Tiglath Pilesar held the western regions of the table-land of Iran in dependence. He ruled as king over Babylonia, over the whole region of the Euphrates down to the borders of Elam and the shore of the Persian Gulf; and in the North also he led the armies of Assyria to victorious campaigns. His tablets tell us that he incorporated with Assyria the land of Nairi, _i.e._ the region between the upper Zab and the upper Tigris, that he defeated king Sarduarri of Ararat (Urarti), who had rebelled against him, took his camp and besieged him in his city of Turuspa; that he set up "an image of his majesty" there, and laid waste the land of Ararat far and wide.[28] Afterwards Sarduarri and Sulumal of Milid (Melitene) and Kustaspi of Kummukh (Gumathene), each trusting to the power of the other, rebelled; these he defeated, and took captives to the number of 72,950 men. In the middle of the battle Sarduarri rode away: he (Tiglath Pilesar) took the seal from his neck, his neck-band, his royal chariot, and his couch, and dedicated them to Istar of Nineveh.[29] The inscriptions further inform us that Kustaspi of Kummukh, Sulumal of Milid, and Vassurmi of Tubal gave tribute to Tiglath Pilesar, and when Vassurmi was negligent in the service of Assyria and did not appear before his face, Tiglath Pilesar sent his chief captain against him and set up Chulli to be king of Tubal in Vassurmi's place.[30] The list of rulers puts the first war of Tiglath Pilesar in the year 743 B.C., the second campaign against Ararat and the princes leagued with him in the year 735 B.C.
Of the successes of Tiglath Pilesar in Syria we shall hear below. When he received the tribute of Hamath, Byblus, and Israel before the ninth year of his reign, _i.e._ in the year 738 B.C., Zabibieh, the queen of the Arabs, also paid tribute.[31] When he had overthrown Damascus, Israel, and the Philistines (732 B.C.), he fought against Samsieh, the queen of the Arabians, in the region of Saba,[32] as we are told in a fragment of his annals, and took from her 30,000 camels, and 20,000 oxen. In the inscriptions which sum up the achievements of the king we are told that he subjugated the Nabatu (who must be sought to the south on the lower Euphrates), the Hagaranu (the Hagarites), the Pekudu (Pekod);[33] that the distant tribes of Tema (the Temanites) and Saba (the Sabæans), on the borders of the setting sun, heard of his power, and submitted to him, brought gold, silver, and camels, and kissed his feet.[34] A fragment of the annals repeats this statement; on the borders of the land of the setting sun they heard of his power and his victories and submitted to him.[35] Hence it was not only migratory tribes in the neighbourhood of Syria and the lower Euphrates, like the Pekod and Hagarites, whom Tiglath Pilesar forced to recognise his supremacy and pay tribute: his armies must have advanced from Syria and the lower Euphrates to the interior of Arabia, if the Temanites (I. 324) and the tribes of the South, "on the borders of the setting sun," _i.e._ the tribes of the South-west, the Sabæans, in "fear of his power and his victories," sent him tribute.