removed Be lib, and placed his eldest son — who appears in the canon as Aparanadius — upon the throne. Apa- ranadius reigned for six years, when he was succeeded b}- a certain Regibelus, who reigned for one year ; after which Mesesimordacus held the throne for four years. Nothing more is known of these kings, and it is uncertain whether they were viceroj-s or independ- ent native monarchs. They were contemporary with Sennacherib, to whose reign belongs also the second interregnum, extending to eight years, which the canon interposes between the reigns of Mesesimorda- cus and Asaridanus. In Asaridanus critical eyes long ago detected Esarhaddon, Sennacherib's son and suc- cessor ; and it may be regarded as certain from the in- scriptions that this king ruled in person over both Babylonia and Assyria, holding his court alternately at their respective capitals. Hence we may under- stand how Manasseh, his contemporary, came to be "carried by the captains of the king of Assyria to Babylon" instead of to Nineveh, as would have been done in any other reign. See Esarhaddox. Saos- duchinus and Ciniladanus (orCinneladanus), his broth- | er (Polyhist.), the successors of Asaridanus, are kings | of whose history we know nothing. Probably they ' were viceroys under the later Assyrian monarchs, who are represented by Abydenus (ap. Euseb.) as retaining their authority over Babylon up to the time of the last 1 siege of Nineveh.
"With Nabopolassar, the successor of Cinneladanus, , and the father of Nebuchadnezzar, a new era in the : history of Babylon commences. According to Aby- denus, who probably drew his information from Be- rosus, he was appointed to the government of Babylon i by the last Assyrian king, at the moment when the Medes were about to make their final attack ; where- upon, betraying the trust reposed in him, he went over to the enemy, arranged a marriage between his son i Nebuchadnezzar and the daughter of the Median lead- er, and joined in the last siege of the city. See Nin- eveh. On the success of the confederates (B.C. 625) j Babylon became not only an independent kingdom, I but an empire ; the southern and western portions of the Assyrian territory were assigned to Nabopolassar in the partition of the spoils which followed on the conquest, and thereby the Babylonian dominion be- came extended over the whole valley of the Euphrates as far as the Taurus range, over Syria, Phoenicia, Pal- estine, Idumsea, and (perhaps) a portion of Egypt. Thus, among others, the Jews passed quietly and al- most without remark from one feudal head to another, exchanging dependency on Assyria for dependency on Babylon, and continuing to pay to Nabopolassar the same tribute and service which they had previously ' rendered to the Assyrians. Friendly relations seem to have been maintained with Media throughout the reign of Nabopolassar, who led or sent a contingent to j help Cyaxares in his Lydian war, and acted as medi- I ator in the negotiations by which that war was con- | eluded (Herod, i, 74). At a later date hostilities broke out with Egypt. Necho, the son of Psamatik I, about ! the year B.C. 608 invaded the Babylonian dominions on the south-west, and made himself master of the en- ; tire tract between his own country and the Euphrates I (2 Kings xxiii, 29, and xxiv, 7). Nabopolassar was I now advanced in life, and not able to take the field in ! person (Beros. Frag. 14). He therefore sent his son, , Nebuchadnezzar, at the head of a large army, against the Egyptians, and the battle of Carchemish. which soon followed, restored to Babylon the former limits of her territory (comp. 2 Kings xxiv, 7 with Jer. xlvi, 1 2-12). Nebuchadnezzar pressed forward and had reached Egypt, when news of his father's death re- called him, and hastily returning to Babylon, he was fortunate enough to find himself, without any strug- gle, acknowledged king (B.C. 604).
A complete account of the works and exploits of this great monarch— by far the most remarkable of
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all the Babylonian kings — will be given in the article Nebuchadnezzar. It is enough to note in this place that he was great both in peace and in war, but great- er in the former. Besides recovering the possession of Syria and Palestine, and carrying off the Jews after repeated rebellions into captivity, he reduced Phoeni- cia, besieged and took Tyre, and ravaged, if he did not actually conquer, Egypt. But it was as the adorner and beautifier of his native land — as the builder and restorer of almost all her cities and temples — that this monarch obtained that great reputation which has handed down his name traditionally in the East on a par with those of Nimrod, Solomon, and Alexander, and made it still a familiar term in the mouths of the people. Probably no single man ever left behind him as Ids memorial upon the earth one half the amount of building that was erected by this king. The an- cient ruins and the modern towns of Babylonia are alike built almost exclusively of his bricks. Babylon itself, the capital, was peculiarly the object of his at- tention. It was here that, besides repairing the walls and restoring the temples, he constructed that mag- nificent palace, which, with its triple enclosure, its hanging gardens, its plated pillars, and its rich orna- mentation of enamelled brick, was regarded in ancient times as one of the seven wonders of the world (Strab. xvi, 1, § 5).