The invasion of the Sacæ certainly gave the most severe blow to the Assyrian kingdom: it reached the native territory, and broke the cohesion of the kingdom. The lands previously subjugated could not be protected, and therefore could not be maintained. We found above, that about the year 625 B.C., the Sacæ marched through Syria to the borders of Egypt. It is also certain, from the canon of Ptolemy, that it was the king of Assyria who succeeded Assurbanipal on the throne in 626 B.C., who named Nabopolassar his viceroy in Babylon, in order to protect Babylonia against the Sacæ. Nabopolassar cannot have entered into a league with Cyaxares of Media; Babylonia cannot have broken with Assyria; the rebellion against Saracus cannot have taken place, till Cyaxares was again master in his own land and the Sacæ were driven out of Media, whether this expulsion took place as recorded in Herodotus or in some other way. That Nabopolassar felt himself called upon to draw the league with Media as close as possible is clear from the fact that he at the same time married his son to the daughter of the king of Media. And he not only brought about this marriage, he did away with the war between Media and Lydia, and established an alliance between the royal families of the two nations. This war must be placed before the destruction of Assyria; had it not been necessary to set the forces of Media free against Assyria, the prince of Babylon would have had no interest in reconciling the differences between Lydia and Babylonia. After the destruction of Assyria it would have been much more advisable for Babylon that Media, whose power surpassed that of Babylonia, should be engaged elsewhere. This conclusion is confirmed by the eclipse which separated the armies of the Lydians and the Medes in the sixth year of the war, in the middle of a battle (p. 260). This took place in the year 610 B.C.[553] The war between Cyaxares of Media and Alyattes of Lydia must therefore have begun in the year 615 B.C.