is impossible
to say what took place where Eusas himself was, and whether the
feudatories refused him any further allegiance, but in a short time he
found himself almost forsaken, without friends, troops, or a place
of refuge, and reduced to choose between death or the degradation of
appealing to the mercy of the conqueror. He stabbed himself rather
than yield; and Sargon, only too thankful to be rid of such a dangerous
adversary, stopped the pursuit. Argistis II. succeeded to what was left
of his father's kingdom,* and, being anxious above all things to obtain
peace for his subjects, suspended hostilities, without however disarming
his troops.

* No text states positively that Argistis II. immediately
succeeded his father; but he is found mentioned as King of
Urartu from 708 onwards, and hence it has been concluded,
not without some reason, that such was the fact. The Vannic
inscriptions have not as yet given us this sovereign's name.

As was the case under Tiglath-pileser III., Urartu neither submitted to
Assyria, nor was there any kind of treaty between the belligerents to
prescribe the conditions of this temporary truce. Both sides maintained
their positions on their respective territories: Sargon kept the
frontier towns acquired by him in previous years, and which he had
annexed to the border provinces, retaining also his suzerainty over
Muzazir, the Mannai, and the Median states implicated in the struggle;
Argistis, on his side, strengthened himself in the regions around the
sources of the Euphrates and Lake Van--in Biainas, in Etius, and in
the plains of the Araxes. The material injuries which he had received,
however considerable they may appear, were not irreparable, and, as
a fact, the country quickly recovered from them, but the people's
confidence in their prince and his chiefs was destroyed. The defeat of
Sharduris, following as it did on a period of advantageous victories,
may have seemed to Argistis one of those unimportant occurrences which
constantly take place in the career of the strongest nations; the
disaster of Rusas proved to him that, in attempting to wipe out his
first repulse, he had only made matters worse, and the conviction was
borne in upon his princes that they were not in a position to contest
the possession of Western Asia with the Assyrians. They therefore
renounced, more from instinct than as the result of deliberation,
the project of enlarging their borders