45.) The passage is
not reprinted in the Hakluyt Society edition (vol. i, p. 122), where
only extracts from the letter are given.
5. The site of Nineveh was forgotten for a period even longer than
that stated by the author. Mr. Claudius Rich, the Resident at
Baghdad, was the first European to make a tentative identification of
Nineveh with the mounds opposite Mosal, in 1818. Real knowledge of
the site and its history dates from the excavations of Botta begun in
1843, and those of Layard begun two years later. (Bonomi, _Nineveh
and its Palaces_, 2nd ed., 1853; Layard, _Nineveh and its Remains_, 2
vols, 1849.) The author's account of the fall of Nineveh, based on
that of Diodorus Siculus, is not in accordance with the conclusions
of the best modern authorities. The destruction of the city in or
about 606 B.C. was really effected some years after the death of
Sardanapalus (Assur-banipal), in 625 B.C., by Nabopolassar (Nabupal-
uzur), the rebel viceroy of Babylon, in alliance with Necho of Egypt,
Cyaxares of Media, and the King of Armenia. The Assyrian monarch who
perished in the assault was not Sardanapalus (Assur-banipal), but his
son Assur-ebel-ili, or, according to Professor Sayce, a king called
Saracus, After the destruction of Nineveh, Babylon became the capital
of the Mesopotamian empire, and under Nebuchadrezzar
(Nebuchadnezzar), son of Nabopolassar, who came to the throne in 604
B.
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