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HISTORY AND CHRONOLOGY.
The history of the Babylonian Empire commences with Nabopolassar, who appears to have mounted the throne in the year B.C.

625; but to understand the true character of the kingdom which he set up, its traditions and its national spirit, we must begin at a far earlier date.
We must examine, in however incomplete and cursory a manner, the middle period of Babylonian history, the time of obscurity and comparative insignificance, when the country was as a general rule, subject to Assyria, or at any rate played but a secondary part in the affairs of the East.

We shall thus prepare the way for our proper subject, while at the same time we shall link on the history of the Fourth to that of the First Monarchy, and obtain a second line of continuous narrative, connecting the brilliant era of Cyaxares and Nebuchadnezzar with the obscure period of the first Cushite kings.
It has been observed that the original Chaldaean monarchy lasted, under various dynasties from about B.C.2400 to B.C.1300, when it was destroyed by the Assyrians, who became masters of Babylonia under the first Tiglathi-Nin, and governed it for a short time from their own capital.

Unable, however, to maintain this unity very long, they appear to have set up in the country an Assyrian dynasty, over which they claimed and sometimes exercised a kind of suzerainty, but which was practically independent and managed both the external and internal affairs of the kingdom at its pleasure.