ed the king to restrain the
ill-advised tendencies of some of his subjects. Samaria still held out
when Shalmaneser died at Babylon in the month of Tebeth, 722. Whether he
had no son of fit age to succeed him, or whether a revolution, similar
to that which had helped to place Tiglath-pileser on the throne, broke
out as soon as he had drawn his last breath, is not quite clear. At any
rate, Sargon, an officer who had served under him, was proclaimed king
on the 22nd day of Tebeth, and his election was approved by the whole
of Assyria. After some days of hesitation, Babylon declined to recognise
him, and took the oath of allegiance to a Kaldu named Marduk-abalidinna,
or Merodach-baladan. While these events were taking place in the heart
of the empire, Samaria succumbed; perhaps to famine, but more probably
to force. It was sacked and dismantled, and the bulk of its population,
amounting to 27,280 souls, were carried away into Mesopotamia and
distributed along the Balikh, the Khabur, the banks of the river of
Gozan, and among the towns of the Median frontier.*

* Sargon does not mention where he deported the Israelites
to, but we learn this from the _Second Book of Kings_ (xvii.
6; xviii. 11). There has been much controversy as to whether
Samaria was taken by Shalmanoser, as the Hebrew chronicler
seems to believe (2 Kings xvii. 3-6; xviii. 9, 10), or by
Sargon, as the Assyrian scribes assure us. At first, several
scholars suggested a solution of the difficulty by arguing
that Shalmaneser and Sargon were one and the same person;
afterwards the theory took shape that Samaria was really
captured in the reign of Shalmaneser, but by Sargon, who was
in command of the besieging army at the time, and who
transferred this achievement, of which he was naturally
proud, to the beginning of his own reign. The simplest
course seems to be to accept for the present the testimony
of contemporary documents, and place the fall of Samaria at
the beginning of the reign of Sargon, being the time
indicated by Sargon in his inscriptions.

Sargon made the whole territory into a province; an Assyrian governor
was installed in the palace of the kings of Israel, and soon the altars
of the strange gods smoked triumphantly by the side of the altars of
Jahveh (722 B.C.).*

* Kings xvii. 24-41, a passage to which I shall have
occasion to refer farther on in