The ancient empire of Babylonia in western Asia was to be restored, and the commerce of the Mediterranean to be diverted into Assyrian hands.

The campaigns of Tiglath-pileser and his successors were thus carried on in accordance with a deliberate line of policy.

They aimed at the conquest of the whole civilised world, and the building up of a great organisation of which Nineveh and its ruler were the head.

It was a new principle and a new idea.

And measures were at once adopted to realise it.
The army was made an irresistible engine of attack.