Thirty years later, his son, the Black-Obelisk king, made the power of Assyria still more sensibly felt.

Taking advantage of the circumstance that a civil war was raging in Babylonia between the legitimate monarch Merodach-sum-adin, and his young brother, he marched into the country, took a number of the towns, and having defeated and slain the pretender, was admitted into Babylon itself.

From thence he proceeded to overrun Chaldaea, or the district upon the coast, which appears at this time to have been independent of Babylon, and governed by a number of petty kings.

The Babylonian monarch probably admitted the suzerainty of the invader, but was not put to any tribute.

The Chaldaean chiefs, however, had to submit to this indignity.