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He then entered Chaldaea, and chastised the Chaldaeans, after which he returned in triumph to his own country. His seventh campaign was also against the Shuhites. Released from the immediate pressure of his arms, they had rebelled, and had even ventured to invade the Assyrian Empire. The Laki, whose territory adjoined that of the Shuhites towards the north and east, assisted them.
The southern frontier may be regarded as wholly unchanged: for although Shalmaneser warred in Babylonia, and even took tribute on one occasion from the petty kings of the Chaldaean towns, he seems to have made no permanent impression in this quarter. The Tsukhi or Shuhites are still the most southern of his subjects.
In the fourth campaign the Aramaeans or Syrians were attacked by the ambitious monarch. They occupied at this time the valley of the Euphrates, from the borders of the Tsukhi, or Shuhites, who held the river from about Anah to Hit, as high up as Carchemish, the frontier town and chief stronghold of the Khatti or Hittites.
He took tribute during the same time from the Phoenieian cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus, from the Tsukhi or Shuhites, from the people of Muzr, from the Bartsu or Partsu, who are almost certainly the Persians, and from the Israelites. Over the whole of this region he made his power felt, and even beyond it the nations feared him and gladly placed themselves under his protection.
On the Euphrates, between Hit and Carchemish, are, first, the Tsukhi or Shuhites, of whom no particulars are given; and, next, the Aramaeans or Syrians, who occupy both banks of the river, and possess a number of cities, no one of which is of much strength.
It is traversed in places by rocky ridges of a low elevation, and intercepted by occasional wadys, but otherwise it is a continuous gravelly or sandy plain, incapable of sustaining a settled population. Between the desert and the river intervenes commonly a narrow strip of fertile territory, which in Assyrian times was held by the Tsukhi or Shuhites, and the Aramaeans or Syrians.
The others are, first, the people of Kirzan, a country bordering on Armenia, who present gold, silver, copper, horses, and camels, and fill the four highest compartments with a train of nine envoys: secondly, the Muzri, or people of Muzr, a country nearly in the same quarter, who are represented in the four central compartments, with six envoys conducting various wild animals; thirdly, the Tsukhi, or Shuhites, from the Euphrates, to whom belong the four compartments below the Muzri, which are filled by a train of thirteen envoys, bringing two lions, a stag, and various precious articles, among which bars of metal, elephants' tusks, and shawls or tissues are conspicuous; and lastly, the Patera, from the Orontes, who fill three of the lowest compartments with a train of twelve envoys bearing gifts like those of the Israelites.
Darius, however, in the Behistun inscription, speaks of Babylonian horsemen; and the armies which overran Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, seem to have consisted mainly of horse. The Babylonian armies, like the Persian, were vast hosts, poorly disciplined, composed not only of native troops, but of contingents from the subject nations, Cissians, Elamites, Shuhites, Assyrians, and others.
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