[Illustration: ASSUR-BANIPAL AS THE RESTORER OF E-SAGILA, THE TEMPLE OF MARDUK AT BABYLON. Brit. Mus., No. 90864.]
Babylonia had proved herself no match for the legions of Assyria at the height of the hitter's power; but the industrial and commercial life of her cities, based ultimately on the rich return her soil yielded to her agricultural population, enabled her to survive blows which would have permanently disabled a country less favoured by nature. Moreover, she always regarded the Assyrians as an upstart people, who had borrowed her culture, and whose land had been a mere province of her kingdom at a time when her own political influence had extended from Elam to the borders of Syria. Even in her darkest hour she was buoyed up by the hope of recovering her ancient glory, and she let no opportunity slip of striking a blow at the northern kingdom. She was consequently always a drag on Assyria's advance to the Mediterranean, for, when the latter's armies marched westward, they left Babylon and Elam in their rear.
In her later dealings with Babylon Assyria had tried the alternative policies of intimidation and in-dulgence, but with equal want of success; and they reached their climax in the reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. It is quite possible that either of these policies, if consistently pursued, would have been equally futile in its aim of coercing or placating Babylonia. But their alternation was a far worse blunder, as it only succeeded in revealing to the Babylonians their own power, and in confirming them in their obstinate resistance. To this cause we may trace the long revolt under Shamash-shum-ukîn, when Babylon with Elam at her back struck a succession of blows which helped in a material degree to reduce the power of the Assyrian army, already weakened by the Egyptian campaigns. And in 625 B.C., when the Scythians had overrun the Assyrian empire, and her power was on the wane, we find Nabopolassar proclaiming himself king in Babylon and founding a new empire which for nearly seventy years was to survive the city of Nineveh itself.
[Footnote 1: Cf. "Boundary-Stones in the Brit. Mus.," pp. 29 ff.]
[Footnote 2: See "Boundary-Stones in the Brit. Mus.," pp. 96 ff.]