d the
pretender, and the revolt was with difficulty put down by Samsi-Raman (or
Samsi-Hadad), Shalmaneser's second son, who soon afterwards succeeded him
(824 B.C.). In 804 B.C. Damascus was captured by his successor Hadad-nirari
IV., to whom tribute was paid by Samaria.

[Sidenote: Nabu-nazir.]

With Nabu-nazir, the Nabonassar of classical writers, the so-called Canon
of Ptolemy begins. When he ascended the throne of Babylon in 747 B.C.
Assyria was in the throes of a revolution. Civil war and pestilence were
devastating the country, and its northern provinces had been wrested from
it by Ararat. In 746 B.C. Calah joined the rebels, and on the 13th of Iyyar
in the following year, Pulu or Pul, who took the name of Tiglath-pileser
III., seized the crown and inaugurated a new and vigorous policy.

[Sidenote: Tiglath-pileser III.]

_Second Assyrian Empire._--Under Tiglath-pileser III. arose the second
Assyrian empire, which differed from the first in its greater
consolidation. For the first time in history the idea of centralization was
introduced into politics; the conquered provinces were organized under an
elaborate bureaucracy at the head of which was the king, each district
paying a fixed tribute and providing a military contingent. The Assyrian
forces became a standing army, which, by successive improvements and
careful discipline, was moulded into an irresistible fighting machine, and
Assyrian policy was directed towards the definite object of reducing the
whole civilized world into a single empire and thereby throwing its trade
and wealth into Assyrian hands. With this object, after terrorizing Armenia
and the Medes and breaking the power of the Hittites, Tiglath-pileser III.
secured the high-roads of commerce to the Mediterranean together with the
Phoenician seaports and then made himself master of Babylonia. In 729 B.C.
the summit of his ambition was attained, and he was invested with the
sovereignty of Asia in the holy city of Babylon. Two years later, in Tebet
[v.03 p.0105] 727 B.C., he died, but his successor Ulul[=a], who took the
name of Shalmaneser IV., continued the policy he had begun. Shalmaneser
died suddenly in Tebet 722 B.C., while pressing the siege of Samaria, and
the seizure of the throne by another general, Sargon, on the 12th of the
month, gave the Babylonians an opportunity to revolt. [Sidenote:
Merodach-baladan.] In Nisan the Kald[=a] prince, Merodach (Marduk)-baladan,
entered Babylon and was