* The majority of scholars now admit that the town of Nina, mentioned by Gudea and the vicegerents of Telloh, was a quarter of, or neighbouring borough of, Lagash, and had nothing in common with Nineveh, in spite of Hommel’s assumption to the contrary. The struggle with Chaldæa, indeed, occupied the greater part of their energies, though it did not absorb all their resources, and often left them times of respite, of which they availed themselves to extend their domain to the north and east. We cannot yet tell which of the Assyrian sovereigns added the nearest provinces of the Upper Tigris to his realm; but when the names of these districts appear-in history, they are already in a state of submission and vassalage, and their principal towns are governed by Assyrian officers in the same manner as those of Singara and Nisibe. Assuruballît, the conqueror of the Cossæans, had succeeded in establishing his authority over the turbulent hordes of Shubari which occupied the neighbourhood of the Masios, between the Khabur and the Balîkh, and extended perhaps as far as the Euphrates; at any rate, he was considered by posterity as the actual founder of the Assyrian empire in these districts.* Belnirâri had directed his efforts in another direction, and had conquered the petty kingdoms established on the slopes of the Iranian table-land, around the sources of the two Zabs, and those of the Badanu and the Turnât.** * It is called, in an inscription of his great-grandson, Rammân-nirâri L, the powerful king “who reduced to servitude the forces of the vast country of Shubari, and who enlarged the territory and limits “of Assur. ** The inscription of Rammân-nirâri I. styles him the prince “who crushes the army of the Cossæans, he whose hand unnerves the enemy, and who enlarges the territory and its limits.” The Cossæans mentioned in this passage are usually taken to be the Cossæan kings of Babylon, and not the mountain tribes. Like Susiana, this part of the country was divided up into parallel valleys, separated from each other by broken ridges of limestone, and watered by the tributaries of the Tigris or their affluents. [Illustration: 152.jpg A VILLAGE IN THE MOUNTAIN DISTRICTS OF THE OLD ASSÆAN KINGDOM] Drawn by Boudier, from a drawing by Père Durand.