It was on the twenty-second day of the first month, in the thirteenth year of his reign, that this resolve was taken at Nabuchodonosor’s court.

He summoned all his councillors, chieftains and commanders, and put before them his secret design;

his thought, he told them, was to bring the whole world under his allegiance.

With this, all agreed; whereupon he summoned Holofernes, that commanded his forces,

and said, March out and make war on the western kingdoms, those especially that made light of my summons.

Nowhere let pity melt thy eye; no fortified town but must be brought under my dominion.

Thereupon Holofernes summoned all the chieftains and commanders of the Assyrian army, and mustered a force to march out and do the king’s bidding, a hundred and twenty thousand that went on foot, and twelve thousand mounted archers.

And his baggage-train he sent on beforehand, a long array of camels, well laden with all his army needed, herds of oxen, too, and flocks of sheep, past all counting.

A supply of corn from the whole of Syria was to meet him as he passed,

and he had great store of gold and silver from the royal treasury.

Then he himself set out at the head of his forces, chariots and horsemen and archers and the rest, that swarmed like locusts on the ground.

Leaving Assyria, he first reached the high mountains of Ange, on the left-hand side of Cilicia, scaling all their fastnesses and reducing all their garrisons.

Then he broke into the city of Melothi, that resisted him stubbornly, and ravaged all the country which belonged to the sons of Tharsis, and to the Ismaelites, facing the desert, to the south of Cellon.

Then he crossed Euphrates into Mesopotamia, and stormed every stronghold between the river Mambre and the sea.

All the land of Mesopotamia he overran, from Cilicia on the north to the frontier of Japheth on the south,

drove the Madianites from their homes and plundered their goods, putting all who resisted him to the sword.✻

And at last he came down on to the plain of Damascus, in harvest time, burnt all the crops there and had all the trees and vineyards cut down.

And a great dread of him fell upon the whole country-side.