Two years after his accession (B.C. 743) Tiglath-Pileser II turned his attention to the west. Arpad, now Tel-Erfad, near Aleppo, was the first object of attack. It held out for three years, and did not fall until B.C. 740. But, meanwhile, the kingdom of Hamath had been shattered by the Assyrian arms. Nineteen of its districts were placed under Assyrian governors, and the Assyrian forces made their way as far as the Mediterranean Sea. Azri-yahu, or Azariah (Uzziah), the Jewish king, had been the ally of Hamath, and from him also punishment was accordingly exacted. He was compelled to purchase peace by the offer of submission and the payment of tribute. The alliance between Judah and Hamath had been of long standing. David had been the friend of its king Tou or Toi; and at the beginning of Sargon’s reign the king of Hamath bears a distinctively Jewish name. This is Yahu-bihdi, or, as it is elsewhere written, Ilu-bihdi, where the word _ilu_, “god,” takes the place of the name of the covenant God of Israel. It is even possible that Yahu-bihdi was a Jew who had been placed on the throne of Hamath by Azariah. At any rate, the alliance between Judah and Hamath explains a passage in 2 Kings xiv. 28, which has long presented a difficulty. It is now clear that Jeroboam is here stated to have won over Hamath to Israel, though previously it had “been allied with Judah.” But after Jeroboam’s death, Jewish influence must once more have gained an ascendency among the Hamathites. Two years after the fall of Arpad, Tiglath-Pileser was again in the west. On this occasion he held a _levée_ of subject princes, among whom Rezon of Damascus and Manahem of Samaria came to offer their gifts and do homage to their sovereign lord.(7) The tribute which Tiglath-Pileser states that he then received from the Israelitish king was given, according to the Book of Kings, to Pul. We may infer from this, therefore, that the Assyrian monarch was still known to the neighbouring nations by his original name, and that it was not until later that they became accustomed to the new title he had assumed. The inference is further borne out by the statement of an ancient Greek astronomer, Ptolemy. When speaking of the eclipses which were observed at Babylon, Ptolemy gives a list of Babylonian kings, with the length of their reigns, from the so-called era of Nabonassar, in B.C. 747, down to the time of Alexander the Great. In this list, Tiglath-Pileser, after his conquest of Babylon, is named Poros or Por, Por being the Persian form of Pul.