do not seem to have always clearly
distinguished between Yauta, son of Hazael, and Uate, son of
Birdadda.

Of all the countries which had thrown off their allegiance during the
late troubles, Egypt alone remained unpunished, and it now seemed as
if its turn had come to suffer chastisement for its rebellion. It was,
indeed, not to be tolerated that so rich and so recently acquired
a province should slip from the grasp of the very sovereign who had
completed its conquest, without his making an effort on the first
opportunity to reduce it once more to submission. Such inaction on his
part would be a confession of impotence, of which the other vassals of
the empire would quickly take advantage: Tyre, Judah, Moab, the petty
kings of the Taurus, and the chiefs of Media, would follow the example
of Pharaoh, and the whole work of the last three centuries would have to
be done over again. There can be no doubt that Assur-bani-pal cherished
the secret hope of recovering Egypt in a short campaign, and that he
hoped to attach it to the empire by more permanent bonds than before,
but as a preliminary to executing this purpose it was necessary to
close and settle if possible the account still open against Elam. Recent
events had left the two rival powers in such a position that neither
peace nor even a truce of long duration could possibly exist between
them. Elam, injured, humiliated, and banished from the plains of the
Lower Euphrates, over which she had claimed at all times an almost
exclusive right of pillage, was yet not sufficiently enfeebled by her
disasters to be convinced of her decided inferiority to Assyria. Only
one portion of her forces, and that perhaps the smallest, had taken the
field and sustained serious reverses: she had still at her disposal,
besides the peoples of the plain and the marshes who had suffered
the most, those almost inexhaustible reserves of warlike and hardy
mountaineers, whose tribes were ranged on the heights which bounded the
horizon, occupying the elevated valleys of the Uknu, the Ulai, and their
nameless affluents, on the western or southern slopes or in the enclosed
basins of the Iranian table-land. Here Elam had at her command at least
as many men as her adversaries could muster against her, and though
these barbarian contingents lacked discipline and systematic training,
their bravery compensated for the imperfection of their military
education. Elam not only refused to admit her