On his death the crown was seized by Ululâ, who took the name of Shalmaneser IV. His reign lasted only five years, and when he died (December, B.C. 722) he was pressing the siege of Samaria. The capture of the city and its annexation to Assyria were the work of Sargon. The upper and military classes, amounting in all to 27,280 persons, were carried into captivity; but only fifty chariots were found in the city. Sargon was a usurper like his two predecessors, but, more fortunate than they, he succeeded in founding a dynasty. He was one of the best generals that Assyria ever produced, and under him the extension and organization of the empire went on apace. The death of Shalmaneser, however, had been the signal for revolt in Babylonia as well as in the west. Merodach-baladan, a Chaldaean from the sea-marshes, had seized Babylon in conjunction with the Elamites, and there reigned as legitimate monarch for twelve years. One of the first tasks of Sargon was to drive the Elamite forces from the Assyrian frontier. Hamath moreover rose in insurrection; but this too was speedily crushed. So also was a league between the Philistines and the Egyptians; the battle of Raphia decided, once for all, the question of Assyrian supremacy in Palestine. Sargon now had to face a more formidable coalition, that of the northern nations under Ursa of Ararat. The struggle lasted for six years and ended with the complete victory of the Assyrians. Carchemish, the Hittite stronghold on the Euphrates, fell in B.C. 717, leaving the road clear to the west and thus uniting Assyria with its rising empire on the shores of the Mediterranean. In the following year the Minni (to the east of Ararat) were overthrown, and two years later Ursa and his allies were utterly defeated. The fortress of Muzazir near Lake Urumiyeh was captured, thus extending the Assyrian frontier far to the east, and Ursa, in despair, committed suicide. Media was completely subdued in B.C. 713, and Ellip, where Ekbatana afterwards stood, became the vassal of Nineveh. In B.C. 711 a league was formed between Merodach-baladan and the nations of southern Syria to resist the common foe, and to this league Egypt promised assistance. But before the confederates were ready to act, Sargon had fallen upon them separately. Ashdod, the centre of the Palestinian confederacy, was besieged and taken (Isaiah xxi), and its ruler, a certain 'Greek,' who had been raised to power by the anti-Assyrian party, fled in vain for refuge to the Arabian desert, while Judah, Edom, and Moab were compelled to pay tribute. In B.C. 709 Merodach-baladan was driven out of Babylonia into his ancestral kingdom of Bit-Yagna. Sargon entered Babylon and there 'took the hands of Bel.' Henceforward he ruled by divine right as well as by the right of the sword.