ence, hastened to anticipate his demands--Tyre, Sidon, Byblos,
Mahallat, Maiza, Kaiza, the Amorites and Arvad,* all sending tribute.

* The point where Assur-nazir-pal touched the sea-coast
cannot be exactly determined: admitting that he set out from
Masiad or its neighbourhood, he must have crossed the
Lebanon by the gorge of the Eleutheros, and reached the sea-
board somewhere near the mouth of this river.

One point strikes us forcibly as we trace on the map the march of this
victorious hero, namely, the care with which he confined himself to
the left bank of the Orontes, and the restraint he exercised in
leaving untouched the fertile fields of its valley, whose wealth was
so calculated to excite his cupidity. This discretion would be
inexplicable, did we not know that there existed in that region a
formidable power which he may have thought it imprudent to provoke. It
was Damascus which held sway over those territories whose frontiers he
respected, and its kings, also suzerains of Hamath and masters of half
Israel, were powerful enough to resist, if not conquer, any enemy who
might present himself. The fear inspired by Damascus naturally explains
the attitude adopted by the Hittite states towards the invader, and
the precautions taken by the latter to restrict his operations within
somewhat narrow limits. Having accepted the complimentary presents of
the Phoenicians, the king again took his way northwards--making a slight
detour in order to ascend the Amanos for the purpose of erecting there
a stele commemorating his exploits, and of cutting pines, cedars,
and larches for his buildings--and then returned to Nineveh amid the
acclamations of his people.

In reading the history of this campaign, its plan and the principal
events which took place in it appear at times to be the echo of what had
happened some centuries before. The recapitulation of the halting-places
near the sources of the Tigris and on the banks of the Upper Euphrates,
the marches through the valleys of the Zagros or on the slopes of
Kashiari, the crushing one by one of the Mesopotamian races, ending in a
triumphal progress through Northern Syria, is almost a repetition, both
as to the names and order of the places mentioned, of the expedition
made by Tiglath-pileser in the first five years of his reign. The
question may well arise in passing whether Assur-nazir-pal consciously
modelled his campaign on that of his ancestor, a