self conquered, but she
believed herself sure of final victory, and, as a matter of fact, it
is not at all certain that Assur-bani-pal's generals would ever have
completely triumphed over her, if internal discords and treason had
not too often paralysed her powers. The partisans of Khumban-igash were
largely responsible for bringing about the catastrophe in which Tiumman
had perished, and those who sided with Tammaritu had not feared to
provoke a revolt at the moment when Khumban-igash was occupied in
Chaldaea; Indabigash in his turn had risen in rebellion in the rear of
Tammaritu, and his intervention had enabled the Assyrians to deal their
final blow at Shamash-shumukin. The one idea of the non-reigning members
of the royal house was to depose the reigning sovereign, and they
considered all means to this end as justifiable, whether assassination,
revolt, desertion to the enemy, or defection on the very field of
battle. As soon as one of them had dethroned another, hatred of the
foreigner again reigned supreme in his breast, and he donned his armour
with a firm determination to bring the struggle to an end, but the
course he had pursued towards his predecessor was now adopted by one of
his relatives towards himself; the enemy meanwhile was still under arms,
and each of these revolutions brought him a step nearer to the goal of
his endeavours, the complete overthrow of the Elamite kingdom and its
annexation to the empire of Nineveh. Even before the struggle with
Babylon was concluded, Assur-bani-pal had demanded of Indabigash the
release of the Assyrians whom Nabo-bel-shumu had carried off in his
train, besides the extradition of that personage himself. Indabigash
had no desire for war at this juncture, but hesitated to surrender
the Kalda, who had always served him faithfully: he entered into
negotiations which were interminably prolonged, neither of the two
parties being anxious to bring them to a close. After the fall of
Babylon, Assur-bani-pal, who was tenacious in his hatred, summoned the
Elamite ambassadors, and sent them back to their master with a message
conceived in the following menacing terms: "If thou dost not surrender
those men, I will go and destroy thy cities, and lead into captivity the
inhabitants of Susa, Madaktu, and Khaidalu. I will hurl thee from
thy throne, and will set up another thereon: as aforetime I destroyed
Tiumman, so will I destroy thee." A detachment of troops was sent to
enforce the mes