ns (Bartsu) paid him tribute. His principal success was that of
his fourth campaign, which was against Babylon. He entered the country
by a route often used, which skirted the Zagros mountain range for some
distance, and then crossed the flat, probably along the course of the
Diyaleh, to the southern capital. The Babylonians, alarmed at his
advance, occupied a strongly fortified place on his line of route, which
he besieged and took after a vigorous resistance, wherein the blood of
the garrison was shed like water. Eighteen thousand were slain; three
thousand were made prisoners; the city itself was plundered and burnt,
and Shamas-Vul pressed forward against the flying enemy. Hereupon the
Babylonian monarch, Merodach-belatzu-ikbi, collecting his own troops and
those of his allies, the Chaldaeans, the Aramaeans or Syrians, and the
Zimri--a vast host--met the invader on the river Daban--perhaps a branch
of the Euphrates--and fought a great battle in defence of his city. He
was, however, defeated by the Assyrians, with the loss of 5000 killed,
2000 prisoners, 100 chariots, 200 tents, and the royal standard and
pavilion. What further military or political results the victory may
have had is uncertain. Shamas-Vul's annals terminate abruptly at this
point, and we are left to conjecture the consequences of the campaign
and battle. It is possible that they were in the highest degree
important; for we find, in the next reign, that Babylonia, which has so
long been a separate and independent kingdom, is reduced to the
condition of a tributary, while we have no account of its reduction by
the succeeding monarch, whose relations with the Babylonians, so far as
we know, were of a purely peaceful character.

The stele of Shamas-Vul contains one allusion to a hunting exploit, by
which we learn that this monarch inherited his grandfather's partiality
for the chase. He found wild bulls at the foot of Zagros when he was
marching to invade Babylonia, and delaying his advance to hunt them, was
so fortunate as to kill several.

We know nothing of Shamas-Vul as a builder, and but little of him as a
patron of art. He seems to have been content with the palaces of his
father and grandfather, and to have been devoid of any wish to outshine
them by raising edifices which should throw theirs into the shade. In
his stele he shows no originality; for it is the mere reproduction of a
monument well known to his predecessors, and of which we have seve