eir capital, Kibshuna, opened
its gates to the royal troops at the first summons. Tiglath-pileser
completely destroyed the town, but granted the inhabitants their lives
on condition of their paying tribute; he chose from among them, however,
three hundred families who had shown him the most inveterate hostility,
and sent them as exiles into Assyria.*

* The country of the Kumani or Kammanu is really the
district of Comana in Cataonia, and not the Comana Pontica
or the Khammanene on the banks of the Halys. Delattre thinks
that Tiglath-pileser penetrated into this region by the
Jihun, and consequently seeks to identify the names of towns
and mountains, e.g. Mount Ilamuni with Jaur-dagh, the
Kharusa with Shorsh-dagh, and the Tala with the Kermes-dagh;
but it is difficult to believe that, if the king took this
route, he would not mention the town of Marqasi-Marash,
which lay at the very foot of the Jaur-dagh, and would have
stopped his passage. It is more probable that the Assyrians,
starting from Melitene, which they had just subdued, would
have followed the route which skirts the northern slope of
the Taurus by Albistan; the scene of the conflict in this
case would probably have been the mountainous district of
Zeitun.

With this victory the first half of his reign drew to its close; in five
years Tiglath-pileser had subjugated forty-two peoples and their princes
within an area extending from the banks of the Lower Zab to the plains
of the Khati, and as far as the shores of the Western Seas. He revisited
more than once these western and northern regions in which he had
gained his early triumphs. The reconnaissance which he had made
around Carchemish had revealed to him the great wealth of the Syrian
table-land, and that a second raid in that direction could be made more
profitable than ten successful campaigns in Nairi or upon the banks
of the Zab. He therefore marched his battalions thither, this time
to remain for more than a few days. He made his way through the whole
breadth of the country, pushed forward up the valley of the Orontes,
crossed the Lebanon, and emerged above the coast of the Mediterranean in
the vicinity of Arvad.

[Illustration: 230.jpg SACRIFICE OFFERED BEFORE THE ROYAL STELE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs on the
bronze gates of Balawat.

This is the first time for many centuries tha