Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/375

BABYLON. century and a half later than Herodotus, we have only a few fragments. We hare no proof that Arrian or Strabo themselves visited Babylon, though the treatise of the former has this value, that he drew his information from the Notes of Aristobulus and Ptolemy the son of Lagus, who were there with Alexander. Of Cleitarchus, who also accompanied Alexander, and wrote rii irtpi 'AAe{ax8pov, we have no remains, unless, as has been supposed by some, his work was the basis of that by Curtius. The incidental remarks of Herodotus have a manifest appearance of truth, and convey the idea of personal experience. Thus, in i. 177, he distinguishes between the length of the Royal and the Ordinary Cubit; in L 182, 183, he expresses his doubts on some of the legends which he heard about the Temple of Belus, though the structure itself (or its remains) he evidently must have seen, as he de- scribes it as still existing {it ifi^ rovro tri tov^ L 181.) His account also of the country round Babylon (L 179, and i. 192—200) is, as is shown elsewhere [Babylonia], confirmed by all other writers, as well ancient as modern. According to Herodotus, Babylon, which, after the fall of Ninus, became the seat of the Assyrian empire (L 178), had already been ruled over by several kings, and by two remarkable queens. Semi- ramis and Nitocris, at an interval of five generations from one to the other. (L 184, 185.) Of these, the elder erected immense embankments to keep the water of the Euphrates within its proper channel, the second made the course of the Euphrates, which had previously been straight, so tortuous that it thrice passed the village of Arderioca, dug an im- mense lake, and having turned the waters of the river into this lake, faced its banks with a wall of baked bricks, and threw a bridge across within Babylon, so as to connect the two sides of the river, (i. 186.) Herodotus adds a story of her tomb, which we may reasonably question, as he himself could only have heard of it by tradition when he was at Babylon (L 187), and states that it was against the son of this queen, Labynetus, that Cyrus marched. Labynetns' is, therefore, the Nabonnedus of Berossus, the Belshaazar of Holy Scripture. Herodotus says nothing about the founders of Babylon, and what is scarcely less remarkable, does not mention Nebu- chadnezzar, — ^he simply describes the town as we may presume he saw it. He states that it was placed in a great plain, and was built as no other city was wiSi which he was acquainted; that it was in form an exact square, each side being 120 stadia long, with a broad and deep trench round it, the materials dug from which helped to make the bricks, of which a wall 200 royal cubits high, and 50 broad, was composed. Warm bitumen procured from the vilbige of Is (now HU) served for mortar, a layer of reeds being inserted at every thirtieth coone. (i. 178, 179.) A hundred brazen gates opened into the dty, which was divided into two distinct quarters by the Euphrates, had all its streets at right angles one to the other, and many houses of three and four stories, (i. 180.) Another wall, hardly inferior in strength, but less gigantic, went round the dty within Uie one just described. In each of the two quarters of the dty, there was an immense structure : one, the Royal Palace, the other, the brazen-gated Temple of Belus, within a square space two stadia each way, itself one stadium in leqgth and breadth; on the ground-plan of which A series of eight towers were built, one alcove the other. BABTLON. 357 He adds some further remarks about the temple, and speaks of several things,whiGh, as we have remarked, he did not see, and, apparently, did not believe (i. 181 — 183). The vast size Herodotus gives to Babylon has, in modern days, led schdan to doubt his history altogether, or at least to imagine he must have been misinformed, and to adopt the shorter measures which have been given by other authors. (Grosskurd, ad Strab. xvi. p. 738 ; Heeren, At.Nat. ; Olearins, ad Philostr. Vit ApolL i. 25.) Yet the reasoning on which they have rested seems incon- clusive; it is as difficult or as easy to believe in the 360 stadia of Ctedas (himself also an eye-witness) as in the 480 stadia of Herodotns. All that was required to effect such works was what the rulers of Babylon had, an ample supply of human labour and time; and, with more than thirty pyramids in Egypt and the wall of China still existing, who can set bounds to what they might accompl^h ? ^ The dmple narrative of Herodotus we find much amplified, when we tum to later writers. According to Diodorus (ii. 6), who, apparently, is quoting from Ctesias, Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, king of Assyria, founded Babylon (according to one state- ment, after the death of Ninus), and built its walls of burnt brick and asphalt, and accomplished many other great works, of which the following are the prindpal: — 1. A bridge across the EufJuates, where it was narrowest, five stadia long. (Strab. xvi. p. 738, says its breadth was only one staidium, in which opinion Mr. Rich {^Babjfionf p. 53] very nearly concurs.) 2. Two palaces or castles at eadi end of the bridge, on the £. aud W. ddes of the river, com- manding an extendve view over the dty, and the keys of their respective positions. On the inner walls of the western castle were numerous paintings of animals, excellently expressing thdr natural ap- pearance ; and on the towers representations of hunting scenes, and among them one of Semiramis herself slaying a leopard, and of Ninus, her husband, attacking a lion with a lance. (Is it posdble that Ctesias preserves here a popular tradition of the bas-reliefii lately discovered at Nimrud and Khor- tabddj — the situation of the scenes having been changed from Assyria to Babylonia?) This palace he states far exceeded in magnificence that on the other side of the river. 3. The temple of Belus or Zeus, in the centre of the dty, a work which, in his day, he adds, had totally disappeared (Diod. vi. 9), ai^ in which were golden statues and sacrificial vessels and imple- ments. On the other hand, many of the andents, besides Herodotus, seem to have doubted the attribution to Semiramis of the foundation of Babylon. Thus Berossus (ap. Joseph, c. Ap. 1) states that it was a fiction of the Gredcs that Semiramis built Babylon ; Abydenus (ap. £uteb, Praqt. ix.) that Belus sur- rounded the town with a wall, the view also taken by Dorotheus Sidonius, preserved in Julius FirmicTis. Curtius (v. 1) affirms the double tradition, and Ammianus (xxiiL 6) gives the building of the walls to Semiramis and that of the dtadel to Bdus : lastly, Orodus (ii. 6) asserts that it was founded by Ninvod the Giant, and restored by Ninus or Semi- ramis. It has been suggested that the story of Bdus is, after all, a Chaldaean legend : but this can- not, we tliink, be satisfactorily shown (see, however, Volney, Ckron, Bab.; Perizon. Orig. Bab,; and Freinsheim. ad Curt. v. 1).