As soon as Babylonia was cleared of its enemies, Khammurabi set himself to the work of fortifying its cities, of restoring and building its temples and walls, and of clearing and digging canals.  The great canal known as that of “the King,” in the northern part of the country, was either made or re-excavated by him, and at Kilmad, near the modern Bagdad, a palace was erected.  Art and learning were encouraged, and a literary revival took place which brought back the old glories of the age of Sargon.  Once more new editions were made of standard works, poets arose to celebrate the deeds of the monarch, and books became multiplied.  Among the literary products of the period was the great Chaldaean Epic in twelve books, recording the adventures of the hero Gilgames, and embodying the Chaldaean story of the Deluge.

The supremacy over western Asia passed to Khammurabi, along with sovereignty over Babylonia, and he assumed the title of “King of the land of the Amorites.”  So too did his great-grandson, Ammi-ditana.  Two generations later, with Samas-ditana the First dynasty of Babylon came to an end.  It had made Babylon the capital of the country—­a position which it never subsequently lost.  It had raised Bel-Merodach, the god of Babylon, to the head of the pantheon, and it had lasted for 304 years.  It was followed by a Sumerian dynasty from the south, which governed the country for 368 years, but of which we know little more than the names of the kings composing it and the length of their several reigns.

It fell before the avalanche of an invasion from the mountains of Elam.  The Kassites poured into the Babylonian plain, and Kassite kings ruled at Babylon for 576 years and a half.  During their domination the map of western Asia underwent a change.  The Kassite conquest destroyed the Babylonian empire; Canaan was lost to it for ever, and eventually became a province of Egypt.  The high-priests of Assur, now Kaleh Sherghat, near the confluence of the Tigris and Lower Zab, made themselves independent and founded the kingdom of Assyria, which soon extended northward into the angle formed by the Tigris and Upper Zab, where the cities of Nineveh and Calah afterwards arose.  The whole country had previously been included by the Babylonians in Gutium or Kurdistan.

The population of Assyria seems to have been more purely Semitic than that of Babylonia.  Such at least was the case with the ruling classes.  It was a population of free peasants, of soldiers, and of traders.  Its culture was derived from Babylonia; even its gods, with the exception of Assur, were of Babylonian origin.  We look in vain among the Assyrians for the peace-loving tendencies of the Babylonians; they were, on the contrary, the Romans of the East.  They were great in war, and in the time of the Second Assyrian empire great also in law and administration.  But they were not a literary people; education among them was confined to the scribes and officials, rather than generally spread as in Babylonia.  War and commerce were their two trades.