The Rise of Babylon

From the remotest times, the city-states of southern Mesopotamia were enemies of the kings of Elam, a country to its east. For centuries at a time, the Elamite kings held the cities of the plain in a state of more or less complete vassalage. Their dominion was finally broken by a king of Babylon, a city which had been rising in prominence and eventually gave its name to the entire area. This king was named Hammurabi (reigned circa 1780 BC – 1750 BC). He united under his rule all the cities of Babylonia and became the founder of what is known as the Old Babylonian Empire.

Hammurabi has been called the Babylonian Moses because he promulgated a code of laws which in many respects resembles the Mosaic code attributed to Moses.

The Old Babylonian Empire eclipsed by the Rising Assyrian Empire

For more than a millennium after Hammurabi. Babylon continued to be the political and commercial centre of changing dynasties and shifting frontiers. Meanwhile, a Semitic power had been slowly developing in the north. This was the Assyrian Empire, eventually to be centered on its capital Nineveh. For a long time Assyria was practically a province of the lower kingdom; but in 726 BC, Babylon was conquered by an Assyrian king and passed under Assyrian control.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1906 edition of General History for Colleges and High Schools by Philip van Ness Myers.