.

Sanduarri, who took Abd-Melkarth for his ally, and to his difficult mountains trusted, like a bird from the midst of the mountains, I caught and cut off his head." Sidon was very severely punished.

Esarhaddon boasts that he swept away all its subject cities, uprooted its citadel and palace, and cast the materials into the sea, at the same time destroying all its habitations.
The town was plundered, the treasures of the palace carried off, and the greater portion of the population deported to Assyria.

The blank was filled up with "natives of the lands and seas of the East"-- prisoners taken in Esarhaddon's war with Babylon and Elam, who, like the Phoenicians themselves at a remote time, exchanged a residence on the shores of the Persian Gulf for one on the distant Mediterranean.

An Assyrian general was placed as governor over the city, and its name changed from Sidon to "Ir-Esarhaddon." It seems to have been in the course of the same year that Esarhaddon held one of those courts, or _durbars_, in Syria, which all subject monarchs were expected to attend, and whereat it was the custom that they should pay homage to their suzerain.