars, we may now proceed to a brief consideration of his great works.  The magnificent palace which he erected at Khorsabad was by far the most important of his constructions.  Compared with the later, and even with the earlier buildings of a similar kind erected by other kings, it was not remarkable for its size.  But its ornamentation was unsurpassed by that of any Assyrian edifice, with the single exception of the great palace of Asshur-bani-pal at Koyunjik.  Covered with sculptures, both internally and externally, generally in two lines, one over the other, and, above this, adorned with enamelled bricks, arranged in elegant and tasteful patterns; approached by noble flights of steps and through splendid propylaea; having the advantage, moreover, of standing by itself, and of not being interfered with by any other edifice, it had peculiar beauties of its own, and may be pronounced in many respects the most interesting of the Assyrian building’s.  United to this palace was a town enclosed by strong walls, which formed a square two thousand yards each way.  Allowing fifty square yards to each individual, this space would have been capable of accommodating 80,000 persons.  The town, like the palace, seems to have been entirely built by Sargon, who imposed on it his own name, an appellation which it retained beyond the time of the Arab conquest.