Adjoining Muzr to the east or north-east, are the __Quwanu or Comani, who are among the most powerful of Assyria's neighbors, being able, like the Moschi, to bring into the field an army of 20,000 men.

At this time they are close allies of the people of Muzr--finally, across the lower Zab, on the skirts of Zagros, are various petty tribes of small account, who offer but little resistance to the arms of the invader.
Such was the position of Assyria among her neighbors in the latter part of the twelfth century before Christ.

She was a compact and powerful kingdom, centralized under a single monarch, and with a single great capital, in the midst of wild tribes which clung to a separate independence, each in its own valley or village.

At the approach of a great danger, these tribes might consent to coalesce and to form alliances, or even confederations; but the federal tie, never one of much tenacity, and rarely capable of holding its ground in the presence of monarchic vigor, was here especially weak.

After one defeat of their joint forces by the Assyrian troops, the confederates commonly dispersed, each flying to the defence of his own city or territory, with a short-sighted selfishness which deserved and ensured defeat.