62 BY THE EIVERS OF BABYLON 



relief which may be seen in the British Museum 

 to-day ; and marble pavements, frescoes, rich hang- 

 ings, and beautiful bronze and silver work adorned 

 the interiors. 



It need hardly be said that we know little of the 

 Assyrians beyond their fighting and luxury-loving 

 kings. And it is a further proof of the great lesson 

 of history which is enforced in this book that the 

 retribution came more swiftly than in the case of any 

 other of the older civilizations. The great age of 

 Assyria begins about 700 b.c. Less than a hundred 

 years later, in 606 b.c, the anger that its cruelty had 

 sown came to maturity. The Medes and Babylonians 

 led the avengers against it, and Nineveh was destroyed 

 so savagely and utterly that hardly a stone remained 

 upon a stone. 



So ended the great chapter of Mesopotamian 

 civilization. The plain that was once so rich that it 

 could bear three or four crops of wheat a year, that 

 smiled with vast orchards of palms, vines, oranges, 

 apples, and pears, became the appalling desolation it 

 is to-day. The most wonderful cities of the old 

 world became shapeless mounds of clay and sand, of 

 which men forgot the ancient names. It is some- 

 thing to know now that Babylon, with all its errors, 

 played a great and beneficent part in the drama of 

 humanity before it died. 



