ards the north, and would also mark its full
establishment as the dominant power on the left as well as the right
bank of the Tigris. Calah was very advantageously situated in a region
of great fertility and of much natural strength, being protected on one
side by the Tigris, and on the other by the Shor-Derreh torrent, while
the Greater Zab further defended it at the distance of a few miles on
the south and south-east, and the Khazr or Ghazr-Su on the north east.
Its settlement must have secured to the Assyrians the undisturbed
possession of the fruitful and important district between the Tigris and
the mountains, the Aturia or Assyria Proper of later times, which
ultimately became the great metropolitan region in which almost all the
chief towns were situated.

It is quite in accordance with this erection of a sort of second
capital, further to the north than the old one, to find, as we do, by
the inscriptions of Asshur-izir-pal, that Shalmaneser undertook
expeditions against the tribes on the upper Tigris, and even founded
cities in those parts, which he colonized with settlers brought from a
distance. We do not know what the exact bounds of Assyria towards the
north were before his time, but there can be no doubt that he advanced
them; and he is thus entitled to the distinction of being the first
known Assyrian conqueror.

With Tiglathi-Nin, the son and successor of Shalmaneser I., the spirit
of conquest displayed itself in a more signal and striking manner. The
probable date of this monarch has already been shown to synchronize
closely with the time assigned by Berosus to the connnencement of his
sixth Babylonian dynasty, and by Herodotus to the beginning of his
Assyrian Empire. Now Tiglathi-Nin appears in the Inscriptions as the
prince who first aspired to transfer to Assyria the supremacy hitherto
exercised, or at any rate claimed, by Babylon. He made war upon the
southern kingdom, and with such success that he felt himself entitled to
claim its conquuest, and to inscribe upon his signet-seal the proud
title of "Conqueror of Babylonia." This signet-seal, left by him (as is
probable) at Babylon, and recovered about six hundred years later by
Sennacherib, shows to us that he reigned for some time in person at the
southern capital, where it would seem that he afterwards established an
Assyrian dynasty--a branch perhaps of his own family. This is probably
the exact event of which Berosus spoke as occurring 526 years