on: the upper part of
the walls was covered with a coating of uneven plaster. We do not know
how long the inglorious reign of Assur-etililani lasted, nor whether he
was assassinated or died a natural death. His brother, Sin-shar-ishkun,*
who succeeded him about 620 B.C., at first exercised authority, as he
had done, over Babylon as well as Nineveh,** and laboured, like his
predecessor, to repair the edifices which had suffered by the invasion,
making war on his neighbours, perhaps even on the Medes, without
incurring serious losses.

* The name of this king was discovered by G. Smith on the
fragments of a cylinder brought from Kouyunjik, where he
read it as Bel-zakir-iskun. The real reading is Sin-shar-
ishkun, and the similarity of this name with that of
Saracos, the last king of Assyria according to Greek
tradition, strikes one immediately. The relationship of this
king to Assur-etililani was pointed out by Father Scheil
from the fragment of a tablet on which Sin-shar-ishkun is
declared to be the son of Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria.

** This may be deduced from a passage of Abydenus, where
Saracos or Sin-shar-ishkun sends Bussalossoros (that is,
Nabopolassar) to defend Chaldae against the invasion of the
peoples of the sea; so according to Abydenus, or rather
Berosus, from whom Abydenus indirectly obtained his
information, Saracos was King of Babylon as well as of
Nineveh at the beginning of his reign.

The Chaldaeans, however, merely yielded him obedience from force of
habit, and the moment was not far distant when they would endeavour to
throw off his yoke. Babylon was at that time under the rule of a certain
Nabu-bal-uzur, known to us as Nabopolassar, a Kaldu of ancient lineage,
raised possibly by Assur-bani-pal to the dignity of governor, but
who, in any case, had assumed the title of king on the accession of
Assur-etililani.*

* The Canon of Ptolemy makes Nabopolassar the direct
successor of Chinaladan, and his testimony is justified by
the series of Babylonian contracts which exist in fairly
regular succession from the second to the twenty-first years
of Nabopolassar. The account given by Berosus makes him a
general of Saracos, but the contradiction which this offers
to the testimony of the Canon can be explained if he is
considered as a vassal-king; the kings of Egypt and of Media