Babylon

Origins and formation

Babylon stood on the lower Euphrates in southern Mesopotamia, in modern Hillah, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad. It was the cultural and political center of Babylonia. Its rulers built two empires: an Old Babylonian empire in the nineteenth to sixteenth centuries BC, and a Neo-Babylonian empire in the seventh to sixth. The earliest known mention of the place as a small town is a tablet from the reign of Shar-Kali-Sharri, 2217–2193 BC, when it was a town of the Akkadian Empire, not an independent state. After that empire fell, the Third Dynasty of Ur ruled Mesopotamia, including the town. In the early second millennium the town was part of a small city-state. Hammurabi, the sixth Amorite king, reigned from about 1792 to 1750 BC and founded the Old Babylonian Empire in the eighteenth century, conquering Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari. The guide begins “from the time of Hammurabi.” The biography of the king supplies the years. The town is older than the empire.^{[1] [2] [3]}

Defining periods

The guide runs from Hammurabi to the height of Nebuchadnezzar II and says the city was the center of Mesopotamian culture, changed hands several times, overthrew the Assyrian Empire, and reached through the Levant and northern Arabia. The Persians conquered it in 539 BCE, and the guide says the city stayed prosperous long into the next millennium. The history page says Babylon was also a regional capital of other empires, including the Achaemenid, and that it declined in the Hellenistic period. The published Assyria essay is the empire this guide says Babylon overthrew. Nineveh fell in 612 BCE on that essay’s sources. The overthrow and the Persian conquest of 539 are not the same event. The published Achaemenid essay is a later Persian story. This essay does not make Xerxes the conqueror of 539.^{[1] [3]}

The Hanging Gardens are the wonder, and the English page says they are found in the base game. The history page ranks them, with the walls, among the seven wonders, places them supposedly between about 600 BC and AD 1, and says some scholars doubt they existed because no surviving Babylonian text mentions them. A wonder that feeds farms is a rule. It is not proof the gardens stood, and a base-game wonder is not a base-game label for this civilization.^{[1] [3]}

The two empires are easy to collapse because they share a city. The Old Babylonian empire is Hammurabi’s, in the eighteenth century BC, after a town that already existed under Akkadian and Ur III kings. The Neo-Babylonian empire is the seventh and sixth centuries, the height the guide attaches to Nebuchadnezzar II, and the age of the supposed gardens. A millennium sits between them. The guide’s sentence that the city changed hands several times is the right caution. It is not a license to treat Hammurabi’s law and Nebuchadnezzar’s walls as one reign, and this essay does not date a law code the lead does not quote.^{[1] [2] [3]}

The Persian conquest of 539 BCE ended Babylonian independence without ending the city. The history page says Babylon remained important until a Hellenistic decline, and that it served as a regional capital of other empires, including the Achaemenid. The guide says prosperity lasted long into the next millennium. Prosperity and independence are different. The published Assyria essay stops at the fall of the Assyrian state. It does not narrate Babylon’s life under Persia. The gardens, if they stood, belong to the later city, and the scholars who doubt them are doubting a wonder, not Hammurabi.^{[1] [3]}

Legacy and interpretation

The legacy on the history page is two empires, a city that outlasted its independence, and a Hellenistic decline. The guide’s legacy is cultural centrality that survived 539. Both can stand if Hammurabi’s eighteenth century and Nebuchadnezzar’s sixth are not one reign. The apex is Antiquity. The catalog follows it. The Chinese page writes that apex as the classical age.^{[1] [3] [4]}

A closer look

The ability, City at the Center of the World, grants an extra growth event whenever a food building, a culture building, or a wonder is built in a city, and it lowers the settlement limit at the start of each age. The guide’s tip says the lower limit needs planning and that population makes up for it. That is advice about a rule. It is not Hammurabi’s conquest of Mari. The traditions include a hymn of Ammi-ditana, a word for route, and terms for citizens and for a calling to account. The Chinese page names them in its own words. The improvement must sit by a river and is limited to one in a settlement. The merchant gains culture when a route leaves the capital, scaled by distance and game speed. The ranged unit is cheaper where an altar stands. Yields stay on the guide. This essay does not copy the growth event as a population strategy.^{[2] [3] [4]}

In Civilization VII

The English guide names the ability, the traditions, the river improvement, the merchant, the ranged unit, and the Hanging Gardens. The simplified Chinese guide titles the city with its Chinese name and places the civilization in the Hall of History Collection, two leaders and three civilizations. The base game is required. Owning the collection means the content is already owned. The gardens’ base-game line is not that statement. The catalog chip is the collection. The apex is Antiquity, which is the codex age.^{[3] [4]}

The first step back from the growth event is to keep the Akkadian town, Hammurabi’s reign of about 1792–1750 BC, the Neo-Babylonian height, the overthrow of Assyria, and the Persian conquest of 539 BCE in that order. The published Assyria essay is the other empire.^{[1] [2] [3]}