This is a history of one of the oldest empires in antiquity. From the first chapter: "WHEN Asshurbanapal died, in 626, he left, as we have already seen, an empire sadly weakened and far departed from its ancient glory. He had, in. deed, held together the main body of it, but the outer provinces had mostly fallen away. He had left in the world many enemies of Assyria and sadly few friends. He had held Babylonia to the empire after displaying such fierceness in the punishment of its rebels as made them unable to rise again during his lifetime. Up to his death he reigned as king in Assyria under the name of Asshurbanapal, and in Babylon as Kandalanu.380 The hour of his death was the signal for the preparation of a new revolt in Babylonia. This was inevitable. The Babylonians had hated Assyrian rule since the conciliatory policy of Esarhaddon had ceased, and were ready for any attempt which might promise to restore to them the prestige they once possessed and to their city the primacy of the world. To achieve such marvels of history there was no further strength in themselves. We have seen long since the decay of the real Babylonian people, who had early ceased to be Semites of pure blood. But the very intermixing of other fresh blood had kept them alive as an entity, though it had almost entirely destroyed their identity. The reinforcement of life which came to them from the Kassites had kept awake in them a national separateness, when without it they would almost certainly have been swallowed up and lost, as other peoples had been before them. They were, however, steadily decaying and diminishing, and could only be kept further alive by a new influx of fresh blood from some source. The Assyrian kings had repeatedly settled colonists in various parts of Babylonia, from the days of Tiglathpileser III onward. These lost their national identity and became Babylonians to all intents and purposes."
