n and successor, Iluma-ilu appears to have undertaken fresh acts of
aggression against Babylon; and it was probably during one of his raids
in Babylonian territory that Abeshu' attempted to crush the growing power
of the Country of the Sea by the capture of its daring leader, Iluma-ilu
himself. The new chronicle informs us that, with this object in
view, Abeshu' dammed the river Tigris, hoping by this means to cut off
Iluma-ilu and his army, but his stratagem did not succeed, and Iluma-ilu
got back to his own territory in safety.

The new chronicle does not supply us with further details of the
struggle between Babylon and the Country of the Sea, but we may conclude
that all similar attempts on the part of the later kings of the First
Dynasty to crush or restrain the power of the new state were useless. It
is probable that from this time forward the kings of the First Dynasty
accepted the independence of the Country of the Sea upon their southern
border as an evil which they were powerless to prevent. They must have
looked back with regret to the good times the country had enjoyed under
the powerful sway of Hammurabi, whose victorious arms even their ancient
foes, the Blamites, had been unable to withstand. But, although the
chronicle does not recount the further successes achieved by the Country
of the Sea, it records a fact which undoubtedly contributed to hasten
the fall of Babylon and bring the First Dynasty to an end. It tells us
that in the reign of Samsu-ditana, the last king of the First Dynasty,
the men of the land of Khattu (the Hittites from Northern Syria) marched
against him in order to conquer the land of Akkad; in other words, they
marched down the Euphrates and invaded Northern Babylonia. The chronicle
does not state how far the invasion was successful, but the appearance
of a new enemy from the northwest must have divided the Babylonian
forces and thus have reduced their power of resisting pressure from the
Country of the Sea. Samsu-ditana may have succeeded in defeating the
Hittites and in driving them from his country; but the fact that he
was the last king of the First Dynasty proves that in his reign Babylon
itself fell into the hands of the king of the Country of the Sea.

The question now arises, To what race did the people of the Country
of the Sea belong? Did they represent an advance-guard of the Kassite
tribes, who eventually succeeded in establishing themselves as the Third
Dynasty in Babylon