Age of Gold for Babylon At the beginning of the sixth century BC under the rule of Neubuchadnezzar, Babylon became reborn from the recent successful conquests and new wealth. After the Babylonians had promoted resistance under Sennacherib, their city had been destroyed only one hundred years earlier. Babylon first blossomed under the rule of Hammurabi. At the end of his reign Babylon had dominated an empire that stretched reaching almost to the sources of the Euphrates and down to the river's disgorging point in the Persian Gulf. After Hammurabi's reign Babylon, meaning the Gates of God, went through a period