r is there any hope of a return of prosperity until the king comes
home. Under these circumstances a general discontent prevails; and the
people, anxious for better times, are ready to welcome any pretender who
will come forward, and, on any pretext whatever, declare the throne
vacant, and claim to be its proper occupant. If Shalmaneser continued to
direct in person the siege of Samaria during the three years of its
continuance, we cannot be surprised that the patience of the Ninevites
was exhausted, and that in the third year they accepted the rule of the
usurper who boldly proclaimed himself king.

What right the new monarch put forward, what position he had previously
held, what special circumstances, beyond the mere absence of the
rightful king, facilitated his attempts, are matters on which the
monuments throw no light, and on which we must therefore be content to
be ignorant. All that we can see is, that either personal merit or
official rank and position must have enabled him to establish himself;
for he certainly did not derive any assistance from his birth, which
must have been mediocre, if not actually obscure. It is the custom of
the Babylonian and Assyrian kings to glory in their ancestry, and when
the father has occupied a decently high position, the son declares his
sire's name and rank at the commencement of each inscription, but Sargon
never, in any record, names his father, nor makes the slightest allusion
to his birth and descent, unless it be in vague phrases, wherein he
calls the former kings of Assyria, and even those of Babylonia, his
ancestors. Such expressions seem to be mere words of course, having no
historical value: and it would be a mistake even to conclude from them
that the new king intended seriously to claim the connection of kindred
with the monarchs of former times.

It has been thought indeed, that Sargon, instead of cloaking his
usurpation under some decent plea of right, took a pride in boldly
avowing it. The name Sargon has been supposed to be one which he adopted
as his royal title at the time of his establishment upon the throne,
intending by the adoption to make it generally known that he had
acquired the crown, not by birth or just claim, but by his own will and
the consent of the people. Sargon, or Sar-gina, as the native name is
read, means "the firm" or "well-established king," and (it has been
argued) "shows the usurper." The name is certainly unlike the general
run of Ass