ly employed in copying and
re-editing them. Unfortunately, the superstition of the monarch led him
to collect more especially books upon omens and dreams, and astrological
treatises, but other works were not overlooked, and we owe to him a
large number of the syllabaries and lists of words in which the
cuneiform characters and the Assyrian vocabulary are explained.

When Assur-bani-pal died the doom of the Assyrian empire had already
been pronounced. The authority of his two successors,
Assur-etil-ilani-yukin and Sin-sar-iskun, or Saracos, was still
acknowledged both in Syria and in Babylonia, where Kandalanu had been
succeeded as viceroy by Nabopolassar. One of the contract-tablets from
the north of Babylonia is dated as late as the seventh year of
Sin-sar-iskun. But not long after this the Babylonian viceroy revolted
against his sovereign, and with the help of the Scythian king, who had
established himself at Ekbatana, defeated the Assyrian forces and laid
siege to Nineveh. The siege ended in the capture and destruction of the
city, the death of its king, and the overthrow of his empire. In B.C.
606 the desolator of the nations was itself laid desolate, and its site
has never been inhabited again.

Nabopolassar entered upon the heritage of Assyria. It has been supposed
that he was a Chaldaean like Merodach-baladan; whether this be so or not,
he was hailed by the Babylonians as a representative of their ancient
kings. The Assyrian empire had become the prey of the first-comer. Elam
had been occupied by the Persians, the Scyths, whom classical writers
have confounded with the Medes, had overrun and ravaged Assyria and
Mesopotamia, while Palestine and Syria had fallen to the share of Egypt.
But once established on the Babylonian throne, Nabopolassar set about
the work of re-organising western Asia, and the military abilities of
his son Nebuchadrezzar enabled him to carry out his purpose. The
marriage of Nebuchadrezzar to the daughter of the Scythian monarch
opened the road through Mesopotamia to the Babylonian armies; the
Egyptians were defeated at Carchemish in B.C. 604, and driven back to
their own land. From Gaza to the mouth of the Euphrates, western Asia
again obeyed the rule of a Babylonian king.

The death of Nabopolassar recalled Nebuchadrezzar to Babylon, where he
assumed the crown. But the Egyptians still continued to intrigue in
Palestine, and the Jewish princes listened to their counsels. Twice had
Nebucha