After the destruction of Thebes in B.C.661 the country sullenly submitted to the foreign rule; its strength was exhausted, and its leaders and priesthood were scattered and bankrupt.

Elam was now almost the only civilised kingdom of western Asia which remained independent.

It was, moreover, a perpetual thorn in the side of the Assyrians.

It was always ready to give the same help to the disaffected in Babylonia that Egypt was to the rebels in Palestine, with the difference that whereas the Egyptians were an unwarlike race, the Elamites were a nation of warriors.
Assur-bani-pal was not a soldier himself, and he would have preferred remaining at peace with his warlike neighbour.

But Elamite raids made this impossible, and the constant civil wars in Elam resulting from disputed successions to the throne afforded pretexts and favourable opportunities for invading it.