What then must have been his disgust and rage at finding that, at the critical moment, Tyre had gone over to the enemy?
Notwithstanding the favours heaped on him by his suzerain, "Baal, king of Tyre, to Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, his country entrusted, and the yoke of Asshur threw off and made defiance."[14166] Esarhaddon was too strongly bent on his Egyptian expedition to be diverted from it by this defection; but in the year B.C.672, as he marched through Syria and Palestine on his way to attack Tirhakah, he sent a detachment against Tyre, with orders to his officers to repeat the tactics of Shalmaneser, by occupying points of the coast opposite to the island Tyre, and "cutting off the supplies of food and water."[14167] Baal was by this means greatly distressed, and it would seem that within a year or two he made his submission, surrendering either to Esarhaddon or to his son Asshur-bani-pal, in about the year of the latter's accession (B.C.

668).
It is surprising to find that he was not deposed from his throne; but as the circumstances seem to have been such as made it imperative on the Assyrian king to condone minor offences in order to accomplish a great enterprise--the restoration of the Assyrian dominion over the Nile valley.

Esarhaddon had effected the conquest of Egypt in about the year B.C.670, and had divided the country into twenty petty principalities;[14168] but within a year his yoke had been thrown off, his petty princes expelled, and Tirhakah reinstated as sole monarch over the "Two Regions."[14169] It was the determination of Asshur-bani-pal, on becoming king, to strain every nerve and devote his utmost energy to the re-conquest of the ancient kingdom, so lightly won and so lightly lost by his father.

Baal's perfidy was thus forgiven or overlooked.

A great expedition was prepared.