680.
Interregna in this document--[--Greek--] as they are termed--indicate periods of extreme disturbance, when pretender succeeded to pretender, or when the country was split up into a number of petty kingdoms.

The Assyrian yoke, in either case, must have been rejected; and Babylonia must have succeeded at this time in maintaining, for the space of eight years, a separate and independent existence, albeit troubled and precarious.

The fact that she continued free so long, while she again succumbed at the very commencement of the reign of Esar-haddon, may lead us to suspect that she owed this spell of liberty to the increasing years of the Assyrian monarch, who, as the infirmities of age crept upon him, felt a disinclination towards distant expeditions.
The military glory of Sennacherib was thus in some degree tarnished; first, by the terrible disaster which befell his host on the borders of Egypt; and, secondly, by his failure to maintain the authority which, in the earlier part of his reign, he had estaldished over Babylon.

Still, notwithstanding these misfortunes, he must be pronounced one of the most successful of Assyria's warrior kings, and altogether one of the greatest princes that ever sat on the Assyrian throne.

His victories of Eltekeh and Khaluli seem to leave been among the most important battles that Assyria ever gained.