Now Tiglathi-Nin appears in the Inscriptions as the prince who first aspired to transfer to Assyria the supremacy hitherto exercised, or at any rate claimed, by Babylon.

He made war upon the southern kingdom, and with such success that he felt himself entitled to claim its conquuest, and to inscribe upon his signet-seal the proud title of "Conqueror of Babylonia." This signet-seal, left by him (as is probable) at Babylon, and recovered about six hundred years later by Sennacherib, shows to us that he reigned for some time in person at the southern capital, where it would seem that he afterwards established an Assyrian dynasty--a branch perhaps of his own family.

This is probably the exact event of which Berosus spoke as occurring 526 years before Phul or Pul, and which Herodotus regarded as marking the commencement of the Assyrian "Empire." We must not, however, suppose that Babylonia was from this time really subject continuously to the Court of Nineveh.

The subjection may have been maintained for a little less than a century; but about that time we find evidence that the yoke of Assyria had been shaken off, and that the Babylonian monarchs, who have Semitic names, and are probably Assyrians by descent, had become hostile to the Ninevite kings, and were engaged in frequent wars with them.

No real permanent subjection of the Lower country to the Upper was effected till the time of Sargon; and even under the Sargonid dynasty revolts were frequent; nor were the Babylonians reconciled to the Assyrian sway till Esarhaddon united the two Crowns in his own person, and reigned alternately at the two capitals.