But it was not long before fresh changes occurred. Tammarit, finding
himself little more than puppet-king in the hands of the Assyrians,
formed a plot to massacre all the foreign troops left to garrison this
country, and so to make himself an independent monarch. His intentions,
however, were discovered, and the plot failed. The Assyrians seized him,
put him in bonds, and sent him to Nineveh. Western Elam passed under
purely military rule, and suffered, it is probable, extreme severities.
Under these circumstances, Umman-aldas took heart, and made ready, in
the fastnesses to which he had fled, for another and a final effort.
Having levied a vast army, he, in the spring of the next year, made
himself once more master of Bit-Imbi, and, establishing himself there,
prepared to resist the Assyrians. Their forces shortly appeared; and,
unable to hold the place against their assaults, Umman-aldas evacuated
it with his troops, and fought a retreating fight all the way back to
Susa, holding the various strong towns and rivers in succession.
Gallant, however, as was his resistance it proved ineffectual. The lines
of defence which he chose were forced, one after another; and finally
both Susa and Badaca were taken, and the country once more lay at
Asshur-bani-pal's mercy. All the towns made their submission.
Asshur-bani-pal, burning with anger at their revolt, plundered the
capital of its treasures, and gave the other cities up to be spoiled by
his soldiers for the space of a month and twenty-three days. He then
formally abolished Susianian independence, and attached the country as a
province to the Assyrian empire. Thus ended the Susianian war, after it
had lasted, with brief interruptions, for the space of (probably) twelve
years.

The full occupation given to the Assyrian arms by this long struggle
encouraged revolt in other quarters. It was probably about the time when
Asshur-bani-pal was engaged in the thick of the contest with Umman-ibi
and Saul-Mugina that Psammetichus declared himself independent in Egypt,
and commenced a war against the princes who remained faithful to their
Assyrian suzerain. Gyges, too, in the far north-west, took the
opportunity to break with the formidable power with which he had
recently thought it prudent to curry favor, and sent aid to the Egyptian
rebel, which rendered him effective service. Egypt freed herself from
the Assyrian yoke, and entered on the prosperous period which is known
as that