Merodach Baladan must therefore have obtained the throne of Babylon not long after the accession of Sennacherib. Sennacherib's first campaign was directed against him in order to restore the authority of Assyria over Babylonia. The inscription of Nebbi Yunus tells us at the very beginning: "In a great battle I conquered Merodach Baladan and the nations of Chaldæa and Aram; the army of Elam which had come to their assistance."[253] Four other narratives in greater detail have been preserved relating to this campaign; one from the third year of Sennacherib (703 B.C., the cylinder Bellino, already mentioned), the second from the ninth year of Sennacherib (697 B.C., the cylinder Smith, also already mentioned), the third dates from the fifteenth year of Sennacherib (691 B.C., the cylinder Taylor), the fourth is given in the inscription on a slab between the thighs of the bulls at the entrance to the great palace of Sennacherib at Kuyundshik. This last account, which is uninjured, does not go back beyond the fourth year of Sennacherib. The oldest account tells us: "At the beginning of my reign I inflicted a defeat on Merodach Baladan, the king of Kardunias (Babylon), together with the army of Elam, before the city of Kis. In the middle of the battle he escaped alone, and fled to the land of Guzuman, into the marshes. The chariots, horses, mules, and camels, which he left on the field of battle, fell into my hands. His palace in Babylon I entered full of joy. I opened his treasury; I carried away gold, silver, golden and silver vessels, precious stones; his wife, and the women of the palace. I sent my soldiers to pursue him to Guzuman, to the marshes. They pursued him five days, but no trace of him was seen. In the strength of Asshur, my lord, I took 89 fortified cities and fortresses in the land of Kaldi, and 820 smaller places. The Aramæans and Chaldæans, who formed garrisons in Erech, Nipur, Kis, Chalanne, and Kutha, I carried away with the rebellious inhabitants; Belibus, the son of a man of wisdom, from the neighbourhood of Suanna, I made the ruler of Sumir and Accad."[254] The two accounts immediately following the first agree with it except that the number of the fortified places taken in Chaldæa is given as 75 and 76, and the number of smaller places in both is 420. Both also, like the summary account on the slabs of the bulls, pass over the setting up of Belibus as regent,[255] no doubt because this regency was no longer in existence when they were written. In Polyhistor, as we have seen, it is Elibus who overthrows Merodach Baladan; in the astronomical canon, Belibus ascends the throne of Babylon in the year 702 B.C. According to the inscriptions, Merodach Baladan's rule over Babylon was overthrown as early as 703 B.C.; according to the canon, his overthrow, or at any rate the establishment of Belibus, did not take place till 702 B.C.