The clemency of Ahab towards Ben-Hadad had apparently ended, as has been seen, in an alliance between the two nationalities, but that alliance did not, to all appearance, last very long. There is every probability that it was an unwilling one on the part of Ben-Hadad, and in all probability he took advantage of the death of Ahab to repudiate it. In any case, Ben-Hadad is represented in 2 Kings vi. 24 ff., as again besieging Samaria, but with disastrous results. What interval there was between his raising the siege of Samaria and his death, the sacred narrative does not say, but according to Assyrian chronology, there should be from four to six years at least (850-846 B.C.). In the tenth year of his reign Shalmaneser II. of Assyria crossed the Euphrates for the eighth time, and advanced against Sangara of Carchemish, whose cities he destroyed, made waste, and burned in the flames. After this came the turn of Arame, whose capital city, with one hundred other places around it, was laid in ruins. Adad-idri of Damascus (Imēri-šu), however, set himself, with Irḫulēni of Hamath, and twelve of the kings of Syria, to resist the Assyrian king. Shalmaneser claims to have defeated them, put them to flight, and captured their chariots, horses, and war-material. There is hardly any doubt, however, that his success was not by any means what he desired and expected, for he found himself obliged to march again to the same region in his eleventh year, when he crossed the Euphrates for the ninth time. On this occasion he says that he destroyed ninety-seven cities of Sangara of Carchemish and one hundred cities of Arame. Having reached the edge of the Ḫamanu (Amanus) range of mountains, he traversed the portion named Yaraqu, and descended to the land of the Hamathites, where he captured the city Aštamaku and ninety-nine other places, defeating their armies with great slaughter. Again he met Adad-idri, with Irḫulēni of Hamath and the twelve “kings of the sea-coast.” In the battle which follows he claims to have defeated them and killed 10,000 of their fighting-men with the sword. He also states that he took their chariots, horses, and war-material. On his way back he again turned his attention to Arame, capturing his capital Apparazu. At that time he likewise received the tribute of Kalparundu of the Patinians, consisting of silver, lead, gold, horses, oxen, sheep, and textile fabrics. Ascending again into the Amanus mountains, he brought away a further supply of cedar-wood for his palaces.