with chanting and musical instruments to salute Sargon at Dur-Ladinu. He entered the city in their company, and after he had celebrated the customary sacrifices, the people enthroned him in Merodach-baladan's palace. Tribute was offered to him, but he refused to accept any part of it for his personal use, and applied it to a work of public utility--the repairing of the ancient canal of Borsippa, which had become nearly filled up. This done, he detached a body of troops to occupy Sippara, and returned to Assyria, there to take up his winter quarters. Once again, therefore, the ancient metropolis of the Euphrates was ruled by an Assyrian, who united in one protocol the titles of the sovereigns of Assur and Kar-duniash. Babylon possessed for the kings of Nineveh the same kind of attraction as at a later date drew the German Caesars to Rome. Scarcely had the Assyrian monarchs been crowned within their own domains, than they turned their eyes towards Babylon, and their ambition knew no rest till the day came for them to present themselves in pomp within the temple of its god and implore his solemn consecration. When at length they had received it, they scrupulously secured its renewal on every occasion which the law prescribed, and their chroniclers recorded among the important events of the year, the ceremony in which they "took the hand of Bel." Sargon therefore returned, in the month Nisan of the year 709, to preside over the procession of the god, and he devoutly accomplished the rites which constituted him the legitimate successor of the semi-fabulous heroes of the old empire, foremost among whom was his namesake Shargani of Agade. He offered sacrifices to Bel, Nebo, and to the divinities of Sumir and Akkad, and he did not return to the camp until he had fulfilled all the duties incumbent on his new dignity. He was involved that year in two important wars at opposite points of his empire. One was at the north-western extremity, against the Mushki and their king Mita, who, after having supported Eusas, was now intriguing with Argistis; the other in the south-east, against the Kalda, and probably also against Elam. He entrusted the conduct of the former to the governor of Kui, but reserved to himself the final reckoning with Merodach-baladan. The Babylonian king had made good use of the respite given him during the winter months. Too prudent to meet his enemy in the open plain, he had transformed his hereditary principality into a formidable citadel. During the preceding campaign he had devastated the whole of the country lying between the marshes and the territory occupied by the Assyrians, and had withdrawn the inhabitants. Most of the towns--Ikbibel, Uru, Uruk, Kishik, and Nimid-laguda--were also deserted, and no garrisons were left in them. He had added to the fortifications of Dur-Yakia, and enlarged the moat till it was two hundred cubits wide and eighteen deep, so as to reach the level of