The ancient metropolis that reached 200,000 people while Rome was still a village
In short: Explore the cinematic rise and fall of Babylon, from its origins as an unremarkable town to its status as history's first true megacity. This reconstruction reveals how one dynasty built walls wider than the Great Wall of China.
Babylon rose from a nomadic Amorite tribe seizing a small town, eventually becoming an empire under Hammurabi. On his first day of rule, Hammurabi famously forgave all debts and established laws protecting women, children, and slaves—rights that predated European legal protections by millennia.
The city faced destruction at the hands of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, who burned it and flooded its ruins. It was later rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II, who constructed the cobalt-blue Ishtar Gate and the ziggurat Etemenanki. The narrative explores how Babylon became a legend built atop its own ghosts, eventually falling to Persian conquest.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: The Rise and Fall of Babylon: History's Greatest City (2300 - 480 BC)
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