A Summary of Ancient History Author:John Bruce Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. We shall arrange the histories of the other ancient nations under what are usually called the four great empires, viz.: -- the Assyrian or B... more »abylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. SECTION I. 1. THE ASSYRIAN, OR BABYLONIAN EMPIRE, FROM ITS FOUNDATION TO THE DEATH OF SARDANAPALWS. ' Belus is placed at the head of the series of Assyrian kings who reigned at Babylon. Some suppose him to be the Nim- rod mentioned in Scripture. Nineveh and Babylon, and other cities, were founded either by Nimrod or Ashur. The other Assyrian kings, of whom we have any account are, Ninus, who removed the seat of his empire to Nineveh. He was the first who, for the sake of extending his empire, made war upon other nations. Having subdued the principal states in Asia, he subdued the Bactrians, with their king Zoroaster. Afterward he married Semiramis, by whom he had a son called Nynias. Semiramis was a queen of heroic] mind, who disguising her sex, took possession of the kingdom instead of her son. She enlarged Babylon, and surrounded it with a wall, sixty miles in compass. She attacked Media, Persia, Egypt, and Lybia, and even carried her arms as far as India. Nynias, who is said to have killed his mother Semiramis, took possession of the kingdom, which had been greatlyenlarged by his parents. He was a very slothful man, seldom seen, and grew old in the company of his concubines. After Nynias, an interval of twelve hundred years occurs, in which we have no account of the Assyrian empire. Thirty-two kings are said to have reigned in this interval; but, of the events of their reigns, history is entirely silent. In the plains of Chaldea, astronomy was early cultivated; and astronomical observations are said to have been made soon after the building o...« less