To weaken the contradiction between this series of statements and the narrative of Herodotus, we may call to mind the gross exaggerations in which the kings of Assyria indulge in describing their acts and successes, and the grandiloquence which we have already noticed more than once in the statements of Assyrian history (III. 139, 200). But however great or however small may have been the success of the campaigns of Tiglath Pilesar II., Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal against the chiefs of the Medes, it cannot be denied that these campaigns took place. And if from the very frequency of such campaigns, after the reign of Tiglath Pilesar, we are inclined to draw the conclusion that they are a proof of the lax and nominal character of the dominion of Assyria over Media, this conclusion proves too much. The same repetition of warlike enterprises on the part of the kings of Asshur takes place, as we saw, in every direction. We shall have as much right to conclude that there was no such thing as an Assyrian empire, either before the year 736 or after it, over the Medes or any other nation. As I have shown (III. 185), the Assyrian kingdom never acquired a firm dominion over the subjugated nations, still less an organisation of the empire, like the subsequent kingdom of the Achæmenids. Their sovereignty consisted almost exclusively in the collection of tribute by force of arms, in the subjugation or removal of the princes who refused it, and setting up of others, who in turn soon withheld it. At the most, Assyrian fortresses were planted here and there; and no doubt Assyrian viceroys were placed over smaller regions. The same procedure is seen in the inscriptions as in use towards the Medes; and if this is not regarded as the sovereignty of Assyria, no such sovereignty existed before Tiglath Pilesar. If, to meet this objection, the existence of an Assyrian dominion is allowed, in the very lax form which is everywhere characteristic of it, we may, from the same frequency of the campaigns against Media, draw the opposite conclusion, that the Medes had struggled very vigorously for freedom, that in the first place the most remote tribes acquired it, and for them the liberation gradually spread, and the tradition of the Medes has accepted the beginning of the movement as the completion of it.