om intestine quarrels. After awhile, the nations
whom they had overrun, whose armies they had defeated, and whose cities
they had given to the flames, began to recover themselves. Cyaxares, it
is probable, commenced an aggressive war against such of the invaders as
had remained within the limits of his dominions, and soon drove them
beyond his borders. Other kings may have followed his example. In a
little while long, probably, before the twenty-eight years of Herodotus
had expired--the Scythian power was completely broken. Many bands may
have returned across the Caucasus into the Steppe country. Others
submitted, and took service under the native rulers of Asia. Great
numbers were slain and except in a province of Armenia which
henceforward became known as Sacasene, and perhaps in one Syrian town,
which we find called Scythopolis, the invaders left no trace of their
brief but terrible inroad.

If we have been right in supposing that the Scythian attack fell with as
much severity on the Assyrians as on any other Asiatic people, we can
scarcely be in error if we ascribe to this cause the rapid and sudden
decline of the empire at this period. The country had been ravaged and
depopulated, the provinces had been plundered, many of the great towns
had been taken and sacked, the palaces of the old kings had been burnt,
and all the gold and silver that was not hid away had been carried off.
Assyria, when the Scythians quitted her, was but the shadow of her
former self. Weak and exhausted, she seemed to invite a permanent
conqueror. If her limits had not much shrunk, if the provinces still
acknowledged her authority, it was from habit rather than from fear, or
because they too had suffered greatly from the northern barbarians. We
find Babylon subject to Assyria to the very last; and we seem to see
that Judaea passed from the rule of the Assyrians under that of the
Babylonians, without any interval of independence or any need of
re-conquest. But if these two powers at the south-eastern and the
south-western extremities of the empire continued faithful, the less
distant nations could scarcely have thrown off the yoke.

Asshur-bani-pal, then, on the withdrawal of the barbarians, had still an
empire to rule, and he may be supposed to have commenced some attempts
at re-organizing and re-invigorating the governmental system to which
the domination of the Scythe must have given a rude shock. But he had
not time to effect much. In B.C