But with success.  Assurbanipal grew arrogant in his attitude to his brother, the King of Babylon, and a fratricidal war resulted in the defeat and death of Shamash-shumukin and the capture of the rival capital.  But Assyria was now near one of its recurrent periods of exhaustion, and foes were rising for a formidable attack.

IV.—­Fall of Media and Chaldaea

At the very height of his apparent grandeur and prosperity Assurbanipal was attacked by Phraortes, King of the Medes, who paid for his temerity with his life, being left dead, with the greater part of his army, on the field.  But the sequel was unexpected, for Cyaxares, son of the slain Mede, stubbornly continued the conflict, patiently reorganising his army, until he won a great victory over the Assyrian generals, and shut up the remnant of their forces in Nineveh.

Assurbanipal, after a reign of forty-two years, died about 625 B.C., and was succeeded by his son, Assuretililani.  Against his brother and successor, Sinsharishkin, the standard of rebellion was raised by Nabopolassar, the governor of Babylon, who declared himself independent, and assumed the title of king, but his reign not long after ended with his death, in 605 B.C.  Nebuchadrezzar was proclaimed king in Babylon.

His reign was long and prosperous, and, on the whole, a peaceful one.  The most notable event in the career of Nebuchadrezzar II., was the capture and destruction of Jerusalem, in consequence of a revolt of Tyre and Judea.  The unfortunate king, Zedekiah, saw his sons slain in his presence, and then, his eyes having been put out, he was loaded with chains, and sent to Babylon.

Nebuchadrezzar died in 562 B.C. after a reign of fifty-five years.  His successors were weak rulers, and their reigns were brief and inglorious.  The army was suffered to dwindle, and the dynasty founded by Nabopolassar came to an end in 555 B.C., when Labashi-marduk, the last of the line, after reigning only nine months, was murdered by Nabonidus, a native Babylonian.  This usurper witnessed the rapid rise of the new Iranian power which was to destroy him and Babylon.  In 553 B.C., Cyrus, a Persian general, revolted against Astyages, defeated him, and destroyed the Median Empire at one blow.

The only army that was a match for that of Cyrus was the Lydian host under King Croesus.  A conflict took place between the two, ending in the defeat of the most powerful potentate of Asia Minor.  But Cyrus treated Croesus with consideration, and the Lydian king is said to have become the friend of the mighty Persian.  From that day neither Egypt nor Chaldaea had any chance of victory on the battlefield.  Nabonidus became a mere vassal of Cyrus, and lived more or less inactively in his palace at Tima, leaving the direction of power at Babylon in the hands of his son, Bel-sharuzu.