become to a great extent conventional survivals. But that period was still far distant, and the vicissitudes the country was to pass through were not conducive to security of tenure, whether the property were held under private or collective ownership. We have seen that Assyria, as early as the thirteenth century, had succeeded in capturing and sacking Babylon, and, according to one tradition, had ruled the city for seven years. She was shortly to renew her attempts to subjugate the southern kingdom; but it was Elam, Babylon's still older foe, that brought the long and undistinguished Kassite Dynasty to an end. [Footnote 1: Proof that the Aryans were horse-keepers may be seen in the numerous Iranian proper names which include _asva_ (_aspa_), "horse," as a component; see Justi, "Iran. Namenbuch," p. 486, and cf. Meyer, "Geschichte," I., ii., p. 579.] [Footnote 2: It is on a text of that period that we find the first mention of the horse in antiquity; cf. Ungnad, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1907, col. 638 f., and King, "Journ. of Hellenic Studies," XXXIII., p. 359. A reference to one also occurs in a letter of the early Babylonian period (cf. "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," IV., pl. 1), but, to judge from the writing, this is probably rather later than the time of Hammurabi. It is immediately after the Kassite period that we have evidence of the adoption of the horse as a divine symbol, doubtless that of a deity introduced by the Kassites; see Plate XXII., opposite p. 254.] [Footnote 3: Some First Dynasty tablets record the issue of rations to certain Kassites, who were obviously employed as labourers, probably for getting in the harvest (cf. Ungnad, "Beitr. zur Assyr.," VI., No. 5. p. 22); and in a list of proper names of the same period (cf. "Cun. Texts," VI., pl. 23) a Kassite man, (_awîl_) ṣâbum Kashshû, bears the name Warad-Ibari, perhaps a Semitic rendering of an original Kassite name.] [Footnote 4: Cf. Ingnad, "Vorderas. Schriftdenkmäler," VII., pl. 27, No. 64.] [Footnote 5: See above, p. 195 f.] [Footnote 6: Cf. Winckler, "Untersuchungen," p. 156, No. 6.] [Footnote 7: Cf. "Chronicles," II., p. 22 f. For discussions of the manner in which we may reconcile the chronicler's account of the Kassite conquest of the Sea-Country with the known succession of the early Kassite kings of Babylon, see _op. cit.,_ I., pp. 101 ff., and cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Journal des Savants." Nouv. Sér., VI., No. 4, pp. 100 ff., and "Zeits. für Assyr.," XXI., pp. 170 ff. The established genealogy of Agum-kakrime renders it impossible to identify the Agum of the chronicle, who was a son of Kashtiliash the Kassite, with either of the Kassite kings of Babylon who bore that name. He can only have raided or ruled in the Sea-Country, probably at the time his eldest brother Ushshi (or perhaps his other brother, Abi-rattash) was king in Babylon.]