[504] Herod. 4, 110. Diod. 2, 46. [505] Herod. 4, 5. [506] Herod. 4, 27. [507] Herod. 4, 110. [508] Müllenhoff, "Monatsber. B.A." 1866, s. 555 ff, 576. [509] Zamyad Yascht, 56 ff. [510] Müllenhoff, _loc. cit._ s. 588. [511] Diod. 2, 43; Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 19. [512] Müllenhoff, _loc. cit._ s. 562. [513] Müllenhoff, _loc. cit._ s. 567. CHAPTER XII. THE FALL OF ASSYRIA. From modest beginnings, with a land of moderate extent, Assyria, after passing through a training of severe warfare against the immediate neighbours, slowly raised herself by unwearied efforts, and extended wider and wider the circle of her dominion. The end of the twelfth century, the course and close of the ninth century, denote the epochs and the halts in this advance, which are followed in turn by periods of decline. With the middle of the eighth century, with the accession of Tiglath Pilesar II., Assyria, by the subjugation of Babylonia and complete overthrow of Syria, and by reducing Media to a regular payment of tribute, passed beyond any height previously attained. Sargon, Esarhaddon, and Assurbanipal raised Assyria yet higher. She ruled over the land of the Euphrates as far as the mouth of the river; the east of Asia Minor and Cyprus bring tribute; Lydia seeks her support; the pride of Babylon is at last broken; Egypt is conquered and maintained by repeated conquests; Thebes has been pillaged, Susa destroyed, and Elam annihilated. Hardly fifty years after the full tide of these successes--forty years after the overthrow of the strong opponent on the lower Tigris, the ancient Elam--Nineveh had fallen. No slow decline, no gradual extinction after a long period of ripening, during which she grew up to the wide extent of her dominion, was the fortune of Assyria:--this iron city of war and conquest, of cruel desolation and bloody punishments, collapsed suddenly. It seems as if the ceaseless efforts of the last century had overstrained and exhausted the power of the State; at any rate, the most thorough establishment of this power in the first half of the reign of Assurbanipal--perhaps the most energetic, and certainly the most fierce and bloody, ruler of Assyria--was quickly followed by its relaxation and fall.