After the defeat of Darius and the overthrow of the Persian supremacy, Babylon opened its gates to Alexander, who deemed the city not unworthy to become the capital of his mighty empire. On his return from India he wished to rebuild the temple of Belus, which had fallen into ruins, and in that great work he had intended to employ his army, now no longer needed for war. The priests, however, who had appropriated the revenues of this sacred shrine, and feared lest they would have again to apply them to their rightful purposes, appear to have prevented him from carrying out his design.[221] The last blow to the prosperity and even existence of Babylon was given by Seleucus when he laid the foundation of his new capital on the banks of the Tigris (B. C. 322). Already Patrocles, his general, had compelled a large number of the inhabitants to abandon their homes, and to take refuge in the Desert, and in the province of Susiana. The city, exhausted by the neighbourhood of Seleucia, returned to its ancient solitude. According to some authors, neither the walls nor the temple of Belus existed any longer, and only a few Chaldæans continued to dwell around the ruins of their sacred edifices. Still, however, a part of the population appears to have returned to their former seats, for in the early part of the second century of the Christian era we find the Parthian king, Evemerus, sending numerous families from Babylon into Media to be sold as slaves, and burning many great and beautiful edifices still standing in the city. In the time of Augustus, the city is said to have been entirely deserted, except by a few Jews who still lingered amongst the ruins. St. Cyril, of Alexandria, declares, that in his day, about the beginning of the fifth century, in consequence of the choking up of the great canals derived from the Euphrates, Babylon had become a vast marsh: and fifty years later the river is described as having changed its course, leaving only a small channel to mark its ancient bed. Then were verified the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, that the mighty Babylon should be but "pools of water," "that the sea should come upon her, and that she should be covered with the multitude of the waves thereof."[222] In the beginning of the seventh century, at the time of the Arab invasion, the ancient cities of Babylonia were "a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness." Amidst the heaps that marked the site of Babylon herself there rose the small town of Hillah.[223] Long before Babylon had overcome her rival Nineveh she was famous for the extent and importance of her commerce. No position could have then been more favourable than hers for carrying on a trade with all the regions of the known world. Even only moderate skill and enterprise could scarcely fail to make Babylon, not only the emporium of the Eastern world, but the main link of commercial intercourse between the East and the West.