ring in a dream to one of her seers, she said, "I myself go
before Assur-bani-pal, the king whom my hands have created;" the army,
emboldened by this revelation, overcame the obstacle by a vigorous
effort, and dashed impetuously over regions as yet unvisited by any
conqueror. The Assyrians burnt down fourteen royal cities, numberless
small towns, and destroyed the cornfields, the vines, and the orchards;
Khumban-khaldash, utterly exhausted, fled to the mountains "like a young
dog." Banunu and the districts of Tasarra, twenty cities in the country
of Khumir, Khaidalu, and Bashimu, succumbed one after another, and when
the invaders at length decided to retrace their steps to the frontier,
Susa, deserted by her soldiers and deprived of her leaders, lay before
them an easy prey. It was not the first time in the last quarter of a
century that the Assyrians had had the city at their mercy. They had
made some stay in it after the battle of Tulliz, and also after the
taking of Bit-Imbi in the preceding year; but on those occasions they
had visited it as allies, to enthrone a king owing allegiance to their
own sovereign, and political exigencies had obliged them to repress
their pillaging instincts and their long-standing hatred. Now that
they had come as enemies, they were restrained by no considerations of
diplomacy: the city was systematically pillaged, and the booty found
in it was so immense that the sack lasted an entire month. The royal
treasury was emptied of its gold and silver, its metals and the valuable
objects which had been brought to it from Sumir, Accad, and Karduniash
at successive periods from the most remote ages down to that day, in
the course of the successful invasions conducted by the princes of Susa
beyond the Tigris; among them, the riches of the Babylonian temples,
which Shamash-shumukin had lavished on Tiumman to purchase his support,
being easily distinguishable. The furniture of the palace was sent to
Nineveh in a long procession; it comprised beds and chairs of ivory, and
chariots encrusted with enamel and precious stones, the horses of
which were caparisoned with gold. The soldiers made their way into the
ziggurat, tore down the plates of ruddy copper, violated the sanctuary,
and desecrated the prophetic statues of the gods who dwelt within it,
shrouded in the sacred gloom, and whose names were only uttered by their
devotees with trembling lips. Shumudu, Lagamar, Partikira, Ammankasibar,
Uduran, Sapa