lanted in the memory of men those lines of hardy
conquerors who had levied tribute from Syria in the day when Nineveh was
still an obscure provincial town. Assyria alone remained, enthroned on
the ruins of the past, and her dominion seemed established for all time;
yet, on closer investigation, indications were not wanting of the cruel
sufferings that she also had endured. Once again, as after the wars of
Tiglath-pileser I. and those of Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III.,
her chiefs had overtaxed her powers by a long series of unremitting wars
against vigorous foes. Doubtless the countries comprised within her
wide empire furnished her with a more ample revenue and less restricted
resources than had been at the command of the little province of ancient
days, which had been bounded by the Khabur and the Zab, and lay on the
two banks of the middle course of the Tigris; but, on the other hand,
the adversaries against whom she had measured her forces, and whom she
had overthrown, were more important and of far greater strength than
her former rivals. She had paid dearly for humiliating Egypt and laying
Babylon in the dust. As soon as Babylon was overthrown, she had, without
pausing to take breath, joined issue with Elam, and had only succeeded
in triumphing over it by drawing upon her resources to the utmost during
many years: when the struggle was over, she realised to what an extent
she had been weakened by so lavish an outpouring of the blood of her
citizens. The Babylonian and Elamite recruits whom she incorporated
into her army after each of her military expeditions, more or less
compensated for the void which victory itself had caused in her
population and her troops; but the fidelity of these vanquished foes of
yesterday, still smarting from their defeat, could not be relied on, and
the entire assimilation of their children to their conquerors was the
work of at least one or two generations. Assyria, therefore, was on the
eve of one of those periods of exhaustion which had so often enfeebled
her national vitality and imperilled her very existence. On each
previous occasion she had, it is true, recovered after a more or less
protracted crisis, and the brilliancy of her prospects, though obscured
for a moment, appeared to be increased by their temporary eclipse. There
was, therefore, good reason to hope that she would recover from her
latest phase of depression; and the only danger to be apprehended was
that some forei