h, B.C. 770.

The next dynasty commences with Tiglath-Pileser II., who carried on wars
against Babylon and Syria and Israel. This was in the time of Ahaz, B.C.
729.

(M165) His son, Shalmanezer, made Hosea, king of Israel, his vassal, and
reduced the country of the ten tribes to a province of his empire, and
carried the people away into captivity. Hezekiah was also, for a time, his
vassal. He was succeeded by Sargon, B.C. 721, according to Smith, but 715
B.C., according to others. He reigned, as Geseneus thinks, but two or
three years; but fifteen according to Rawlinson, and built that splendid
palace, the ruins of which, at Khorsabad, have supplied the Louvre with
its choicest remains of Assyrian antiquity. He was one of the greatest of
the Assyrian conquerors. He invaded Babylon and drove away its kings; he
defeated the Philistines, took Ashdod and Tyre, received tribute from the
Greeks at Cyprus, invaded even Egypt, whose king paid him tribute, and
conquered Media.

(M166) His son, Sennacherib, who came to the throne, B.C. 702, is an
interesting historical personage, and under him the Assyrian empire
reached its culminating point. He added to the palace of Nineveh, and
built one which exceeded all that had existed before him. No monarch
surpassed this one in the magnificence of his buildings. He erected no
less than thirty temples, shining with silver and gold. One of the halls
of his palace was two hundred and twenty feet long, and one hundred and
one wide. He made use of Syrian, Greek, and Phoenician artists. It is from
the ruins of this palace at _Koyunjik_ that Mr. Layard made those valuable
discoveries which have enriched the British Museum. He subdued Babylonia,
Upper Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia, Philistia, Idumaen, and a part of
Egypt, which, with Media, a part of Armenia, and the old Assyrian
territory, formed his vast empire--by far greater than the Egyptian
monarchy at any period. He chastised also the Jews for encouraging a
revolt among the Philistines, and carried away captive two hundred
thousand people, and only abstained from laying siege to Jerusalem by a
present from Hezekiah of three hundred talents of silver and thirty of
gold. The destruction of his host, as recorded by Scripture, is thought by
some to have occurred in a subsequent invasion of Judea, when it was in
alliance with Egypt. That "he returned to Nineveh and dwelt there" is
asserted by Scripture, but only to be assassinated by his so