previously, others within recent years, were becoming more and more acclimatised to their new surroundings, on which they were producing the effect desired by their conquerors; they were meant to hold in check the populations in whose midst they had been set down, to act as a curb upon them, and also to break up their national unity and thus gradually prepare them for absorption into a wider fatherland, in which they would cease to be exclusively Damascenes, Samaritans, Hittites, or Aramaeans, since they would become Assyrians and fellow-citizens of a mighty empire.  The provinces, brought at length under a regular system of government, protected against external dangers and internal discord, by a well-disciplined soldiery, and enjoying a peace and security they had rarely known in the days of their independence, gradually became accustomed to live in concord under the rule of a common sovereign, and to feel themselves portions of a single empire.  The speech of Assyria was their official language, the gods of Assyria were associated with their national gods in the prayers they offered up for the welfare of the sovereign, and foreign nations with whom they were brought into communication no longer distinguished between them and their conquerors, calling their country Assyria, and regarding its inhabitants as Assyrians.  As is invariably the case, domestic peace and good administration had caused a sudden development of wealth and commercial activity.  Although Nineveh and Calah never became such centres of trade and industry as Babylon had been, yet the presence of the court and the sovereign attracted thither merchants from all parts of the world.

[Illustration:  079.jpg SENNACHERIB]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.

The Medes, reaching the capital by way of the passes of Kowandiz and Suleimaniyeh, brought in the lapis-lazuli, precious stones, metals, and woollen stuffs of Central Asia and the farthest East, while the Phoenicians and even Greeks, who were already following in their foot steps, came thither to sell in the a bazaars of Assyria the most precious of the wares brought back by their merchant vessels from the shores of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the farthest West.  The great cities of the triangle of Assyria were gradually supplanting all the capitals of the ancient world, not excepting Memphis, and becoming the centres of universal trade; unexcelled for centuries in the arts of war, Assyria was in a fair way to become mistress also in the arts of peace.  A Jewish prophet thus described the empire at a later date:  “The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick clouds.  The waters nourished him, the deep made him grow:  therefore his stature was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long by reason of many waters, when he shot them forth.  All