The dominant people in Babylonia in the earliest times were the Accad, or Acca dians. They had come originally from the mountains of Elam, to the e. of the Tigris, and hence their name Accad, which means " highlanders." They brought with them the art of cuneiform writing, as well as other arts and sciences, especially astro nomy. It is in the Turanian language of these Accadians that the cuneiform inscrip tions of Babylonia are written for many centuries, And when the Semitic tongue had become predominant, Accadian, now a dead language, was to the Assyrians what Latin has been to the nations of modern Europe: Assyrian scholars translated the Accadian literature into their own language, and their technical and sacred terms were borrowed from it. Every day is bringing to light new proofs of the influence of these Accadians upon the civilization of the Semitic nations, and through them upon that of Europe. Greece, it is well known, derived its system of weights and measures from the Babylo nian standards; but these have been proved to be of Accadian origin. The Greek mina or the fundamental unit of the Greek monetary system, is the nianeh of Carchemish, and manch is found to be not a Semitic but an Accadian word, allowing the origin of the system. The sexageshnal division of the circle; the signs of the zodiac; .a week of seven days, named as we now name them, and the seventh a day of rest, are all Accadian. Every large city had its public library. In the royal library of a Babylonian monarch, Sargon (about 2000 Ile.), every tablet was numbered, so that the reader had only to write down the number of the tablet he wanted, and it was handed to him by the librarian. Among the multifarious subjects of this extensive literature there are hymns to the gods strikingly like the Hebrew psalms; and in a long mythological poem there is an episode giving an account of the deluge almost identical with that of Genesis, only more detailed. See ASSYRIA. The Accad religion was originally a Shamanism (q.v.), similar to what still prevails among the Turanian tribes of Siberia; but it gradually developed into a huge system of polytheism, which was adopted and modified by the Semitic inhabitants. The Aceadians were great in magic, and the Greek magos, a magician, is derived from an Accadian word equivalent to "reverend." The city of Babylon was not the first seat of power. The earliest records yet dis covered are those of a monarch whose capital was Ur (now Mugheir). Art w:.4 already far advanced, and the extent of the monarch's resources is seen in the ruins of the tem ple of the. sun-god built by him; it is calculated that 30,000,000 bricks must have been used in its construction. Centuries, apparently, after this, a fresh invasion from Elam is recorded, to which the exact date can be assigned of 2280 n.c. Another Elamite conqueror, named Cud ur-mabug, extended his sovereignty over Palestine, and it is in ferred that a sovereign of this dynasty is the Cliedorlaomer of Genesis (the name in Accad would be Kudurlaganzeri, of the god Lagamaru "). Some time after this, the seat of power was finally fixed at Babylon, and the Semitic tongue now began to supersede the Accadian.
The cities in the northern division of the country had been founded by colonists from the s., and were long ruled as dependencies of Babylonia. At length they grew into the independent kingdom of Assyria; and in the 14th c. B.C. an Assyrian monarch cap tured Babylon. From that time the position of the southern state becomes more and more subordinate to the northern, and finally sinks into a province. Babylonia, how ever, was not always a submissive vassal. tinder the leadership of Chaldean chiefs, it
made many struggles for independence. The Clialdeans are first heard of in the ninth c. before Christ as a small Accadian tribe on the Persian gulf; but they became so prominent in these struggles that they latterly gave their name to the whole prov ince of Babylonia, which came to be styled The name of one of those Chaldean chiefs, Merodach-Baladan, occurs both in scripture and in the inscriptions. From the former, we know that this king sent a message to Hezekiah, king of Judah, ostensibly tc inquire about his recovery, probably with a view to an alliance against Assyria; and from the latter, that 31crodach was expelled by Sargon, king of Assyria, that he made a fresh attempt to recover his throne, and was finally dethroned by Sennacherib. The complete subjection of B. to Assyria at this time (680 p.c.) is proved also from the scripture account, which states that Esarbaddon, son of Sennacherib, reigned in Babylon. About fifty years afterwards, Nabopolassar, governor of B. for the Assyrian king, proved faithless to his trust, and entered into an alliance with the Median king, Cyaxares, for the overthrow of the ruling state. See ASSYRIA. This under taking was successful, and B. now (625 "Lc.) became, though it was but for a short time, an independent and conquering power. The son of Nabopolassar, Nebuchad nezzar II., next defeated the Egyptian king, Necho, at Circesium (liarchemish), on the Euphrates (604 "Lc.), and thus annihilated the Egyptian dominion in Asia. He then subdued Jehoiakiin, king of Judah; and in consequence of repeated revolts, destroyed .Terusalem, and put an end to the kingdom of Judah under Zedekiall (588 n.c.), carrying the inhabitants captive to Babylon. The Phenieians submitted to him voluntarily, with the exception of Tyre, which underwent an obstinate siege without yielding. After a fortunate expedition against Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar turned his attention to the adorn ment of his capital; and the greater part at least of those buildings usually ascribed to a very early period, and especially to the mythical Semiramis, belong to him. After his death (562 n.c), the Neo-Babylonian empire fell to pieces as suddenly as it had sprung up, and under Nabonedus (Nabunita, in the cuneiform inscriptions, and in Herod otusi Labynetos), who had entered into an alliance with Crcesus of Lydia, against Per sia, it came under the dominion of Cyrus (530 n.c.). The Belshazzar of scripture is thought to be the son of Labynetos, to whom was confided the defense of B., while the elder prince held Borsippa. From this time B. appears on the Persian monu ments as a Persian satrapy, under the name of Babirus.
With the overthrow of the Persian monarchy, B. came under the short lived dominion of Alexander the Great, who died in that city (323 n.c.). Seleucus I., to whom it had been promised at the conference of Triparadisus, contested and won the possession of it from Antigonus (312 n.o.). About 140 B.C., it was taken from the Syrian monarchs by the Parthians. It came into the hands of the Romans only temporarily, first under Trajan (114 A.n.), under Septimius Severus (199 A.D.), and again, under Julian (363 A.D.). When, in G50, the successors of Mohammed put an cad to the new Persian monarchy of the Sassanides, the province of B., where Bag dad was built (762-766), became the seat of the califs till 1258. Since 1638, when the Turks, for the second time, took it from the Persians, it has been under the dominion of Turkey, divided into the pashalics of Bagdad and Basra.