Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/69

Western Asia 33 46. Decline of Assyrian Power. But the Assyrian Empire was so vast that it proved impossible to hold it together. The army had to be recruited from the farming and manufacturing classes. So the fields were left uncultivated and manufacture declined. Moreover, the foreign troops, which it was necessary to employ, formed a very dangerous element. Finally, Assyria was so AN ASSYRIAN KING HUNTING LIONS weakened that she could not resist the invasion of the Chaldeans, another Semitic tribe which had for many years been drifting along the shores of the Persian Gulf. 47. Destruction of Nineveh by the Medes and Chaldeans (606 B.C.). The Chaldeans first conquered Babylonia and then, after combining with the Medes ( 52), they attacked the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, and this mighty city fell into their hands in 606 B.C. The Assyrian Empire was at an end, and we can hear in the voice of the Hebrew prophet Nahum (ii, 8, 13, and iii entire) an echo of the exulting shout which resounded from the Caspian to the Nile when the nations realized that the terrible scourge of the East was no longer to be feared. Nineveh speedily became the vast heap of rubbish it remains today. 48. Reign of Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 B.C.); Magnificence of Babylon. At Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest of the Chaldean emperors, began a reign of over forty years a reign of such power and magnificence, especially as narrated in the Bible, that he has become one of the great figures of oriental