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14 At the command of my lord Ashur, my hand conquered from be- yond the lower Zab River to the Upper Sea which is in the west. Three times I did march against the Nairi countries. ... I made bow to my feet 30 kings of the Nairi countries. 1 took hostages from them, I received as their tribute horses broken to the yoke. . . . Upon the command of Anu and Adad, the great gods, my lords, I went to the Lebanon mountains; I cut cedar beams for In assuming the title "king of the world, king of the four regions of the Earth," the Assyrian kings directly challenged Babylon, for Babylon encompassed the ancient region of Sumerand Akkad. To legitimize their claim the Assyrian kings had to take control of those olden cities where the Great Gods had their homes in olden times; but the way to these sites was blocked by Babylon. The feat was achieved in the ninth century B.C. by Shalmaneser III; he said a - I marched against Akkad to avenge . . . and inflicted de- feat. ... | entered Kutha, Babylon and Borsippa. l offered sacrifices to the gods of the sacred cities of Akkad. I went further downstream to Chaldea, and received tribute from all the kings of Chaldea. .. . At that time, Ashur, the great lord . .. gave me scepter, staff ... all that was necessary to rule the people. I was acting only upon the trustworthy commands given by Ashur, the great lord, my lord who loves me. Describing his various military campaigns, Shalmaneser asserted that his victories were achieved with weapons provided by two gods: "I fought with the Mighty Force which Ashur, my lord, had given me; and with the strong weapons which Nergal, my leader, had pre- sented to me." The weapon of Ashur was described as having a "terri- fying brilliance." In a war with Adini the enemy fled on seeing "the terrifying Brilliance of Ashur; it overwhelmed them." When Babylon, after several acts of defiance, was sacked by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (in 689 B.C), its demise was made possi- ble because its own god, Marduk, became angry with its king and people, and decreed that "seventy years shall be the measure of its desolation"—exactly as the God of Israel had later decreed for Jerusa- lem. With the subjugation of the whole of Mesopotamia, Sennacherib was able to assume the cherished title "King of Sumer and Akkad." THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN the temples of Anu and Adad. thus in his inscriptions: