yria royal titles; but still, as it is one which is found to
have been previously borne by at least one private person in Assyria, it
is perhaps best to suppose that it was the monarch's real original
appellation, and not assumed when he came to the throne; in which case
no argument can be founded upon it.

Military success is the best means of confirming a doubtful title to the
leadership of a warlike nation. No sooner, therefore, was Sargon
accepted by the Ninevites as king than he commenced a series of
expeditions, which at once furnished employment to unquiet spirits, and
gave the prestige of military glory to his own name. He warred
successively in Susiana, in Syria, on the borders of Egypt, in the tract
beyond Amanus, in Melitene and southern Armenia, in Kurdistan, in Media,
and in Babylonia. During the first fifteen years of his reign, the space
which his annals cover, he kept his subjects employed in a continual
series of important expeditions, never giving himself, nor allowing
them, a single year of repose. Immediately upon his accession he marched
into Susiana, where he defeated Hum-banigas, the Elamitie king, and
Merodach-Baladan, the old adversary of Tiglath-Pileser, who had revolted
and established himself as king over Babylonia. Neither monarch was,
however, reduced to subjection, though an important victory was gained,
and many captives taken, who were transported into the country of the
Hittites, In the same year, B.C. 722, he received the submission of
Samaria, which surrendered, probably, to his generals, after it had been
besieged two full years. He punished the city by depriving it of the
qualified independence which it had enjoyed hitherto, appointing instead
of a native king an Assyrian officer to be its governor, and further
carrying off as slaves 27,280 of the inhabitants. On the remainder,
however, he contented himself with re-imposing the rate of tribute to
which the town had been liable before its revolt.--The next year, B.C.
721, he was forced to march in person into Syria in order to meet and
quell a dangerous revolt. Yahu-bid (or Ilu-bid), king of Hamath--a
usurper like Sargon himself--had rebelled, and had persuaded the cities
of Arpad Zimira, Damascus, and Samaria to cast in their lot with his,
and to form a confederacy, by which it was imagined that effectual
resistance might be offered to the Assyrian arms. Not content merely to
stand on the defensive in their several towns, the allies