century and a half later than Herodotus, we have only a few fragments. We have 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 тà πepì 'Aλéğavdpov, 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 i. 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 describes it as still existing (ès éuè Toûto ěti čov, i. 181.) His account also of the country round Babylon (i. 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 (i. 178), had already been ruled over by several kings, and by two remarkable queens, Semiramis and Nitocris, at an interval of five generations from one to the other. (i. 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 Ardericca, dug an immense 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 (i. 187), and states that it was against the son of this queen, Labynetus, that Cyrus marched. Labynetus is, therefore, the Nabonnedus of Berossus, the Belshazzar of Holy Scripture. Herodotus says nothing about the founders of Babylon, and what is scarcely less remarkable, does not mention Nebuchadnezzar, 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 with 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 village of Is (now Hit) served for mortar, a layer of reeds being inserted at every thirtieth course. (i. 178, 179.) A hundred brazen gates opened into the city, 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 storie. (i. 180.) Another wall, hardly inferior in strength, but less gigantic, went round the city within the one just described. In each of the two quarters of the city, 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 length and breadth; on the ground-plan of which a series of eight towers were built, one above the other. He adds some further remarks about the temple, and speaks of several things,which, 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 scholars 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, As. Nat.; Olearius, ad Philostr. Vit. Apoll. i. 25.) Yet the reasoning on which they have rested seems inconclusive; it is as difficult or as easy to believe in the 360 stadia of Ctesias (himself also an eye-witness) as in the 480 stadia of Herodotus. 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 accomplish? The simple narrative of Herodotus we find much amplified, when we turn 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 statement, 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 principal: 1. A bridge across the Euphrates, where it was narrowest, five stadia long. (Strab. xvi. p. 738, says its breadth was only one stadium, in which opinion Mr. Rich [Babylon, p. 53] very nearly concurs.) 2. Two palaces or castles at each end of the bridge, on the E. and W. sides of the river, commanding an extensive view over the city, and the keys of their respective positions. On the inner walls of the western castle were numerous paintings of animals, excellently expressing their natural appearance; 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 possible that Ctesias preserves here a popular tradition of the bas-reliefs lately discovered at Nimrúd and Khorsabád, 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 city, a work which, in his day, he adds, had totally disappeared (Diod. vi. 9), and in which were golden statues and sacrificial vessels and implements. On the other hand, many of the ancients, 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 Greeks that Semiramis built Babylon; Abydenus (ap. Euseb. Praep. ix.) that Belus surrounded the town with a wall, the view also taken by Dorotheus Sidonius, preserved in Julius Firmicus. Curtius (v. 1) affirms the double tradition, and Ammianus (xxiii. 6) gives the building of the walls to Semiramis and that of the citadel to Belus : lastly, Orosius (ii. 6) asserts that it was founded by Nimrod the Giant, and restored by Ninus or Semiramis. It has been suggested that the story of Belus is, after all, a Chaldaean legend: but this cannot, we think, be satisfactorily shown (see, however, Volney, Chron. Bab.; Perizon. Orig. Bab.; and Freinsheim. ad Curt. v. 1). Of the successors of Semiramis (supposing that | staspes, we hear nothing of it. In the reign, howshe did reign in or found an empire at Babylon) we are in almost entire ignorance; though some names, as we have seen, have been preserved in Ptolemy (Astron. Canon.), and elsewhere. With regard to Nebuchadnezzar, another and an ingenious theory has been put forth, which seems generally to have found favour with the German writers. According to Heeren (As. Nat. i. p. 382), it has been held that, some time previous to Nebuchadnezzar's ascent of the throne in Babylon, a revolution had taken place in Western Asia, whereby a new race, who, descending from the north, had been for some time partially established in the plain country of Babylonia, became the ruling people; and that Nebuchadnezzar was their first great sovereign. The difficulty of accounting for the Chaldaeans has given a plausibility to this theory, which however we do not think it really merits. The Bible does not help us, as there is a manifest blank between Esarhaddon and Nebuchadnezzar which cannot be satisfactorily filled up, if at all, from fragments on which we cannot rely. So far as the Bible is concerned, Nebuchadnezzar appears before us from first to last, simply as a great ruler, called, indeed, the Chaldaean, but not, as we think. for that reason, necessarily of a race different from the other people of the country. Diodorus, indeed (ii. 10), attributes the Hanging Gardens to a Syrian king, telling the same story which we find in Berossus. It is probable, however, that he and Curtius (v. 1) use the word Syrian in the more extended sense of the word Assyrian, for all western and southern Asia, between Taurus and the Persian Gulf. Differing accounts have been given