ter half of the name--that he was, previously to his elevation
to the royal dignity, a mere vine-dresser, whose occupation was to keep
in order the gardens of the king. Similar tales of the low origin of
self-raised and usurping monarchs are too common in the East, and are
too often contradicted by the facts, when they come known to us, for
much credit to attach to the story told by these late writers, the
earlier of whom, must have written five or six hundred years after
Tiglath-Pileser's time. We aught, however, conclude, without much chance
of mistake, from such a story being told, that the king-intended
acquired the throne irregularly; that either he was not of the blood
royal, or that, being so, he was at any rate not the legitimate heir.
And the conclusion at which we should thus arrive is confirmed by the
monarch's inscriptions; for though he speaks repeatedly of "the kings
his fathers." and even calls the royal buildings at Galati. "the palaces
of his fathers," yet he never mentions his actual father's name in any
record that has come down to us. Such a silence is so contrary to the
ordinary practice of Assyrian monarchs, who glory in their descent and
parade it on every possible occasion, that, where it occurs, we are
justified in concluding the monarch to have been an usurper, deriving
his title to the crown, not from his ancestry or from any law of
succession, but from a successful revolution, in which he played the
principal part. It matters little that such a monarch, when he is
settled upon the throne, claims, in a vague and general way, connection
with the kings of former times. The claim may often have a basis of
truth; for in monarchies where polygamy prevails, and the kings have
numerous daughters to dispose of, almost all the nobility can boast that
they are of the blood royal. Where the claim is in no sense true, it
will still be made; for it flatters the vanity of the monarch, and there
is no one to gainsay it.

Only in such cases we are sure to find a prudent vagueness--an assertion
of the fact of the connection, expressed in general terms, without any
specification of the particulars on which the supposed fact rests.

On obtaining the crown whatever the circumstances under which he
obtained it--Tiglath-Pileser immediately proceeded to attempt the
restoration of the Empire by engaging in a series of wars, now upon one,
now upon another frontier, seeking by his unwearied activity and energy
to reco