Similar means were employed under both empires to check and discourage rebellion--mutilations and executions of chiefs, pillage of the rebellious region, and wholesale deportation of its population.

Babylon, equally with Assyria, failed to win the affections of the subject nations, and, as a natural result, received no help from them in her hour of need.

Her system was to exhaust and oppress the conquered races for the supposed benefit of the conquerors, and to impoverish the provinces for the adornment and enrichment of the capital.

The wisest of her monarch's thought it enough to construct works of public utility in Babylonia Proper, leaving the dependent countries to themselves, and doing nothing to develop their resources.

This selfish system was, like most selfishness, short-sighted; it alienated those whom it would have been true policy to conciliate and win.