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The Battle of Nineveh is conventionally dated between 613 to 611 BC, with 612 BC being the most supported date. An allied army composed of Medes and Persians, rebelling Chaldeans and Babylonians, together with Scythians and Cimmerians besieged it and sacked it, leading to the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire over the next three years〔Georges Roux - Ancient Iraq p 376〕 as the dominant state in the Ancient Near East, as well as the destruction of what was at that time the greatest city in the world, covering 750 hectares. After this battle the archeological record shows that the capital of the once mighty Assyrian Empire was extensively de-urbanized and depopulated. Babylon became the imperial center of Mesopotamia for the first time in over a thousand years leading to the Neo-Babylonian empire, claiming imperial continuity as a new dynasty. == Background == The Neo-Assyrian Empire which arose in the 10th century BC, succeeding the Middle Assyrian Empire (1366-1074 BC), is generally regarded to have reached its peak in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, and was the largest empire the world had yet seen. By the reign of Ashurbanipal it controlled or held in vassalage most of the nations and city-states from the Caucasus Mountains (modern Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) in the north to Egypt, Arabia and Nubia in the south, and central Iran/Persia in the east to Cyprus and the Hellenic and Phoenician Mediterranean coasts of Anatolia and the Levant in the west. However, after the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC the once mighty empire of Assyria was becoming increasingly volatile, with Assyria proper erupting into a series of internal civil wars. This led many of the subject states, many of which had their own political dynasties, to become restive, where as neighbouring states and groups, such as the Medes, Persians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Cimmerians became increasingly hostile under the Assyrian hegemony. Assyrian had, by the accounts of its own records, been brutal even by the standards of the time, and thus had accumulated many hitherto impotent enemies. It had been weakened by a three front struggle to maintain power in Egypt, a costly but victorious war against the Elamites, and put down rebellions amongst their southern Mesopotamian Babylonian kinsmen, even though the core of the empire had been largely at peace. The Assyrian monarchs wrote constantly of internal danger, and fear of palace intrigue, and feared a rebellion. Upon the death of Ashurbanipal, a series of bitter and bloody wars of succession occurred, weakening the empire – the Neo-Assyrian domination over the Middle East, Asia Minor, Caucasus and East Mediterranean gradually began to fade from 625 BC onwards. An alliance grew up of external states, such as the Chaldeans who took advantage of the upheavals in Assyria to take control of much of Babylonia with the aid of the Babylonians themselves. They were building Babylonia into a power that is termed Neo-Babylonian. The goal was the overthrow of the Assyrian dynasty,the taking of the capital, Nineveh and the transferral of the seat of Mesopotamian power to Babylon. Nineveh was not only a political capital, but home to one of the great libraries of Akkadian tablets and a recipient of tribute from across the near east. (See Library of Ashurbanipal). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Nineveh (612 BC)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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