Let us see to how much the change really amounted. The Assyrian Empire was no more. This is a momentous fact, not to be esteemed lightly. The final catastrophe has happened only six years before our date; but the power of Assyria had been going downhill for nearly half a century, and it is clear, from the freedom with which other powers were able to move about the area of her empire some time before the end, that the East had been free of her interference for years. Indeed, so near and vital a centre of Assyrian nationality as Calah, the old capital of the Middle Empire, had been taken and sacked, ere he who was to be the last "Great King" of the northern Semites ascended his throne. SECTION 1. THE NEW ASSYRIAN KINGDOM For the last hundred and fifty years Assyrian history--a record of black oppression abroad and blacker intrigue at home--has recalled the rapid gathering and slower passing away of some great storm. A lull marks the first half of the ninth century. Then almost without warning the full fury of the cloud bursts and rages for nearly a hundred years. Then the gloom brightens till all is over. The dynasty of Ashurnatsirpal and Shalmaneser II slowly declined to its inevitable end. The capital itself rose in revolt in the year 747, and having done with the lawful heirs, chose a successful soldier, who may have been, for aught we know, of royal blood, but certainly was not in the direct line. Tiglath Pileser--for he took a name from earlier monarchs, possibly in vindication of legitimacy--saw (or some wise counsellor told him) that the militant empire which he had usurped must rely no longer on annual levies of peasants from the Assyrian villages, which were fast becoming exhausted; nor could it continue to live on uncertain blackmail collected at uncertain intervals now beyond Euphrates, now in Armenia, now again from eastern and southern neighbours. Such Bedawi ideas and methods were outworn. The new Great King tried new methods to express new ideas. A soldier by profession, indebted to the sword for his throne, he would have a standing and paid force always at his hand, not one which had to be called from the plough spring by spring. The lands, which used to render blackmail to forces sent expressly all the way from the Tigris, must henceforward be incorporated in the territorial empire and pay their contributions to resident governors and garrisons. Moreover, why should these same lands not bear a part for the empire in both defence and attack by supplying levies of their own to the imperial armies? Finally the capital, Calah, with its traditions of the dead dynasty, the old regime and the recent rebellion, must be replaced by a new capital, even as once on a time Asshur, with its Babylonian and priestly spirit, had been replaced. Accordingly sites, a little higher up the Tigris and more centrally situated in relation to both the homeland and the main roads from west and east, must be promoted to be capitals.