A WALLED PROVINCE.

17

"Great Babylon!" 'Mighty Babylon!" Great and mighty, indeed; for though it never equalled the size and populousness of London, yet no ancient or modern city can be compared with it in the extent of its walled and enclosed area, which was not less than forty, some writers say sixty, miles in circumference. In truth, it was a province or a country enclosed within a city. Its houses were so intermingled with gardens and parks, and shadowy woods, that its appearance was rather that of a richly cultivated and thickly inhabited countryside than of a city; and yet it preserved a city's order and regularity. The streets, like those of modern Washington, were laid out in rectangles, and were uniformly straight, as well as uniformly wide. houses, unlike those of most ancient cities, were three or four stories high. But the grandeur of Babylon consisted mainly in the gigantic dimensions of its public buildings, surpassing even those of Thebes, Memphis, or Abusimbel. Though now reduced to ruins, their colossal piles, says Ainsworth, domineering over the monotonous plain, produce an effect of grandeur and magnificence which cannot be imagined in any other situation.

"Great Babylon!"

(608)

The

Mighty Babylon!" Great

2

18

THE BRIDGE OVER THE EUPHRATES.

and mighty, indeed, with its towering walls,according to Herodotus, not less than three hundred feet high,-protecting it from any sudden enemy, as the Celestial Empire was protected by the Great Wall of China, or Roman Britain by the Wall of Severus. Along their summit ran a vast terrace, broad enough to admit of the turning of chariots with four horses,-fifty cubits broad, says Herodotus. At their foot yawned a wide deep trench or moat; and through a hundred brazen gates they gave egress and ingress to the waves of life incessantly pouring out of and into the glorious city. Across the Euphrates was thrown a noble bridge, with a castle or palace at each end, commanding an extensive view over the enclosed area, and forming the keys of their several positions. The inner walls of the western castle were embellished with numerous life-like representations of animals; and its towers with pictures of hunting scenes, among which, at a later date, a Greek traveller saw one of Semiramis slaying a leopard, and of Ninus, her husband, attacking a lion with a lance.

"Great Babylon!"

Mighty Babylon!" What

stir and activity and life pulsed in those broad streets, which all abutted on the river; and that

THE RIVER-COMMERCE.

19

river, how was it thronged with vessels of all sizes, loaded with the products of far-off climes ! In Nebuchadnezzar's monumental inscription he is represented as saying: "Of the great waters, like the waters of the ocean, I made use abundantly. Their depth was like the depths of the vast sea.' The Babylonians were at that time pre-eminently a commercial people; their city, a city of merchant princes. From the bitumen pits of Hit the river brought down the cement with which the builders raised their enormous piles; gems and rare wines were imported from Phoenicia; tin, perhaps, from remote Britain; huge blocks of basalt from Armenia and Kurdistan; frankincense and spices and costly woods from Arabia and India. When at a later epoch the name of Babylon was transferred to the West to indicate the greatness and splendour of its Imperial City, the recollection of the traffic of the Euphrates, says Dean Stanley, had lived on with so fresh a memory that it was immediately associated with its Italian substitute, Rome. To the inland capital on the banks of the narrow Tiber it was wholly inapplicable; but the fact that the imagery had thus survived, and was thus made use of, shows how profound an impression had been made on the

20

THE PALACE OF THE KINGS.

minds of the Hebrew exiles by the opulence of the Chaldean metropolis:-"The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all wood of incense, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and of iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men; the shipmasters, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, and the craftsmen, and the merchants who were the great men of the earth.”

Among the edifices which adorned this rich, this powerful, and busy city, two were pre-eminent in grandeur-the Palace of its Kings, and the Temple of Bel.

The Palace was larger than many cities; for with its gardens, groves, and lakes, it measured seven miles in circumference. The walls were covered with spirited paintings; in the interior was brought together all that the ancient world could furnish of the things that minister to luxury and ease. The Hanging Gardens, devised by Nebuchadnezzar for