* “And the King of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye
     that Ramoth-gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not
     out of the hand of the King of Syria?”

The sole effect of Ahab’s success was to procure for him more lenient treatment; he lost no territory, and perhaps gained a few towns, but he had to sign conditions of peace which made him an acknowledged vassal to the King of Syria.*

* No document as yet proves directly that Ahab was vassal to Benhadad II.  The fact seems to follow clearly enough from the account of the battle of Karkar against Shalmaneser II., where the contingent of Ahab of Israel figures among those of the kings who fought for Benhadad II. against the Assyrians.

Damascus still remained the foremost state of Syria, and, if we rightly interpret the scanty information we possess, seemed in a fair way to bring about that unification of the country which neither Hittites, Philistines, nor Hebrews had been able to effect.  Situated nearly equidistant from Raphia and Carchemish, on the outskirts of the cultivated region, the city was protected in the rear by the desert, which secured it from invasion on the east and north-east; the dusty plains of the Hauran protected it on the south, and the wooded cliffs of Anti-Lebanon on the west and north-west.  It was entrenched within these natural barriers as in a fortress, whence the garrison was able to sally forth at will to attack in force one or other of the surrounding nations:  if the city were victorious, its central position made it easy for its rulers to keep watch over and preserve what they had won; if it suffered defeat, the surrounding mountains and deserts formed natural lines of fortification easy to defend against the pursuing foe, but very difficult for the latter to force, and the delay presented by this obstacle gave the inhabitants time to organise their reserves and bring fresh troops into the field.  The kings of Damascus at the outset brought under their suzerainty the Aramaean principalities—­Argob, Maacah, and Geshur, by which they controlled the Hauran, and Zobah, which secured to them Coele-Syria from Lake Huleh to the Bahr el-Kades.  They had taken Upper Galilee from the Hebrews, and subsequently Perasa, as far as the Jabbok, and held in check Israel and the smaller states, Amnion and Moab, which followed in its wake.  They exacted tribute from Hamath, the Phoenician Arvad, the lower valley of the Orontes, and from a portion of the Hittites, and demanded contingents from their princes in time of war.  Their power was still in its infancy, and its elements were not firmly welded together, but the surrounding peoples were in such a state of weakness and disunion that they might be left out of account as formidable enemies.  The only danger that menaced the rising kingdom was the possibility that the two ancient warlike nations, Egypt and Assyria, might shake off their torpor, and reappearing on the scene of their former prowess might attack her before she had consolidated her power by the annexation of Naharaim.