... century that one of these intruding elements attained sufficient independence and security of tenure to begin to exalt Babylonia again into a mistress of foreign empire. At that date the first Nebuchadnezzar, a part of whose own annals has been recovered, seems to have established overlordship in some part of Mediterranean Asia—Martu, the West Land; but this empire perished again with its author. By 1000 B.C. Babylon was once more a small state divided against itself and threatened by rivals in the ... — The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth