Don't know much except for it's story in Revelation. A whole country sent to ruin by a w*man.
Looks like revelation is going on right now in the USA.

>>267
The harlot in revelation is more of a representation of religion honestly.

It's funny. I was just thinking about Babylon as I was walking down the street today because I was thinking about the differences between the ancient civilizations on either side of the Himalayas. The Chinese irrigated from the many tributaries of the Yellow River and Western China remained fertile for thousands of years. Meanwhile, the Mesopotamians irrigated from the Persian Gulf and the salt water gradually turned the fertile crescent into a desert. This is because the Euphrates and Tigris had no tributaries and they were too unpredictable for common farmers to divert.

Then I was thinking about how Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon by diverting the Euphrates so he could get at the weakest part of the city's wall with his army. Later, a Queen who's name I forget used money from the Persians to divert the Euphrates around Babylon in order to build bridges. Before then, people had to take ferries or swim across the river.

>>277
Isn't the yellow river extremely polluted though? Also I think the Mesopotamian people were a lot smarter than you give them credit for they brought a lot of good in the world like most however they've also brought a lot of shit into the world which in this case overwhelms the good. It's also interesting to note that Assyria seemingly had the upper hand against babylon due to their warrior culture. It's similar to the contrast between sparta and greece in that regard.

>>282
>Greece
I meant Athens

>>282
Like any river surrounded by a farming culture, the water in the Yellow River was too contaminated to drink. But it was easy to irrigate.
Mesopotamians inability to irrigate had nothing to do with intelligence. It was just the nature of the river. Mesopotamians has a sophisticated trading system involving leather rafts they could fold up to reduce the need for manpower. They also invented screw pumps, batteries for electroplating coins, writing, and beer.

Also consider the political differences between Athens and Sparta. Athens had a sloppy democracy that amounted to little more than mod rule between the many aristocratic families. This is why disagreements often devolved into civil wars that ended in re-establishment of a tyranny. Then it was never long before the families that lost the civil war would join together to chase out the tyrant and re-establish a sloppy democracy that would devolve into fighting again.

The Spartans had more of a system of checks and balanced that resembled a primitive form of republicanism. They had an elected council of ephors that checked the power of the king. They had a "Gourgias" which was an elected council of elders that handled civil law and acted as a supreme court. And then they had the "Assembly" (which comprised all the Spartan men over 20) which had final say in all matters of war and peace. Though voting within these groups amounted to shouting over each other at the feast table (Aristotle called it childish) it gave them a sense of stability that the other city-states never had.

There is also a sense of national pride in Sparta that you don't see elsewhere. The city folk of Sparta and the surrounding countryside of Lacadaemon considered themselves as one people whereas Athens and rural Attica had a broader cultural line drawn between them.

>>285
Sorry, council of elders was called the "Gerousia"

>>284
The nile river was also extremely easy to irrigate I think I mixed up the nile with the tigris and Euphrates. Plus wasn't mesopotamia the dawn of civilization that's gotta count for something.

>>285
Spartans were actually a different type of greek called dorians in comparison to athens who were ionians. That's probably why sparta had a differing sense of pride. That's also why greece was effective split up into warring city states due to the tensions between the people groups. As sparta were the invaders.

>>289
The bottom section of Asia Minor was also Dorian and they didn't have much of a sense of unity. In fact, The Ionians on Asia Minor formed the "Ionian League" and it was probably the most solid alliance in Hellenic history.

The Nile wasn't really irrigated at all due to the way it flooded and dried up seasonally. The Egyptians would wait for silt deposits prior to flood season and farm only in those months. However, the Nile had a series of tributaries that the Tigris and Euphrates lacked, making northern Egypt into a marshy and fertile region, similar to western China.

And yes, the earliest cities were built in Mesopotamia. That was the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia who, as I said, invented writing and beer. They also had the earliest barter system.