“The city and its houses, from its foundations to its walls, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire.  The wall and outer wall, temple-tower of brick and earth, temples and gods, and many as there were, I razed and dumped into the Arahtu-Canal.  Through the midst of the city I dug canals, flooded its site with water, and the very foundations thereof I destroyed.  I made its destruction more complete than by a flood.  That, in days to come, the site of the city, its temples and gods, might not be remembered, I completely blotted it out with floods of water, and made it like a meadow.” – Sennacherib of Assyria In the early seventh century BC, Sennacherib wrestled with Judean defiance, Urartian resurgence and Elamite invasion, but his destruction of the ancient city of Babylon led to his demise.  His son, Esarhaddon, warred against the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa to extend Assyrian domination into lower Egypt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices