Thus came the beginning of the end, and the fate which Amos had clearly predicted half a century before, appeared to be in process of realisation. He had said that a distant nation would carry off the Israelites to a foreign land beyond Damascus. The Israelites were in fact carried off to the region of the Tigris, or to some other division of the large Assyrian kingdom. The power of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, however, remained to all appearance unbroken. It still numbered 60,000 wealthy men, who could pay large sums of tribute money. Menahem still had his cavalry, his war materials, and the fortresses on which he thought he could place dependence. But, unknown to him, old age (as one of the prophets had rightly designated the national decadence) had now crept over the people. Menahem probably introduced the Assyrian mode of worship. One characteristic feature of this consisted in the adoration of Mylitta, the goddess of love, and the duties of her creed included the renunciation of virtue and the adoption of an immoral life. This innovation, added to the already existing internal dissensions, gradually sapped the foundations of the state. When the cruel Menahem died, and his son Pekahiah succeeded (757), the latter was able to retain the throne for scarcely two years. His own charioteer, Pekah, the son of Remaliah, headed a conspiracy against him, killed him in his palace in Samaria (756), and placed himself on the vacant throne. The mode of this regicide, the seventh which had occurred since the commencement of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, is wrapped in darkness; it seems, however, that Pekah had to remove two other competitors before he could himself ascend the throne of Samaria.