tried to reconquer the tribes who had just become subject to Sharduris.  The descent of this latter into Syria probably took place about 756 or 755 B.C., and his wars against Melitene about 758 to 757 B.C.

At this point two courses lay open before him.  He could either continue his march westwards, and, penetrating into Asia Minor, fall upon the wealthy and industrious races who led a prosperous existence between the Halys and the Sangarios, such as the Tabal, the Chalybes, and the Phrygians, or he could turn southwards.

[Illustration:  180.jpg A VISTA OF THE ASIANIC STEPPE]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Alfred Boissier.

Deterred, apparently, by the dreary and monotonous aspect of the Asianic steppes, he chose the latter course; he crossed Mount Taurus, descended into Northern Syria about 756, and forced the Khati to swear allegiance to him.  Their inveterate hatred of the Assyrians led the Bit-Agusi to accept without much reluctance the supremacy of the only power which had shown itself capable of withstanding their triumphant progress.  Arpad became for several years an unfailing support to Urartu and the basis on which its rule in Syria rested.  Assur-nirari had, as we know, at first sought to recover it, but his attempt to do so in 754 B.C. was unsuccessful, and merely served to demonstrate his own weakness:  ten years later, Carchemish, Grurgum, Kummukh, Samalla, Unki, Kui—­in a word, all the Aramaeans and the Khati between the Euphrates and the sea had followed in the steps of the Agusi, and had acknowledged the supremacy of Sharduris.*

     * The minimum extent of the dominions of Sharduris in
     Syria may be deduced from the list of the allies assigned to
     him by Tiglath-pileser in 743 in the Annals.

This prince must now haye been sorely tempted to adopt, on his own account, the policy of the Ninevite monarchs, and push on in the direction of Hamath, Damascus, and the Phoenician seaboard, towards those countries of Israel and Judah which were nearly coterminous with far-off Egypt.  The rapidity of the victories which he had just succeeded in winning at the foot of Mount Taurus and Mount Amanus must have seemed a happy omen of what awaited his enterprise in the valleys of the Orontes and the Jordan.  Although the races of southern and central Syria had suffered less than those of the north from the ambition of the Ninevite kings, they had, none the less, been sorely tried during the previous century; and it might be questioned whether they had derived courage from the humiliation of Assyria, or still remained in so feeble a state as to present an easy prey to the first invader.

The defeat inflicted on Mari by Ramman-nirari in 803 had done but little harm to the prestige of Damascus.  The influence exercised by this state from the sources of the Litany to the brook of Egypt * was based on so solid a foundation that no temporary reverse had power to weaken it.