Babylon (2026)

Babylon often seems more like myth than history, associated with the Hanging Gardens and the Tower of Babel and portrayed in the Bible as a symbol of sinful decadence. Yet it was a real city, teeming with life: a bustling metropolis on the Euphrates where schoolteachers, artisans, priests, slaves, prostitutes and soldiers crowded its maze-like streets and busy marketplaces. It was ruled by extraordinary figures, from Hammurabi the great lawgiver to Nebuchadnezzar II, the conquering king under whose reign Babylon glittered with gold and lapis lazuli. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones brings the city vividly to life, tracing its foundation, rise to world domination and eventual decline, fall and ruin. Ribald drinking songs, sharp letters exchanged between rival kings and other remarkable ancient sources inform this scholarly yet evocative account of a long-lost world.