According to these indications and statements we may assume the course of affairs to have been something of the following kind. The cities of the Phenicians, and of the Philistines, and the kingdom of Israel hope for the assistance of the king of Meroe and Egypt, of Sabakon, whom the Hebrews call Seveh, and the inscriptions of the Assyrians, Sabhi. Shalmanesar overruns Syria, before the assistance from Egypt has arrived there (726 B.C.).[185] Hoshea is either taken by surprise and overcome, or in his terror attempts to appease the king of Asshur by submission. He is carried away to prison, and Shalmanesar turns towards the coast. The cities of the Phenicians submit; only the island city of Tyre resists (II. 265). The cities, which had submitted, were now compelled to furnish ships to Shalmanesar for the conquest of Cyprus, and the blockade of the island city, which was carried on from the mainland also, since old Tyre was garrisoned there, and the inhabitants of the island city were prevented from drawing water on the coast. It is remarkable that the Tyrians are said to have met the 60 ships of the blockade with 12 ships only. Yet this is no doubt no more than a mere sally of the besieged. The ships of the inhabitants of the mainland may not have taken a vigorous part in the fighting; and the blockade may not have been carried on very strictly. Tyre may very well have been able to endure a somewhat lax investment for five years. The resistance of the Tyrians appears to have inspired courage in the Israelites and the metropolis of Israel, so that they defied the arms of the Assyrians even after the carrying away of Hoshea. In the year 724 B.C. Shalmanesar turned from the coast, against Samaria. The Israelites defended their city most stubbornly. Damascus had resisted Tiglath Pilesar two years; Samaria, like Arpad, held out for three years. "The king of Assyria took Samaria," so we are briefly told in the Books of Kings, "and carried Israel to Assyria, and gave them dwellings in Chalah and Chabor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."