hereas
Khumban-igash, following the promptings of ambition, had kissed the
ground at the feet of a slave of Assur-bani-pal and had received the
crown as a recompense for his baseness. Putting his rival to death,
Tammaritu seized the throne, and in order to prove that he was neither
consciously nor unconsciously an instrument of Ninevite policy, he at
once sent reinforcements to the help of Babylon without exacting
in return any fresh subsidy. The Assyrians, taking advantage of the
isolated position of Shamash-shumukin, had pressed forward one of their
divisions as far as the districts on the sea coast, which they had
recovered from the power of Nabo-bel-shumi, and had placed under the
administration of Belibni, a person of high rank. The arrival of the
Elamite force was on the point of further compromising the situation,
and rekindling the flames of war more fiercely than ever, when a
second revolution broke out, which shattered for ever the hopes of
Shamash-shumukin. Assur-bani-pal naturally looked upon this event as the
result of his supplications and sacrifices; Assur and Ishtar, in answer
to his entreaties, raised up Indabigash, one of the most powerful feudal
lords of the kingdom of Susa, and incited him to revolt. Tarnmaritu fled
to the marshes which bordered the Nar-marratum, and seizing a vessel,
put out to sea with his brothers, his cousins, seventeen princes of
royal blood, and eighty-four faithful followers: the ship, driven by
the wind on to the Assyrian shore, foundered, and the dethroned monarch,
demoralised by sea-sickness, would have perished in the confusion had
not one of his followers taken him on his back and carried him safely to
land across the mud. Belibni sent him prisoner to Nineveh with all his
suite, and Assur-bani-pal, after allowing him to humble himself before
him, raised him from the ground, embraced him, and assigned to him
apartments in the palace and a train of attendants befitting the dignity
which he had enjoyed for a short time at Susa. Indabigash was too fully
occupied with his own affairs to interfere again in the quarrel between
the two brothers: his country, disorganised by the successive shocks
it had sustained, had need of repose, for some years at least, before
re-entering the lists, except at a disadvantage. He concluded no direct
treaty with the Assyrian king, but he at once withdrew the troops which
had entered Karduniash, and abstained from all hostile demonstrations
agains