rought by the individual plunderers to one place, where it
was carefully sorted and counted in the presence and under the
superintendence of royal scribes, who took an exact inventory of the
whole before it was carried away by its captors. [PLATE CXI., Fig. 3.]
Scales were used to determine the weight of articles made of the
precious metals, which might otherwise have been subjected to clipping.
We may conclude from these practices that a certain proportion of the
value of all private spoil was either due to the royal treasury, or
required to be paid to the gods in acknowledgment of their aid and
protection. Besides the private spoil, there was a portion which was
from the first set apart exclusively for the monarch. This consisted
especially of the public treasure of the captured city, the gold and
silver, whether in bullion, plate, or ornaments, from the palace of its
prince, and the idols, and probably the other valuables from the
temples.

The inhabitants of a captured place were usually treated with more or
less of severity. Those regarded as most responsible for the resistance
or the rebellion were seized; generally their hands were manacled either
before them or behind their backs, while sometimes fetters were attached
to their feet, and even rings passed through their lips, and in this
abject guise they were brought into the presence of the Assyrian king.
Seated on his throne in his fortified camp without the place, and
surrounded by his attendants, he received them one by one, and instantly
pronounced their doom. On some he proudly placed his foot, some he
pardoned, a few he ordered for execution, many he sentenced to be torn
from their homes and carried into slavery.

Various modes of execution seem to have been employed in the case of
condemned captives. One of them was empalement. This has always been,
and still remains, a common mode of punishment in the East; but the
manner of empaling which the Assyrians adopted was peculiar. They
pointed a stake at one end, and, having fixed the other end firmly into
the ground, placed their criminal with the pit of his stomach upon the
point, and made it enter his body just below the breastbone. This method
of empaling must have destroyed life tolerably soon, and have thus been
a far less cruel punishment than the crucifixion of the Romans. We do
not observe it very often in the Assyrian sculptures, nor do we ever see
it applied to more than a few individuals. It was p