NABOPOLASSAR. - Founder of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (Babylonian Nabû-apal-uṣur = "May Nabû protect the heir son"), who reigned from 625 to 605. He was originally only a prince of the Chaldeans, and he frankly admits to having been a "son of nobody," poor in power, but who ascended the throne "by the word of Nabû and of Marduk... and by the great and irresistible weapons of the terrible Girra." To the traditional policy of the Chaldeans and Babylonians — the yearning for independence and hostility toward the Assyrians — an excellent opportunity presented itself when in 626 the great Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, died, along with his representative Kandalânu, king of Babylon. N. then seized the throne of Babylon, probably recognized by the Assyrians, who remained in possession of Nippur, Uruk and the entire south of the Kingdom of Babylon. Thus in the early years he reigned over a very small territory and did not entirely sever relations with the throne of Nineveh. But, receiving around 619 from Sin-šar-iškun the mandate to subdue the tribes of the Sea, he openly rebelled and took from the Assyrians Nippur, Uruk and city after city, until he reigned more or less over all of Babylonia.
To defend himself against Assyrian claims he undertook the greatest work of his life: the complete overthrow of the Assyrian Empire. To this end he concluded an alliance, no longer with the ancient Elam, destroyed forever by Ashurbanipal, but with Media, a young people of shepherds and fierce warriors, then the greatest military power of the Near East, after Uvakšatra Yeretragna (Cyaxares) had reorganized the army to perfection on the Scythian and Assyrian models. Those supremely daring warriors were then the terror of human civilization, sparing not even the statues of the most venerated deities. The entire civilized world, with the exception of N., became aware of the danger, and Sin-šar-iškun found allies among the traditional enemies of Assyria, such as the Mannaeans (between Lake Van and Lake Urmia), Egypt, and at first, when they had not yet been defeated by the Medes, the Scythians.
A very long war was therefore waged, with battles of varying outcome, as the Chronicle of N. recounts for the years 616 to 609. From these war reports the superiority of the Medes appears; for example, in 615 N. undertook the occupation of the city of Aššur, was defeated, retreated to Takritain, where he was shut up in the fortress; in 614 the Medes captured Aššur; N. arrived when the battle was over, but nevertheless Cyaxares confirmed the alliance and Amyhia was given in marriage to the heir to the throne, Nebuchadnezzar.
The war was not yet over when Sin-šar-iškun, according to Greek reports, threw himself into the flames of his palace during the capture of Nineveh (612). A part of the Assyrian army managed to escape and Aššur-uballit established himself at Haran; the war of overthrow, in which the Babylonian army was soon placed under the brilliant command of Nebuchadnezzar, lasted until 605, when the pharaoh Necho was decisively defeated near Carchemish. Nebuchadnezzar pursued the Pharaoh at a walking pace as far as the brook of Egypt; there he learned that his father had died in Babylon and then, with a small retinue, he hastened to return as quickly as possible to Babylon so as not to lose the throne.
It is surprising that N., despite the relentless war, found leisure for many works of peace. He rebuilt the outer walls of the city of Babylon Nimitti-Bel, so that the people of the capital might dwell in peace. A stone bridge, built by him over the Euphrates to join the two halves of the city, was admired by Herodotus. He diverted the Euphrates back to Sippar, anciently called the "river of Sippar." With the splendor of Nineveh having set in 612, Babylon, then the largest city in the world, had to renew all its religious magnificence. He set about rebuilding the Etemenanki, the famous ziqqurrat of Babylon, and the princes Nebuchadnezzar and Nabū-šum-lišir had to carry bricks as simple laborers. He built a new temple to Ninurta in Babylon, as in Sippar another to the consort of Šamaš (the Sun god). He also endowed the temples with precious gifts, delivered every year. Thus the Chaldean king succeeded in winning the sympathy of the Babylonian priests, who were so influential throughout the entire Neo-Babylonian era as to constitute a serious problem of internal politics. N., more by diplomatic cunning than by arms, succeeded in realizing all the dreams of freedom and greatness common to the Chaldeans and to the city of Babylon, but even more the desires for vengeance, so as no longer to consider Assyria a member of Babylonian culture and a brother people. His ferocious allies, the Medes, had their hands free to destroy the the most famous temples, dedicated to Babylonian deities, such as the celebrated one of Ištar of Nineveh, founded by one of his predecessors, Maništušu, king of Akkad. The precious "libraries," such as the very great collection assembled with so much zeal by Ashurbanipal (v.), were destroyed and scattered among the ruins of Nineveh. This, for Babylonian civilization, was a cultural suicide at least in part. Another suicide of the Akkadian Semites occurred in the incredible massacres of human lives, comparable in every respect to those of Jerusalem in 586: slaughter of the upper classes, deportation of men fit for crafts and even of a great part of the agricultural population, so that, as at Aššur, only tiny and very poor communities survived.