ANCIENT HISTORY.

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but a more probable etymology refers it to "the gate" or "court" of the god Bel. Berosus, the Babylonian chronicler, preserves a tradition of the Biblical Babel. A lofty tower, he says, was erected on the plain where Babylon afterwards spread its palaces and gardens, but the winds assisted the gods in destroying it. Its ruins, he adds, still exist at Babylon; and that the city was called Babylon (from the Hebrew Babel, or "confusion"), because the gods there introduced a diversity of tongues among men, in order to deprive them in the future of the power of combination.

No other reference to Babylon occurs in the Bible until we come down to the reign of Hoshea, about 730 B.C., when its armies invaded Samaria, and carried away the people captive. Previous to this epoch, it would seem to have been of little importance; certainly inferior to the great Assyrian capital, Ninus; and certainly dependent upon the Assyrian Empire. Berosus and other ancient writers record various circumstances in connection with it, and perpetuate the names of some of its kings. But they are all so vague and uncertain, that we need not trouble the reader with them, or enter into any discussions as to their authenticity. Mardoch-Em

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CHALDEAN KINGS.

padus, one of these shadowy potentates, is generally identified with the Merodach-Baladan of the Bible, who despatched ambassadors to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery from sickness. Afterwards we read of Manasseh, king of Judah, as carried prisoner to Babylon by the king of Assyria. Next come the names of Saosduchinus and Chyniladanus, who appear to have reigned partly at Ninus (or Nineveh), and partly at Babylon. Throughout this period the Assyrian power was gradually declining, while the Chaldeans were growing in wealth, prosperity, and energy. About 625 B.C. Nabopolassar allied himself with the Medes in the capture of Nineveh, and his share of the victory seems to have been the independent sovereignty of Babylon, where he founded a dynasty destined to enjoy a brief but magnificent career.

Nabopolassar reigned for one and twenty years, and effected much towards the increase and consolidation of his kingdom, pushing his frontiers further and further westward, and beginning that embellishment of his capital which was completed by his son Nebuchadnezzar. The latter during the lifetime of his father, was engaged in checking the advance of Necho, king of Egypt, whom he completely defeated

REIGN OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.

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at Carchemish on the Euphrates. Afterwards he overran Palestine, marched forward to Jerusalem, received the homage of Jehoiakim, and carried the victorious arms of Babylon to the borders of Egypt. Thence he was recalled to the capital by the death of his father in 604 B.C.

He immediately addressed himself, with all the surprising vigour of his character, and with what Mr. Grote calls "his unbounded command of naked human strength," to the construction of those walls and palaces, quays and temples, which provoked the wonder of Herodotus, and called forth from Nebuchadnezzar himself the proud vaunt,-"Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?"

Of all the seats of empire either of the ancient or the modern world, Nebuchadnezzar's daring genius made Babylon the greatest. Something of that greatness was due to the advantages of its natural position. Its founders, as Dean Stanley remarks, had taken advantage of the "huge spur of tertiary rock" which projects from the Syrian desert into the alluvial basin of Mesopotamia, and upon it, as upon a dry and solid platform, had built their city; which

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HIS IMPERIAL CITY.

southward was defended by the lake-like river or estuary extending in that remote period from the Persian Gulf. On this vantage-ground it stood, exactly crossing the line of traffic between the Mediterranean coasts and the Iranian mountains; just also on that point where the Euphrates, sinking into a deeper bed, changes from a vast expanse into a manageable river, not wider than the Thames of our own metropolis; where, also, out of the deep rich alluvial clay it was easy to dig the bricks which from its earliest date supplied the material for its immense buildings, cemented by the bitumen which from that same early date came floating down the river from the springs in its upper course." But if it owed much to its geographical situation, it owed more to the magnificent conceptions of Nebuchadnezzar. The imagination must have been singularly lofty and daring which designed the giant works of imperial Babylon! It is true that he partly rebuilt the edifices of his predecessors; but all that was most wonderful and stately,—the Temple of Bel, the massive ramparts, the Hanging Gardens, the extensive quays, the broad canals,— these were planned and executed by Nebuchadnezzar himself.

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