these with captive exiles from other nations, or to import colonists in sufficient numbers, he found himself towards the end of his reign ruling over a sparsely inhabited desert where his father had bequeathed to him flourishing provinces and populous cities.  His was the system of the first Assyrian conquerors, Shalmaneser iii. and Assur-nazir-pal, substituted for that of Tiglath-pileser iii. and Sargon.  The assimilation of the conquered peoples to their conquerors was retarded, tribute was no longer paid regularly, and the loss of revenue under this head was not compensated by the uncertain increase in the spoils obtained by war; the recruiting of the army, rendered more difficult by the depopulation of revolted districts, weighed heavier still on those which remained faithful, and began, as in former times, to exhaust the nation.  The news of Sargon’s murder, published throughout the Eastern world, had rekindled hope in the countries recently subjugated by Assyria, as well as in those hostile to her.  Phoenicia, Egypt, Media, and Elam roused themselves from their lethargy and anxiously awaited the turn which events should take at Nineveh and Babylon.  Sennacherib did not consider it to his interest to assume the crown of Chaldaea, and to treat on a footing of absolute equality a country which had been subdued by force of arms:  he relegated it to the rank of a vassal state, and while reserving the suzerainty for himself, sent thither one of his brothers to rule as king.*

* The events which took place at Babylon at the beginning of Sennacherib’s reign are known to us from the fragments of Berosus, compared with the Canon of Ptolemy and Pinches’ Babylonian Canon.  The first interregnum in the Canon of Ptolemy (704-702 B.C.) is filled in Pinches’ Canon by three kings who are said to have reigned as follows:  Sennacherib, two years; Marduk-zakir-shumu, one month; Merodach-baladan, nine months.  Berosus substitutes for Sennacherib one of his brothers, whose name apparently he did not know; and this is the version I have adopted, in agreement with most modern historians, as best tallying with the evident lack of affection for Babylon displayed by Sennacherib throughout his reign.

The Babylonians were indignant at this slight.  Accustomed to see their foreign ruler conform to their national customs, take the hands of Bel, and assume or receive from them a new throne-name, they could not resign themselves to descend to the level of mere tributaries:  in less than two years they rebelled, assassinated the king who had been imposed upon them, and proclaimed in his stead Marduk-zakir-shumu,* who was merely the son of a female slave (704 B.C.).