BABYLON, EMPIRE Or, may be considered as the first great monarchy of which any records are to be found in history. It appears to have been found ed a short time after the flood ; and (according to the astronomical tables sent by Alexander to Aris totle) about 2234. years before Christ. Of this first Babylonian kingdom there is very little to be except what is related in sacred scripture; that, about 2000 years B. C., it consisted, under Nimrod, of four cities, Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh ; that, about 100 years afterwards, it was enlarged by Ashur, who built several other cities, and particularly the first Nineveh, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, 300 miles above Babylon ; and that it continued till the year B. C. 1230, when Ninus, having overrun the greater part of Asia, founded a second Nineveh, between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, about 50 miles from Babylon, and thus established what is called the As syrian monarchy. But what is generally understood by the Babylonian empire, began about 606 years before Christ, when Belesis, or Nebopolassar, here. ditary satrap of Babylon, revolted against the Assy rian monarch Sardanapalus ; and having destroyed that prince and his capital Nineveh, transferred the seat of power to his own city. Thus there may be said to have been two distinct kingdoms in Babylon; one preceding, and the other following, the Assyrian empire. Or, rather, more properly speaking, there
were three great ;eras of the same monarchy in the country of Assyria. The first of these commences with Nimrod, in the year B. C. 2000, when Babylon was the scat of power ; the second with Ninus, in the year 1230, when Nineveh became the metropolis of the empire ; and the third with Belesis, in the year 606, when Babylon once more beheld the so vereigns of the East residing in her palaces. This subject indeed is beset with inextricable difficulties, and involved in impenetrable darkness ; but the above statement, which is founded upon the observations of the learned and ingenious Dr Gillies, in his History of the World, (vol. i. p. 50, 130,) seems much more simple in itself, as well as more consistent with .his tory, than either the common account, which makes the Assyrian monarchy almost coeval, but altogether unconnected with the first kingdom in Babylon ; or that of Sir Isaac Newton, who dates its origin so late as the year B. C. 770.
Leaving our readers to decide this point forthem selves, we proceed to the proper subject of this ar ticle, namely, to give a short sketch of the second Babylonian empire, established by Belesis, or Nebo polassar, upon the ruins of the Assyrian monarchy, about 606 years B. C.