The extreme extent appears not to have been reached until almost immediately before the last rapid decline set in, the widest dominion belonging to the time of Asshur-bani-pal, the conqueror of Egypt, of Susiana, and of the Armenians.

In the middle part of this prince's reign Assyria was paramount over the portion of Western Asia included between the Mediterranean and the Halys on the one hand, the Caspian Sea and the great Persian desert on the other.

Southwards the boundary was formed by Arabia and the Persian Gulf; northwards it seems at no time to have advanced to the Euxine or to the Caucasus, but to have been formed by a fluctuating line, which did not in the most flourishing period extend so far as the northern frontier of Armenia.
Besides her Asiatic dominions, Assyria possessed also at this time a portion of Africa, her authority being acknowledged by Egypt as far as the latitude of Thebes.

The countries included within the limits thus indicated, and subject during the period in question to Assyrian influence, were chiefly the following: Susiana, Chaldaea, Babylonia, Media, Matiene or the Zagros range, Mesopotamia; parts of Armenia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia; Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine.

Idummaea, a portion of Arabia, and almost the whole of Egypt.