ty
on which she stands with her neighbor. Not only does she treat as an
equal with the great Southern Empire--not only is her royal house deemed
worthy of furnishing wives to its princes but when dynastic troubles
arise there, she exercises a predominant influence over the fortunes of
the contending parties, and secures victory to the side whose cause she
espouses. Jealous as all nations are of foreign inter-position in their
affairs, we may be sure that Babylonia would not have succumbed on this
occasion to Assyria's influence, had not her weight been such that,
added to one side in a civil struggle, it produced a preponderance which
defied resistance.

After this one short lift, the curtain again drops over the history of
Assyria for a space of about sixty years, during which our records tell
us nothing but the mere names of the king's. It appears from the bricks
of Kileh-Sherghat that Asshur-upallit was succeeded upon the throne by
his son, Bel-lush, or Behiklhus (Belochush), who was in his turn
followed by his son, Pudil, his grandson. Vul-lush, and his
great-grandson, Shahmaneser, the first of the name. Of Bel-lush, Pudil,
and Vul-lush I., we know only that they raised or repaired important
buildings in their city of Asshur (now Kileh-Sherghat), which in their
time, and for some centuries later, was the capital of the monarchy.

This place was not very favorably situated, being on the right bank of
the Tigris, which is a far less fertile region than the left, and not
being naturally a place of any great strength. The Assyrian territory
did not at this time, it is probable, extend very far to the north: at
any rate, no need was as yet felt for a second city higher up the Tigris
valley, much less for a transfer of the seat of government in that
direction. Calah was certainly, and Nineveh probably, not yet built; but
still the kingdom had obtained a name among the nations; the term
Assyria was applied geographically to the whole valley of the middle
Tigris; and a prophetic eye could see in the hitherto quiescent power
the nation fated to send expeditions into Palestine, and to bear off its
inhabitants into captivity.

Shahnaneser I. (ab. B.C. 1320) is chiefly known in Assyrian history as
the founder of Calah (Nimrud), the second, apparently, of those great
cities which the Assyrian monarchs delighted to build and embellish.
This foundation would of itself be sufficient to imply the growth of
Assyria in his time tow