Its vaulting ambition appears to have overleaped itself.

Realizing for a time the Assyrian ideal of a world monarchy, the fall was as sudden as its rise was unexpected.

Internal dissensions gave the first indication of the hollowness of the state.

Nebuchadnezzar's son was murdered in 560 B.C., within two years after reaching the throne, by his own brother-in-law, Neriglissar; and the latter dying after a reign of only four years, his infant child was put out of the way and Nabonnedos, a high officer of the state, but without royal prerogative, mounted the throne.

In the year 550 news reached Babylon that Cyrus, the king of Anzan, had dealt a fatal blow to the Median empire, capturing its king, Astyages, and joining Media to his own district.