In the conquest of Cyrus, 538 B. C., the city of Babylon was spared. Darius Hystaspis razed its walls and towers. Xerxes (486-465 B. C.) despoiled the temples of their golden statues and treasures. Alexander the Great wished to restore the city, but was prevented by his early death. The decay of Babylon was hastened by the foundation in its neighborhood of Selencia, 300 B. C., which was built from the ruins of Babylon. The last who calls himself in an inscription “King of Babylon” was Antiochus the Great (223-187 B. C.)
EARLY HISTORY RIVALS
THAT OF EGYPT
It is now evident, from the monuments and inscriptions which have been obtained from the traditionally oldest cities, that the civilization of the ancient people of Babylonia has an antiquity rivaling that of ancient Egypt. The American discoveries at Nippur in 1888-90 carry back Babylonian civilization to about 7000 B. C.
The early struggles for supremacy among the city states seem to have been confined to the lower valley of the Tigris and Euphrates; but about 4000 B. C. a mighty conqueror, Lugalzaggisi of Uruk, made expeditions to the Mediterranean and to the mountains at the north of Mesopotamia. He styled himself “King of Uruk,” “King of the Totality.”
Very early, however, a Semitic invasion must have taken place, for the date of two Semitic kings, namely, Sargon I. and Naram-Sin, of Accad, is placed, according to the testimony of the later Babylonians themselves, at about B. C. 3800 and 3750 respectively. Gudea, the priest-king, and a famous builder, was the chief ruler about 2800 B. C.
GREAT PERIOD OF
HAMMURABI
About B. C. 2250 Hammurabi sat upon the throne of Babylon, the name of which now first appears in cuneiform records, although it may have been founded centuries before. This great monarch, Hammurabi, has left records of his enlightened efforts for the agricultural development of the land, and a great law code, cut in the enduring rock, which carries our knowledge of the history of law back a thousand years before the age of Moses. As yet no inscription has been discovered giving the details of his wars; but it is evident that he destroyed the Elamite power in Babylonia, and his assumption of the ancient titles “King of Sumer and Accad,” “King of the Four Quarters of the World,” seems to indicate that his power extended far. In Larsa and Sippar he erected temples to the sun-god, and at Babylon and Borsippa he enlarged those already standing. His great canal running down through the heart of Babylonia made the bordering territory fertile; and the granary built at Babylon stored the increased crops of grain. It may be that Lugalzaggisi and Sargon I. exceeded Hammurabi in the extent of their sway, but Hammurabi made Babylon the center of culture for southwestern Asia during millenniums.
After him we know little of the history until Burnaburiash, a Hassite king who was on the throne about 1400 B. C., exchanged letters with Amenhotep III. of Egypt as recorded in the Tel-el-Amarna Letters.
About 1250 B. C. Babylonia was conquered by Assyria, and, though it soon regained its independence and was again ruled by native kings, it remained a politically subordinate power, and was repeatedly conquered by its more powerful neighbor, until the fall of Nineveh, consequently we must now consider Assyria, as the successor of the first Babylonian Empire, and go back a little into its history up to the time of Tiglath Pileser I., the conqueror of old Babylon.