seen
whether the conquerors of Sin-shar-ishkun would tolerate for long the
interference of a third robber, and would consent to share the spoil
with these Africans, who, having had none of the trouble, had hastened
to secure the profit. All the Mediterranean dependencies of Assyria,
such as Mesopotamia, Syria, and Judae, fell naturally within the
sphere of Babylon rather than that of Media, and, indeed, Cyaxares never
troubled himself about them; and Nabopolassar, who considered them
his own by right, had for the moment too much in hand to permit of his
reclaiming them. The Aramaeans of the Khabur and the Balikh, the nomads
of the Mesopotamian plain, had not done homage to him, and the country
districts were infested with numerous bands of Cimmerians and Scythians,
who had quite recently pillaged the sacred city of Harran and violated
the temple of the god Sin.* Nabopolassar, who was too old to command
his troops in person, probably entrusted the conduct of them to
Nebuchadrezzar, who was the son he had appointed to succeed him, and who
had also married the Median princess. Three years sufficed this prince
to carry the frontier of the new Chaldaean empire as far as the Syrian
fords of the Euphrates, within sight of Thapsacus and Carchemish. Harran
remained in the hands of the barbarians,** probably on condition of
their paying a tribute, but the district of the Subaru was laid waste,
its cities reduced to ashes, and the Babylonian suzerainty established
on the southern slopes of the Masios.

* _Inscrip. of the Cylinder of Nabonidus_ mentions the
pillage of Harran as having taken place fifty-four years
before the date of its restoration by Nabonidus. This was
begun, as we know, in the third year of that king, possibly
in 554-3. The date of the destruction is, therefore, 608-7,
that is to say, a few months before the destruction of
Nineveh.

** The passage in the _Cylinder of Nabonidus_ shows that the
barbarians remained in possession of the town.

Having brought these preliminary operations to a successful issue,
Nabopolassar, considering himself protected on the north and north-east
by his friendship with Cyaxares, no longer hesitated to make an effort
to recover the regions dominated by Egyptian influence, and, if the
occasion presented itself, to reduce to submission the Pharaoh who was
in his eyes merely a rebellious satrap. Nebuchadrezzar again placed
himself at the