the pioneers had effected.

It must, however, be remembered that the strength and discipline which
the Assyrian troops possessed in such a high degree, were common to
the military forces of all the great states--Elam, Damascus, Naîri, the
Hittites, and Chaldæa. It was owing to this, and also to the fact that
the armies of all these Powers were, as a rule, both in strength and
numbers, much on a par, that no single state was able to inflict on any
of the rest such a defeat as would end in its destruction. What decisive
results had the terrible struggles produced, which stained almost
periodically the valleys of the Tigris and the Zab with blood? After
endless loss of life and property, they had nearly always issued in the
establishment of the belligerents in their respective possessions,
with possibly the cession of some few small towns or fortresses to the
stronger party, most of which, however, were destined to come back to
its former possessor in the very next campaign. The fall of the capital
itself was not decisive, for it left the vanquished foe chafing under
his losses, while the victory cost his rival so dear that he was unable
to maintain the ascendency for more than a few years. Twice at least
in three centuries a king of Assyria had entered Babylon, and twice the
Babylonians had expelled the intruder of the hour, and had forced him
back with a blare of trumpets to the frontier. Although the Ninevite
dynasties had persisted in their pretensions to a suzerainty which
they had generally been unable to enforce, the tradition of which,
unsupported by any definite decree, had been handed on from one
generation to another; yet in practice their kings had not succeeded in
"taking the hands of Bel," and in reigning personally in Babylon, nor
in extorting from the native sovereign an official acknowledgment of
his vassalage. Profiting doubtless by past experience, Assur-nazir-pal
resolutely avoided those direct conflicts in which so many of his