in, forgot everything except his own personal
safety, and declared himself unable to render Merodach-baladan any
assistance. The latter, on receiving this news, threw himself with his
face in the dust, rent his clothes, and broke out into loud weeping;
after which, conscious that his strength would not permit of his meeting
the enemy in the open field, he withdrew his men from the other side of
the Tigris, escaped secretly by night, and retired with his troops to
the fortress of Ikbibel. The inhabitants of Babylon and Borsippa did
not allow themselves to be disconcerted; they brought the arks of Bel,
Zarpanit, Nebo, and Tashmit out of their sanctuaries, and came forth
with chanting and musical instruments to salute Sargon at Dur-Ladinu.
He entered the city in their company, and after he had celebrated the
customary sacrifices, the people enthroned him in Merodach-baladan's
palace. Tribute was offered to him, but he refused to accept any part of
it for his personal use, and applied it to a work of public utility--the
repairing of the ancient canal of Borsippa, which had become nearly
filled up. This done, he detached a body of troops to occupy Sippara,
and returned to Assyria, there to take up his winter quarters.

Once again, therefore, the ancient metropolis of the Euphrates was ruled
by an Assyrian, who united in one protocol the titles of the sovereigns
of Assur and Kar-duniash. Babylon possessed for the kings of Nineveh
the same kind of attraction as at a later date drew the German Caesars to
Rome. Scarcely had the Assyrian monarchs been crowned within their own
domains, than they turned their eyes towards Babylon, and their ambition
knew no rest till the day came for them to present themselves in pomp
within the temple of its god and implore his solemn consecration. When
at length they had received it, they scrupulously secured its renewal on
every occasion which the law prescribed, and their chroniclers recorded
among the important events of the year, the ceremony in which they "took
the hand of Bel." Sargon therefore returned, in the month Nisan of the
year 709, to preside over the procession of the god, and he devoutly
accomplished the rites which constituted him the legitimate successor of
the semi-fabulous heroes of the old empire, foremost among whom was his
namesake Shargani of Agade. He offered sacrifices to Bel, Nebo, and to
the divinities of Sumir and Akkad, and he did not return to the camp
until he had f