What were the causes of this depression from which Babylon suffered at almost regular intervals, as though stricken with some periodic malady?  The main reason soon becomes apparent if we consider the nature of the country and the material conditions of its existence.  Chaldaea was neither extensive nor populous enough to afford a solid basis for the ambition of her princes.  Since nearly every man capable of bearing arms was enrolled in the army, the Chaldaean kings had no difficulty in raising, at a moment’s notice, a force which could be employed to repel an invasion, or to make a sudden attack on some distant territory; it was in schemes that required prolonged and sustained effort that they felt the drawbacks of their position.  In that age of hand-to-hand combats, the mortality in battle was very high; forced marches through forests and across mountains entailed a heavy loss of men, and three or four campaigns against a stubborn foe soon reduced the army to a condition of weakness.

When Nebuchadrezzar I. made war on Assurishishi, he was still weak from the losses he had incurred during the campaign against Elam, and could not conduct his attack with the same vigour as had gained him victory on the banks of the Ulai.  In the first year he only secured a few indecisive advantages; in the second he succumbed.

The same reasons which explain the decadence of Babylon show us the causes of the periodic eclipses undergone by Assyria after each outburst of her warlike spirit.  The country was now forced to pay for the glories of Assurishishi and of Tiglath-pileser by falling into an inglorious state of languor and depression.  And ere long newer races asserted themselves which had gradually come to displace the nations over which the dynasties of Thutmosis and Ramses had held sway as tributary to them.  The Hebrews on the east, and the Philistines on the southwest, were about to undertake the conquest of Kharu, as the land which is known to us as Canaan was styled by the Egyptians.

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The Passing of the Empires

Maspero, in the third volume of his great archaeological trilogy, completing his “History of the Ancient Peoples of the Classic East,” deals with the passing in succession of the supremacies of the Babylonian, Assyrian, Chaldaean, Medo-Persian and Iranian Empires.  The period dealt with in this graphic narrative covers fully five centuries, from 850 B.C. to 330 B.C.  M. Maspero in cinematographic style passes before us the actors in many of the most thrilling of historic dramas.  One excellent feature of his method is his balancing of evidences.  Where Xenophon and Herodotus absolutely differ he tells what each asserts.  With consummate skill also he arranges his recital like a series of dissolving views, showing how epochs overlap, and how as Babylon is fading Assyria is rising, and as the latter in turn is waning Media is