Assyrian conquest of Aram  The Assyrian conquest of Aram (c. 856-732 BCE) concerns the series of conquests of largely Aramean, Phoenician, Sutean and Neo-Hittite states in the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon and northern Jordan) by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BCE). This region was known as Eber-Nari and Aramea during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1020 BCE) and the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Parts of the eastern Levant had been under the dominion of the Old Assyrian Empire (c.2025-1750 BCE) at a time when the Levant was largely occupied by Amorite and Canaanite tribes. During the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1020 BCE) Assyria rose to be possibly the most powerful nation in the world, and conquered much of the Near East and Asia Minor, as well as extending into the Caucasus, the Arabian peninsula and Ancient Iran. It was during the latter part of this period that the West Semitic Arameans first appear in the region. They, alongside a host of other peoples, were subjugated by powerful Assyrian kings during the Middle Assyrian Empire. However, a civil war during the reign of Ashur-bel-kala (1074-1056 BCE) greatly weakened the Middle Assyrian Empire, and after his death Arameans, Phoenicians, Neo-Hittites and other peoples in the Levant gradually began to assert their independence and form their own patchwork of states. In modern terms the interior of modern Syria (the Assyrian north-east excluded), the region had since at least the 24th century BCE been inhabited by the Canaanite speaking Amorites and for a time the East Semitic speaking Eblaites also, thus much of this region had been known as the 'Land of the Amurru'. However from the 12th century BCE a new Semitic group appeared, in the form of the Arameans, and by the late 11th century BCE this region was known as Aramea/Aram and Eber-Nari ("Across the River", that is, west of the Euphrates), and remained named as such during the latter part of the Middle Assyrian Empire, Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire, Median Empire and Achaemenid Empire. The term Syria which today applies to the region is in actuality originally a 10th-century BCE Indo-Anatolian name for Assyria, many centuries later applied by the Greeks during the Seleucid Empire (311-150 BCE) not only to Assyria itself but much of the Levant (see Etymology of Syria).