ver the losses suffered through the weakness of his predecessors,
and to compensate for their laches by a vigorous discharge of all the
duties of the kingly office. The order of these wars, which formerly it
was impossible to determine, is now fixed by means of the Assyrian
Canon, and we may follow the course of the expeditions conducted by
Tiglath-Pileser II., with as much confidence and certainty as those of
Tiglath-Pileser I., Asshur-izir-pal, or the second Shalmaneser. It is
scarcely necessary, however, to detain the reader by going through the
entire series. The interest of Tiglath-Pileser's military operations
attaches especially to his campaigns in Babylonia and in Syria, where he
is brought into contact with persons otherwise known to us. His other
wars are comparatively unimportant. Under these circumstances it is
proposed to consider in detail only the Babylonian and Syrian
expeditions, and to dismiss the others with a few general remarks on the
results which were accomplished by them.

Tiglath-Pileser's expeditions against Babylon were in his first and in
his fifteenth years, B.C. 745 and 731. No sooner did he find himself
settled upon the throne, than he levied an army, and marched against
Southern Mesopotamia, which appears to have been in a divided and
unsettled condition. According to the Canon of Ptolemy, Nabonassar then
ruled in Babylon. Tiglath-Pileser's annals confuse the accounts of his
two campaigns; but the general impression which we gather from them is
that, even in B.C. 745, the country was divided up into a number of
small principalities, the sea-coast being under the dominion of
Merodach-Baladan, who held his court in his father's city of Bit-Yakin;
while in the upper region there were a number of petty princes,
apparently independent, among whom may be recognized names which seem to
occur later in Ptolemy's list, among the kings of Babylon to whom he
assigns short reigns in the interval between Nabonassar and
Mardocempalus (Merodach-Baladan). Tiglath-Pileser attacked and defeated
several of these princes, taking the towns of Kur-Galzu (now Akkerkuf),
and Sippara or Sepharvaim, together with many other places of less
consequence in the lower portion of the country, after which he received
the submission of Merodach-Baladan, who acknowledged him for suzerain,
and consented to pay an annual tribute. Tiglath-Pileser upon this
assumed the title of "King of Babylon" (B.C. 729), and offered sacrifice