than the leopard's, and more fierce than the evening wolves." Hence they
"smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke"--they "made the
earth to tremble, and did shake kingdoms"--they carried all before them
in their great enterprises, seldom allowing themselves to be foiled by
resistance, or turned from their course by pity. Exercised for centuries
in long and fierce wars with the well-armed and well-disciplined
Assyrians, they were no sooner quit of this enemy, and able to take an
aggressive attitude, than they showed themselves no unworthy successors
of that long-dominant nation, so far as energy, valor, and military
skill constitute desert. They carried their victorious arms from the
shores of the Persian Gulf to the banks of the Nile; wherever they went,
they rapidly established their power, crushing all resistance, and fully
meriting the remarkable title, which they seem to have received from
those who had felt their attacks, of "the hammer of the whole earth."

The military successes of the Babylonians were accompanied with needless
violence, and with outrages not unusual in the East, which the
historian must nevertheless regard as at once crimes and follies. The
transplantation of conquered races--a part of the policy of Assyria
which the Chaldaeans adopted--may perhaps have been morally defensible,
notwithstanding the sufferings which it involved. But the mutilations of
prisoners, the weary imprisonments, the massacre of non-combatants, the
refinement of cruelty shown in the execution of children before the eyes
of their fathers--these and similar atrocities, which are recorded of
the Babylonians, are wholly without excuse, since they did not so much
terrify as exasperate the conquered nations, and thus rather endangered
than added strength or security to the empire. A savage and inhuman
temper is betrayed by these harsh punishments--a temper common in
Asiatics, but none the less reprehensible on that account--one that led
its possessors to sacrifice interest to vengeance, and the peace of