y size and magnificence were erected; her victorious
armies conquered Syria and Palestine, and penetrated into Egypt. Her
commerce, too, had now spread far and wide, from the east to the west,
and she became "a land of traffic and a city of merchants."

But her greatness as an independent nation was short-lived. The
neighboring kingdoms of Media and Persia, united under one monarch,
had profited no less than Babylon, by the ruin of the Assyrian empire,
and were ready to dispute with her the dominion of Asia. Scarcely
half a century had elapsed from the fall of Nineveh, when "Belshazzar,
the king of the Chaldaeans, was slain, and Darius, the Median, took the
kingdom." From that time Babylonia sank into a mere province of
Persia. It still, however, retained much of its former power and
trade, and as we learn from the inscriptions of Bisutun, as well as
from ancient authors, struggled more than once to regain its ancient
independence.

After the defeat of Darius and the overthrow of the Persian supremacy,
Babylon opened its gates to Alexander, who deemed the city not
unworthy to become the capital of his mighty empire. On his return
from India, he wished to rebuild the temple of Belus, which had fallen
into ruins, and in that great work he had intended to employ his army,
now no longer needed for war. The priests, however, who had
appropriated the revenues of this sacred shrine, and feared lest they
would have again to apply them to their rightful purposes, appear to
have prevented him from carrying out his design.

This last blow to the prosperity and even existence of Babylon was
given by Seleucus when he laid the foundation of his new capital on
the banks of the Tigris (B.C. 322). Already Patrocles, his general,
had compelled a large number of the inhabitants to abandon their
homes, and to take refuge in the desert, and in the province of
Susiana. The city, exhausted by the neighborhood of Seleucia, returned
to its ancient solitude. According to some authors, neither the walls
nor the temple of Belus existed any longer, and only a few of the
Chaldaeans continued to dwell around the ruins of their sacred
edifices.

Still, however, a part of the population appear to have returned to
their former seats, for, in the early part of the second century of
the Christian era, we find the Parthian king, Evemerus, sending
numerous families from Babylon into Media to be sold as slaves, and
burning many great and beautiful edifi