The month which, five years earlier, had seen the death of Tiglath-pileser, saw the departure of Shalmaneser IV. of Assyria to the abode of his god, and in Sargon, who succeeded him, the kingdom to all appearance accepted for the third time a ruler who might be described as an adventurer. Whether he, too, changed his name, in order to shine in borrowed plumes before the people, is unknown, but this is certain, that “Sargon the Later,” as he called himself, by assuming that style and title, challenged comparison with an old Babylonian king of great renown, who made the little state which was his original principality the centre of a wide-spreading domain. Strange as it may seem, until the discovery of the Assyrian inscriptions and their decipherment, nothing was known of this ruler outside of the Old Testament, his name being regarded as another name of Shalmaneser in the passage (Isa. xx. 1) where it occurs. Scholars did not realize that the Arkeanos of Ptolemy was the king here mentioned, and that the change in the form of his name was simply due to the change of the initial _s_ into a breathing, according to a rule which is common in Greek etymology. On assuming the government of the country, Sargon threw himself with energy into the Syrian war, though in his slab-inscription found at Nimroud, and in his annals, he makes his campaign against Ḫumbanigaš of Elam to precede his operations in the west. The following is the text of his “State-Inscription”— “From the beginning of my reign to the 15th of my regnal-years, I accomplished the overthrow of Ḫumbanigaš the Elamite in the suburbs of Dêru. I besieged and captured Samerina (Samaria): 27,290 people dwelling in the midst of it I carried off. Fifty chariots I collected among them, and allowed them to have the rest of their goods. My commander-in-chief I placed over them, and imposed upon them the tribute of the former king. “Ḫanunu (Hanon), king of Ḫazitu (Gaza), advanced against me with Sib’e, the Field-marshal of the land of Muṣuru (Egypt), to make war and battle in Rapiḫu (Raphia). I defeated them.(98) Sib’e feared the sound of my weapons and fled, and his place was not found. Ḫanunu of Ḫazitu I took with my hands. I received the tribute of Pir’u, king of the land of Muṣuru, Samsê, queen of the land of Aribu (Arabia), (and) It’amara, of the land of the Saba’aa (Sabeans)—gold, the produce of the mountains, horses, (and) camels.”