before
Phul or Pul, and which Herodotus regarded as marking the commencement of
the Assyrian "Empire." We must not, however, suppose that Babylonia was
from this time really subject continuously to the Court of Nineveh. The
subjection may have been maintained for a little less than a century;
but about that time we find evidence that the yoke of Assyria had been
shaken off, and that the Babylonian monarchs, who have Semitic names,
and are probably Assyrians by descent, had become hostile to the
Ninevite kings, and were engaged in frequent wars with them. No real
permanent subjection of the Lower country to the Upper was effected till
the time of Sargon; and even under the Sargonid dynasty revolts were
frequent; nor were the Babylonians reconciled to the Assyrian sway till
Esarhaddon united the two Crowns in his own person, and reigned
alternately at the two capitals. Still, it is probable that, from the
time of Tiglathi-Nin, the Upper country was recognized as the superior
of the two: it had shown its might by a conquest and the imposition of a
dynasty--proofs of power which were far from counterbalanced by a few
retaliatory raids adventured upon under favorable circumstances by the
Babylonian princes. Its influence was therefore felt, even while its
yoke was refused; and the Semitizing of the Chaldaeans, commenced under
Tiglathi-Nin, continued during the whole time of Assyrian preponderance;
no effectual Turanian reaction ever set in; the Babylonian rulers,
whether submissive to Assyria or engaged in hostilities against her,
have equally Semitic names; and it does not appear that any effort was
at any time made to recover to the Turanian element of the population
its early supremacy.

The line of direct descent, which has been traced in uninterrupted
succession through eight monarchs, beginning with Asshur-bel-nisi-su,
here terminates; and an interval occurs which can only be roughly
estimated as probably not exceeding fifty years. Another consecutive
series of eight kings follows, known to us chiefly through the famous
Tiglath-Pileser cylinder (which gives the succession of five of them),
but completed from the combined evidence of several other documents.
These monarchs, it is probable, reigned from about B.C. 1230 to B C.
1070.

Bel-kudur-uzur, the first monarch of this second series, is known to us
wholly through his unfortunate war with the contemporary king of
Babylon. It seems that the Semitic line of kings,