Shalmaneser attacked his lines in front, and broke through them after three days’ preliminary skirmishing; then finding the enemy drawn up in battle array before their last stronghold, the king charged without a moment’s hesitation, drove them back and forced them to surrender.  Akhuni’s life was spared, but he was sent with the remainder of his army to colonise a village in the neighbourhood of Assur, and Adini became henceforth an integral part of Assyria.

[Illustration:  102.jpg TRIBUTE FROM GILZAN]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
     Black Obelisk.

The war on the western frontier was hardly brought to a close when another broke out in the opposite direction.  The king rapidly crossed the pass of Bunagishlu and fell upon Mazamua:  the natives, disconcerted by his impetuous onslaught, nevertheless hoped to escape by putting out in their boats on the broad expanse of Lake Urumiah.  Shalmaneser, however, constructed rafts of inflated skins, on which his men ventured in pursuit right out into the open.  The natives were overpowered; the king “dyed the sea with their blood as if it had been wool,” and did not withdraw until he had forced them to appeal for mercy.

In five years Shalmaneser had destroyed Adini, laid low Urartu, and confirmed the tributary states of Syria in their allegiance; but Damascus and Babylon were as yet untouched, and the moment was at hand when he would have to choose between an arduous conflict with them, or such a repression of the warlike zeal of his opening years, that, like his father Assur-nazir-pal, he would have to repose on his laurels.  Shalmaneser was too deeply imbued with the desire for conquest to choose a peaceful policy:  he decided at once to assume the offensive against Damascus, being probably influenced by the news of Ahab’s successes, and deeming that if the King of Israel had gained the ascendency unaided, Assur, fully confident of its own superiority, need have no fear as to the result of a conflict.  The forces, however, at the disposal of Benhadad II. (Adadidri) were sufficient to cause the Assyrians some uneasiness.  The King of Damascus was not only lord of Coele-Syria and the Hauran, but he exercised a suzerainty more or less defined over Hamath, Israel, Ammon, the Arabian and Idumean tribes, Arvad and the principalities of Northern Phoenicia, Usanata, Shianu, and Irkanata;* in all, twelve peoples or twelve kings owned his sway, and their forces, if united to his, would provide at need an army of nearly 100,000 men:  a few years might see these various elements merged in a united empire, capable of withstanding the onset of any foreign foe.**