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There would thus remain only three more years of the king's reign, after the termination of the chief native record, during which his history has to be learnt from other sources. Into this space falls, almost certainly, the greatest of Esar-haddon's exploits the conquest of Egypt; and, probably, one of the most interesting episodes of his reign the punishment and pardon of Manasseh.

All that we know of its circumstances is derived from an imperfect transcript of the Nahr-el-Kelb tablet, and a short notice in the annals of Esar-haddon's son and successor, Asshur-bani-pal, who finds it necessary to make an allusion to the former doings of his father in Egypt, in order to render intelligible the state of affairs when he himself invades the country.

The extent of the palace westward, southward, and eastward is uncertain: eastward it was unexplored; southward and westward the mound had been eaten into by the Tigris and the Shor-Derreh torrent. The walls of Esar-haddon's palace were composed, in the usual way, of sun-dried bricks, reveted with slabs of alabaster.

At any rate its remains add nothing to our knowledge of the state of art in Esar-haddon's time, or to our estimate of that monarch's genius as a builder.

Esar-haddon's inscriptions show that he was engaged for some time after his accession in a war with his half-brothers, who, at the head of a large body of troops, disputed his right to the crown.

The expedition next mentioned on Esar-haddon's principal cylinder is one presenting some difficulty. The scene of it is a country called Bazu, which is said to be "remote, on the extreme confines of the earth, on the other side of the desert." None of the kings of Assyria, down to the time of Esar-haddon, had ever penetrated so far.

Of Esar-haddon's Babylonian palace nothing is at present known, beyond the mere fact of its existence; but if the mounds at Hillah should ever be thoroughly explored, we may expect to recover at least its ground-plan, if not its sculptures and other ornaments. The Sherif Khan palace has been examined pretty completely.

It appears that a son of Merodach-Baladan, Nebo-zirzi-sidi by name, had re-established himself on the Chaldaean coast, by the help of the Susianians; while his brother, Nahid-Marduk, had thought it more prudent to court the favor of the great Assyrian monarch, and had quitted his refuge in Susiana to present himself before Esar-haddon's foot-stool at Nineveh.

An Assyrian governor was appointed to administer the conquered province. Esar-haddon's next campaign seems to have been in Armenia. He took a city called Arza , which, he says, was in the neighborhood of Muzr, and carried off the inhabitants, together with a number of mountain animals, placing the former in a position "beyond the eastern gate of Nineveh."

While the evidence of the actual monuments as to the character of Esar-haddon's buildings and their ornamentation is thus scanty, it happens, curiously, that the Inscriptions furnish a particularly elaborate and detailed account of them. His palace at Nineveh, a building situated on the mound called Nebbi Yunus, was, we are told, erected upon the site of a former palace of the kings of Assyria.