The monuments of Assyria inform us that Shalmanesar IV. did not live to see the fall of Samaria. He died in the course of the last year of the siege (722 B.C.). Sargon, his successor, boasts of this achievement of his arms. "In the beginning of my reign," so we are told in the annals of Sargon, "I besieged the city of Samaria (Samarina), and took it with the help of the god Samas, who gives me victory over my enemies. I took 27,280 prisoners. I took 50 chariots as my royal portion. I brought them to Assyria, and in their place I put people whom my hand had reduced. I placed my officers and viceroys over them, and imposed tribute upon them as on the Assyrians."[186] This statement is repeated in the inscription which gives the more important acts of Sargon (the so called _fasti_), with this difference at the close: "My officers I placed over them; I imposed on them the tribute of the previous kings."[187] The inscription of the bulls says quite briefly: "He (Sargon) overthrew Samaria, and all the house of Omri."[188] The inscription on the cylinder says: "I have subjugated the great land of Bit Omri."[189] The annals recapitulate: "I have laid waste the region of Samaria, and the land of Bit Omri." After informing us that the king of Israel was carried away to the East, the Books of Kings tell us, like the annals of Sargon, that other inhabitants were settled in Israel: "He caused people to come from Babel and from Kutha, from Sepharvaim, Ava, and Hamath," and placed them in the cities of Samaria in the room of the children of Israel.[190] Sargon's own account confirms this statement; his inscriptions show us further to what stock these settlers belonged. In the year 721 B.C., very soon after the capture of Samaria, he transplanted people from Babylonia to the land of the Chatti, _i.e._ to Syria.[191] We are also told that people were removed from the four districts of Armenia to Syria, to the coast;[192] and finally, that people of Arabian descent, "of Thammud, Marsiman, Chayapa, and the land of Bari," were settled in the city of Samaria. The strengthening of the alien element in Samaria was caused by the fact that the Israelites, in spite of the severe punishment which they had undergone, had nevertheless attempted to rebel once more against Assyria.[193]