Aramaeans, and the Chaldaeans. We find the latter already well
established by 900 B.C. not only in the "Sea Land" at the head of the
Persian Gulf, but also between the Rivers. The Kings of Babylon, who
opposed Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II, seem to have been of
Chaldaean extraction; and although their successors, down to 800 B.C.,
acknowledged the suzerainty of Assyria, they ever strove to repudiate
it, looking for help to Elam or the western desert tribes. The times,
however, were not quite ripe. The century closed with the reassertion of
Assyrian power in Babylon itself by Adadnirari.


SECTION 5. SYRIAN EXPANSION OF ASSYRIA

Such were the dangers which, as we now know, lurked on the horizon of
the Northern Semites in 800 B.C. But they had not yet become patent to
the world, in whose eyes Assyria seemed still an irresistible power
pushing ever farther and farther afield. The west offered the most
attractive field for her expansion. There lay the fragments of the Hatti
Empire, enjoying the fruits of Hatti civilization; there were the
wealthy Aramaean states, and still richer Phoenician ports. There urban
life was well developed, each city standing for itself, sufficient in
its territory, and living more or less on the caravan trade which
perforce passed under or near its walls between Egypt on the one hand
and Mesopotamia and Asia Minor on the other. Never was a fairer field
for hostile enterprise, or one more easily harried without fear of
reprisal, and well knowing this, Assyria set herself from
Ashurnatsirpal's time forward systematically to bully and fleece Syria.
It was almost the yearly practice of Shalmaneser II to march down to the
Middle Euphrates, ferry his army across, and levy blackmail on
Carchemish and the other north Syrian cities as far as Cilicia on the