Tiglath-Pileser's annals confuse the accounts of his two campaigns; but the general impression which we gather from them is that, even in B.C.745, the country was divided up into a number of small principalities, the sea-coast being under the dominion of Merodach-Baladan, who held his court in his father's city of Bit-Yakin; while in the upper region there were a number of petty princes, apparently independent, among whom may be recognized names which seem to occur later in Ptolemy's list, among the kings of Babylon to whom he assigns short reigns in the interval between Nabonassar and Mardocempalus (Merodach-Baladan).

Tiglath-Pileser attacked and defeated several of these princes, taking the towns of Kur-Galzu (now Akkerkuf), and Sippara or Sepharvaim, together with many other places of less consequence in the lower portion of the country, after which he received the submission of Merodach-Baladan, who acknowledged him for suzerain, and consented to pay an annual tribute.

Tiglath-Pileser upon this assumed the title of "King of Babylon" (B.C.

729), and offered sacrifice to the Babylonian gods in all the principal cities.
The first Syrian war of Tiglath-Pileser was undertaken in his third year (B.C.

743), and lasted from that year to his eighth.