Assyrian History.

Palestine , in the course of which Blauesseh , son of Hezekiah , became his captive . In speaking of the king ' s better known conflicts with Egypt , BIr . George Smith furnished a valuable summary of the relations of Assyria with that country from

the time of Tiglath-Pileser 11 . At the close of his reign Esarhaddon associated with himself in the empire his son Assurbauipal , with a view to the more vigorous prosecution of the Egyptian war against the redoubtable Ethiopian Pharoah

Tirhakah . During the last years of the father ' s reign , and the beginning of the sole reign of the son , the Nile valley was several times overrun by the Assyrians , but as often as they set up a foreign government so often was it pulled down by

the Egyptians , generally with the help of Tirhakah , and after his death with that of his nephew aud successor Undamane . At length Psammetichus , aided by Gyges , King of Lydia , shook off both Assyrians and Ethiopians , and founded a native Egyptian

dynasty , which was none the less a thorn in the sides of the Ninovite Kings . The rise of the Bledian power was next sketched , of which till the ninth century B . C . the arrow-headed inscriptions contained no trace , the first notice of the Bfedes occurring in the records of Shalmaneser II . who made them feel his

power and spoiled many of their cities . Some account was also given of the Armenians , a whole series of whose kings was known from the same glorious reign downwards , and of the kingdom of Blimii , which was cognate to the Bledes . Ti glath-Pileser II . broke the power of the Bledes

in a great battle , B . C . 743 , and after his reign nothing more is heard of them till the reign of Sargon ( B . C . 722—705 ) , who defeated them B . C . 719 . The king whom he placed on the Bledian throne revolted against his suzerain , allying himself with

Ursa , King of Armenia , an irrcconcileable foe to the Assyrians . But Sargon trampled out the rebellion , which cost Ursa his life . In B . C . 702 Sennacherib , Sargon ' s son , chastised some Median tribes , but during his rei gn the nation seems to have slipped fro

m beneath the Assyrian yoke , and the powerful kingdom of Dejoces gradually consolidated itself too firmly to be easily shaken , even b y the defeat and death in battle against the Assyrians of his son Phraeortes . The growth of the Median

power was immensely helped by the deadly feud , lasting more than a century , between Elam , and the great empire on the Tigris . Both these neig hbours of Media were too busy in rending each other to watch and check in time the aggrandisement of the

new rival , and although Assurbanipal broke the mig ht of the Elamites for ever in a great battle on the banks of the river Ulai , internal corruption and the altered times had already doomed Nineveh to destruction . The Cimmerians and Scythians had

emerged above the horizon , and the learned lecturer sketched the part they played iu helping forward the catastrophe . Unfortunately the arrow-head historical inscriptions , for the twenty years which elapsed between the death of Assurbanipal , B . C . 626 , and the fall of Nineveh and of the Assyrian Empire , B . C . 607 , were scanty in the extreme . Even the name of the

last king was uncertain , and was variously given by the classical authorities , but the best said it was Saracus . This name , it had been suggested by M . Lenarmant , mig ht be a contracted form of Assur-akhiddin , or Esarhaddon , and the lecturer said he had found last year at Nineveh some

inscrip tions of late age belonging to the reign of an Assur-akh-iddin , who could hardly be , the same with the son of Sennacherib . These records seemed to

refer to Assyria ' s last agony . One tablet said that Kastariti , the Assyrian name of the Bledian King , whom Herodotos calls Cyaxares , and whose alliance with Nabopolassar , the revolted vassal-king of Babylon , brought about Nineveh ' s downfall , sent to a Bledian magnate , Bfamitarsu

, urging him to join some other country , the name of which is lost , in war against Assyria . Mamitarsu complied , and there followed Kastariti's banner the Medes , the Biinnians , the Cimmerians , and the people of S ; iparda on the shores of the Black Sea .

The Assyrians were unable to cope with the hostile league , aud another tablet says : — " Kastariti and his warriors , the men of the Cimmerians , the men of the Bledes , and the { men of the Biinnians , the enemies all of them . . . made war , battle and

fighting with engines , scaling ladders , and mining . . . and cunningly captured the cities all of them ; the cities Ilarutu and Kisassa for themselves they took . " The loss of other cities , amongst them Zazam and Uripty , is owned , and at