of the manner in which Babylon was taken, in the Bible, in Herodotus, and in Xenophon's Cyropaedeia. That in the Bible is the shortest. We are simply told (Dan. v. 2-11) that Belshazzar, while engaged at a great feast, was alarmed by a strange writing on the wall of his banqueting room, which Daniel interpreted to imply the immediate destruction of the empire by the combined army of the Medes and Persians. In that night," the Sacred Record adds, "was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldaeans slain." (Dan. v. 28.) Herodotus (i. 177, seq.) describes the gradual advance of the army under Cyrus, and his attempt to take the city by a regular siege, which, however, its vast extent compelled him to convert into a blockade. He mentions the draining the waters of the Euphrates by means of a canal cut above the city, and that by this means the Persians were enabled to enter the city, the water being only thigh-deep, the inhabitants being more careless of their defences, as the day on which they entered happened to be one of their great festivals. (Her. i. 191.) The narrative of Xenophon (Cyrop. vii. 5) is substantially the same, though he gives many details which are not found elsewhere. He mentions especially, that the time of attack was one of general festivity, the drunkenness of the royal guards, and the death of the king on the palace being forced. The subsequent history of Babylon may be told in a few words. From the time of its overthrow by Cyrus it never recovered its previous splendour, though it continued for some centuries a place of considerable importance, and the winter residence of its conqueror Cyrus during seven months of each year. (Xen. Cyrop. viii. 7. § 22.) Between the reign of Cyrus and that of Dareius, the son of Hy ever, of the latter king, Herodotus (iii. 150) mentions a revolt of the Babylonians, and the cruel plan they adopted to prevent a scarcity of provision in the siege they expected: he appears, however, to have confounded this revolt with a subsequent one which took place in the reign of Xerxes. (Ctes. Persic. ap. Phot. p. 50, ed. Didot.) Herodotus, however, states that, at this time, the walls of the city were beaten down, which Cyrus had left standing, and 3000 of the inhabitants were put to death; though Berossus (ap. Joseph. c. Apion. i. 20) and Eusebius (Chron. Armen. i. p. 75) say that Cyrus only destroyed the outer walls. In neither case is it indeed necessary to suppose that much more ruin was caused than was necessary to render the place useless as one of strength. It is certain that Babylon was still the chief city of the empire when Alexander went there; so that the actual injury done by Dareius and Xerxes could not have been very great. The Behistan inscription mentions two revolts at Babylon, the first of which was put down by Dareius himself, who subsequently spent a considerable time there, while the second was quelled by his lieutenant. (Rawlinson, As. Journ. vol. x. pp. 188-190.) In the reign of Xerxes, Herodotus (i. 183) states that that king plundered the Temple of Belus of the golden statue which Dareius had not dared to remove; and Arrian (vii. 17) adds, that he threw down the temple itself, on his return from Greece, and that it was in ruins when Alexander was at Babylon, and was desirous of rebuilding it, and of restoring it to its former grandeur. Strabo (xvi. p. 738) adds, that he was unable to do so, as it took 10,000 men to clear away the ruins. Pliny (vi. 26), on the other hand, appears to have thought that the temple of Belus was still existing in his time. From the time of Alexander's death its decay became more rapid. Strabo (xvi. p. 738) states, that of those who came after him (Alexander) none cared for it; and the Persians, time, and the carelessness of the Macedonians aided its destruction. Shortly after, Seleucus Nicator built Seleuceia, and transferred to it the seat of government, till, at length, adds the geographer, speaking probably of his own time, it may be said of Babylon, as was said of Megalopolis by the Comic poet, "The vast city is a vast desert (Cf. also Plin. vi. 26; Paus. iv. 31, viii. 33; Dion Cass. lxxv. 9.) But though Babylon had ceased, after the foundation of Seleuceia, to be a great city, it still continued for many centuries to exist. At the time that Demetrius Poliorcetes took Babylon, two fortresses still remained in it (Diod. xix. 100), one only of which he was able to take. Evemerus, a king of Parthia, B. C. 127, reduced many of the Babylonians to slavery, and sent their families into Media, burning with fire many of their temples, and the best parts of their city. About B. C. 36 a considerable number of Jews were resident in Babylon, so that when Hyrcanus the High Priest was released from confinement by Phraates, king of Parthia, he was permitted to reside there (Joseph. Ant. xv. 2), and that this Babylon was not, as has been supposed by some, another name for Seleuceia, is, we think, clear, because when Josephus (Ant. xviii. 