one hand and Damascus on the other. That done, he would send forward
envoys to demand ransom of the Phoenician towns, who grudgingly paid it
or rashly withheld it according to the measure of his compulsion. Since
last we looked at the Aramaean states, Damascus has definitely asserted
the supremacy which her natural advantages must always secure to her
whenever Syria is not under foreign domination. Her fighting dynasty of
Benhadads which had been founded, it seems, more than a century before
Shalmaneser's time, had now spread her influence right across Syria from
east to west and into the territories of Hamath on the north and of the
Hebrews on the south. Ashurnatsirpal had never ventured to do more than
summon at long range the lord of this large and wealthy state to
contribute to his coffers; but this tributary obligation, if ever
admitted, was continually disregarded, and Shalmaneser II found he must
take bolder measures or be content to see his raiding-parties restricted
to the already harried north. He chose the bold course, and struck at
Hamath, the northernmost Damascene dependency, in his seventh summer. A
notable victory, won at Karkar on the Middle Orontes over an army which
included contingents from most of the south Semitic states--one came,
for example, from Israel, where Ahab was now king,--opened a way towards
the Aramaean capital; but it was not till twelve years later that the
Great King actually attacked Damascus. But he failed to crown his
successes with its capture, and reinvigorated by the accession of a new
dynasty, which Hazael, a leader in war, founded in 842, Damascus
continued to bar the Assyrians from full enjoyment of the southern lands
for another century.

Nevertheless, though Shalmaneser and his dynastic successors down to
Adadnirari III were unable to enter Palestine, the shadow of Assyrian
Empire was beginning to creep over Israel. The internal dissensions of
the latter, and its fear and jealousy of Damascus had already done much