hail their chiefs with acclamations, to
kill them the next in one of those sudden outbreaks in which they were
accustomed to make and unmake their kings.* The first invaders were
not long in acquiring, by means of daily intercourse with the old
inhabitants, the new civilization: sooner or later they became blended
with the natives, losing all their own peculiarities, with the exception
of their outlandish names, a few heroic legends,** and the worship of
two or three gods--Shumalia, Shugab, and Shukamuna.

* This is the opinion of Hommel, supported by the testimony
of the _Synchronous Hist._: in this latter document the
Cossaeans are found revolting against King Kadashmankharbe,
and replacing him on the throne by a certain Nazibugash, who
was of obscure origin.

** Pr. Delitzsch and Schrader compare their name with that
of Kush, who appears in the Bible as the father of Nimrod
(_Gen._ x. 8-12); Hommel and Sayce think that the history of
Nimrod is a reminiscence of the Cossaean rule. Jensen is
alone in his attempt to attribute to the Cossaeans the first
idea of the epic of Gilgames.

As in the case of the Hyksos in Africa, the barbarian conquerors thus
became merged in the more civilized people which they had subdued. This
work of assimilation seems at first to have occupied the whole attention
of both races, for the immediate successors of Gandish were unable
to retain under their rule all the provinces of which the empire was
formerly composed. They continued to possess the territory situated on
the middle course of the Euphrates as far as the mouth of the Balikh,
but they lost the region extending to the east of the Khabur, at
the foot of the Masios, and in the upper basin of the Tigris: the
vicegerents of Assur also withdrew from them, and, declaring that they
owed no obedience excepting to the god of their city, assumed the royal
dignity. The first four of these kings whose names have come down to
us, Sulili, Belkapkapu, Adasi, and Belbani,* appear to have been but
indifferent rulers, but they knew bow to hold their own against the
attacks of their neighbours, and when, after a century of weakness and
inactivity, Babylon reasserted herself, and endeavoured to recover her
lost territory, they had so completely established their independence
that every attack on it was unsuccessful. The Cossaean king at that
time--an active and enterprising prince, whose name