The classical writers of antiquity begin in general their universal history by an account of the Assyro-Babylonian empire, which preceded the Medo-Persian, and the annals of the early mythic ages of this empire are embellished with the fabulous victories of Semiramis; as similar fictions indeed are to be found in the primitive Sagas of all the other Asiatic nations. However, the conquest of Media by Ninus, appears to be more historical. The simplest, and for that reason, the most correct view of the subject is this, that in this great central region of Western Asia, four countries were contiguous, which often formed separate empires--Babylon and Assyria, Media and Persia; and which, when united, were governed sometimes by one, sometimes by another province, according to the country to which the ruling dynasty belonged; while the different capitals of these four countries, Babylon, Ninive, Ecbatana, Susa, or Persepolis alternately formed during their flourishing period the centre of a great empire. This first Assyro-Babylonian universal monarchy, as it is called, should not be considered as a distinct period of history, but rather as the most ancient dynasty of a great Asiatic empire, which was succeeded by a second, the Medo-Persian dynasty; in the same way as the successors of Alexander the Great founded in this very country a new Greek kingdom, and as at a later period the Parthians, whose original seat lay to the North-east, re-established in this land a native sovereignty, that proved very formidable to the Romans. This great middle country of Western Asia is the native seat of conquest; it was hence that emanated the spirit of ambition and enterprise, which found indeed in the very situation of the country most extraordinary facilities. And it is here, too, that Holy Writ places the abode of the first universal conqueror--the cradle of all ambition and conquest. In the very place where the ancient Babylon stood there are now immense ruins, to which the inhabitants of the country give the name of Nimrod's castle, and which involuntarily bring to the modern traveller's mind the old history of the Tower of Babel; as these ruins in all probability formed a part of the great temple of Belus, which in eight lofty stories rose to a prodigious height, and on the pinnacle whereof stood a colossal idol of the National Divinity--the sun. Even now the ruins of this temple, piled in immense heaps one upon the other, and which seem as if glazed by some raging fire, produce a very profound impression on the mind; and to such a height do they rise that the clouds rest on their summit above, while lions couch on the walls, or haunt the caverns below. Here, too, we look for the place where were the vast terraces, with their hanging or floating gardens, as the ancients called them, and which in a country by no means abounding in wood, the Assyrian monarch constructed from affection to his Median spouse. Here the widely scattered heaps and mounds of brick, inscribed with the cuneal characters of Babylon, attest the existence and vast circumference of the mighty capital, of whose dimensions no European city, but the Asiatic cities only, can furnish an adequate idea. This Babylonish tower has been in every age a figure of the heaven-aspiring edifice of lordly arrogance, which sooner or later is sure to be struck down and scattered afar by the arm of the divine Nemesis; and in Holy Writ itself, the Babylon giddied by the intoxicating cup of ambition, drunk with the blood of nations, is a mighty historical emblem, applicable to every age from the earliest to the latest times, of the mad, people-destroying career of a Pagan pride. Here did the evil commence, although the first Assyrian empire had no very extensive influence on the nations westward, and although the real epoch of universal conquest dates from the Persian Cyrus. Yet the ancient Babylon contrived to maintain her power, for, as has so often been exemplified in history, she, by the moral contagion of her voluptuous manners, conquered her conquerors, who abandoned the gods of their ancestors, to embrace the sensual nature-worship of the Babylonians. In the new monarchy founded by Cyrus, the Persians (now the ruling nation) were closely united and politically, at least, incorporated with the once more powerful Medes. Yet their race and language were originally very different, and even at a later period we can still observe some traces of mutual jealousy in a change of dynasty, or the forcible dethronement of the prince.