Ashurbanipal, Shamash-shum-ukin was very successful in finding allies. Ashurbanipal identified three groups who aided his brother: first and foremost there were the Chaldeans, Arameans and the other peoples of Babylonia, then there were the Elamites, and lastly the kings of Gutium, Amurru and Meluhha. This last group of kings might refer to the Medes (as Gutium, Amurru and Meluhha no longer existed at this point) but this is uncertain. Meluhha might have referred to Egypt, though the Egyptians are not documented to have aided Shamash-shum-ukin in the war. Shamash-shum-ukin's ambassadors to the Elamites had offered gifts (called "bribes" by Ashurbanipal) and their king, Ummanigash, sent an army under the command of Undashe, the son of Teumman, to aid in the conflict. For the first two years of the conflict, battles were fought all across Babylonia, some won by the Assyrians and some won by Shamash-shum-ukin and his allies. The war quickly turned chaotic; several minor players repeatedly changed sides and both Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin found it difficult to keep track of their allies. Among the most notorious double agents were Nabu-bel-shumati, a governor of the far south in Babylonia whose repeated betrayals enraged Ashurbanipal. Fall of Shamash-shum-ukin Despite this seemingly strong alliance of Assyrian enemies, Shamash-shum-ukin failed to halt Ashurbanipal's advance. As the war progressed, his forces were slowly defeated, his allies diminished and his lands were lost. By 650 the situation looked grim, with Ashurbanipal's forces having besieged Sippar, Borsippa, Kutha and Babylon itself. During Ashurbanipal's siege of Babylon, the city entered into a period of famine. Ashurbanipal's account of the siege claimed that some of the citizens grew so hungry and desperate that they ate their own children. Having endured both starvation and disease, Babylon fell in 648, after a siege lasting two years. The city was extensively plundered by Ashurbanipal. According to his own inscriptions, Ashurbanipal initiated a bloodbath: "their carved up bodies I fed to dogs, to pigs, to wolves, to eagles, to birds of the heavens, to fishes of the deep". At the time of the city's fall, a great fire also spread within Babylon. Shamash-shum-ukin is traditionally believed to have committed suicide by stepping into the flames, or by setting himself and his family on fire in his palace. Contemporary texts however only say that he "met a cruel death" and that the gods "consigned him to a fire and destroyed his life". In