Best wishes, John Green. So what happened to the Assyrians? Well, first, they extended their empire beyond their roads, making administration impossible. But more importantly, when your whole worldview is based on the idea that the apocalypse will come if you ever lose a battle, and then you lose one battle, the whole worldview just blows up. That eventually happened, and in 612 BCE, the city of Nineveh was finally conquered and the Neo-Assyrian Empire had come to its end. But the idea of empire was just getting started. Next week, we'll talk about mummies.