ugh he succeeded in giving a good account of an adversary who was
himself exhausted by dearly bought successes, he left to his descendants
a kingdom which had been drained of its last drop of blood. The same
reason which explains the decadence of Babylon shows us the cause of
the periodic eclipses undergone by Assyria after each outburst of her
warlike spirit. She, too, had to pay the penalty of an ambition
which was out of all proportion to her resources. The mighty deeds of
Shalmaneser and Tukulti-ninip were, as a natural consequence,
followed by a state of complete prostration under Tukultiassurbel
and Assurnirari: the country was now forced to pay for the glories of
Assurishishi and of Tiglath-pileser by falling into an inglorious state
of languor and depression. Its kings, conscious that their rule must be
necessarily precarious as long as they did not possess a larger stock of
recruits to fall back on, set their wits to work to provide by various
methods a more adequate reserve. While on one hand they installed native
Assyrians in the more suitable towns of conquered countries, on the
other they imported whole hordes of alien prisoners chosen for their
strength and courage, and settled them down in districts by the banks of
the Tigris and the Zab. We do not know what Eammanirani and Shalmaneser
may have done in this way, but Tiglath-pileser undoubtedly introduced
thousands of the Mushku, the Urumseans, the people of Kummukh and
Nairi, and his example was followed by all those of his successors
whose history has come down to us. One might have expected that such an
invasion of foreigners, still smarting under the sense of defeat, might
have brought with it an element of discontent or rebellion; far from
it, they accepted their exile as a judgment of the gods, which the
gods alone had a right to reverse, and did their best to mitigate the
hardness of their lot by rendering unhesitating obedience to their
masters. Their grandchildren, born in the midst of Assyrians, became
Assyrians themselves, and if they did not entirely divest themselves of
every trace of their origin, at any rate became so closely identified
with the country of their adoption, that it was difficult to distinguish
them from the native race. The Assyrians who were sent out to colonise
recently acquired provinces were at times exposed to serious risks. Now
and then, instead of absorbing the natives among whom they lived, they
were absorbed by them, wh