2. § 4, viii. 9. §§ 8, 9) speaks of Seleuceia, he adds, "on the Tigris," showing, therefore, that he was acquainted with its position. In the reign of Augustus, we learn from Diodorus that but a small part was still inhabited, the re mainder of the space within the walls being under cultivation. Strabo, as we have seen, looked upon it as a desert, when he wrote in the reign of Augustus, though, at the same time, manifestly as a place still existing, as he draws a parallel between it and Seleuceia, which, he says, was at that time the greater city; so great, indeed, that Pliny (v. 26) asserts it contained 600,000 inhabitants; and according to Eutrop. (v. 8) at the time of its destruction, 500,000. Indeed, it is the magnitude of Seleuceia that has misled other writers. Thus Stephanus B. speaks of Babylon as a Persian metropolis called Seleuceia, and Sidonius Apollinaris (ix. 19, 20) describes it as a town intersected by the Tigris. When Lucan speaks of the trophies of Crassus which adorned Babylon, he clearly means Seleuceia. A few years later it was, probably, still occupied by a considerable number of inhabitants, as it appears from 1 Peter, v. 13, that the First Epistle of St. Peter was written from Babylon, which must have been between A. D. 49-63. It has indeed been held by many (though we think without any sufficient proof) that the word Babylon is here used figuratively for Rome; but it is almost certain that St. Peter was not at Rome before A. D. 62, at the earliest, while the story of his having been at Babylon is confirmed by Cosmas Indico-Pleustes, who wrote in the time of Justinian. Again, not more than twenty years earlier there was evidently a considerable multitude (probably of Jews) in Babylon, as they were strong enough to attack and defeat two formidable robbers, Anilaeus and Asinaeus, who had for some time occupied a fortress in the neighbourhood. (Joseph. Ant. xviii. 9.) The writers of the succeeding century differ but little in their accounts. Thus Lucian of Samosata (in the reign of M. Aurelius) speaks of Babylon as a city which once had been remarkable for its numerous towers and vast circumference, but which would soon be, like Ninus (Nineveh), a subject for investigation. (Lucian, Charon. 23, Philopatr. 29.) In the third century, Eusebius of Caesareia states that the people of the surrounding country, as well as strangers, avoided it, as it had become completely a desert. St. Jerome believed that the ancient walls had been repaired, and that they surrounded a park in which the kings of Persia kept animals for hunting. He states that he learnt this from an Elamite father residing at Jerusalem, and it is certain that he was satisfied that in his time there were few remains of Babylon. St. Cyril of Alexandreia, about A. D. 412, tells us that the canals drawn from the Euphrates having filled up, the soil of Babylon had become nothing better than a marsh. Theodoret, who died A. D. 460, states it was no longer inhabited either by Assyrians or Chaldaeans, but only by some Jews, whose houses were few and scattered. He adds that the Euphrates had changed its course, and passed through the town by a canal. Procopius of Gaza, in the middle of the sixth century, speaks of Babylon as a place long destroyed. was infested. (Rich, Babylon, Introd. pp. xxviixxix.) The ruins of Babylon, which commence a little S. of the village of Mohawill, 8 miles N. of Hillah, have been examined in modern times by several travellers, and by two in particular, at the interval of seven years, the late Resident at Baghdád, Mr. Rich, in 1811, and Sir Robert K. Porter, in 1818. The results at which they have arrived are nearly identical, and the difference between their measurements of some of the mounds is not such as to be of any great importance. According to Mr. Rich, almost all the remains indicative of the former existence of a great city are to be found on the east side of the river, and consist at present of three principal mounds, in direction from N. to S., called, respectively, by the natives, the Mujelebè, the Kasr, and Amran Ibn Ali, from a small mosque still existing on the top of it. On the west side of the river, Mr. Rich thought there were no remains of a city, the banks for many miles being a perfect level. To the NW., however, there is a considerable mound, called Towareij; and to the SW., at a dista ce of 7 or 8 miles, the vast pile called the Birs-i-Nimrud. Of the mounds on the E. side, the Mujelebė is much the largest, but the Kasr has the most perfect masonry. The whole, however, of the ruins present an extraordinary mass of confusion, owing to their having been for centuries a quarry from which vast quantities of bricks have been removed for the construction of the towns and villages in the neighbourhood. Mr. Rich subsequently visited the Birsi-Nimrúd, the size of which is nearly the same as that of the Mujelebè; but the height to the top of the wall is at least 100 feet higher; and he then discusses at some length the question which of these two mounds has the best claim to represent the Tower of Babel of the Bible, and the Temple of Belus of profane authors. His general conclusions incline in favour of the Birs-i-Nimrúd, but he thinks it is impossible satisfactorily to accommodate the descriptions of ancient authors with what now remains; while it is nowhere stated positively in which quarter of the city the Temple of Belus stood. Along the E. side of the river, the line of mounds parallel to the Kasr, at the time Mr. Rich was there, were, in many places, about 40 feet above the river, which had incroached in some places so much as to lay bare part of a wall built of burnt bricks cemented with bitumen, in which urns containing human bones had been found. East of Hillah, about 6 miles, is another great mound, called Al Heimar, constructed of bricks, similar to those at Babylon. On the publication of Mr. Rich's memoir in the Fundgruben des Orients, Major Rennell wrote an Essay in 1815, which was printed in the Archaeologia, vol. xviii., in which he combated some of the views which Mr. Rich had stated in his memoir, which produced a rejoinder from Mr. Rich, written in 1817, in which he goes over again more com pletely the ground mentioned in his first notice, and points out some things in which Major Rennell had been misled by imperfect information. The chief Ibn Haukal, in A. D. 917, calls Babel a small points of discussion are, as to how far any of the exvillage, and states that hardly any remains of Ba-isting ruins could be identified with things mentioned bylon were to be seen. Lastly, Benjamin of Tudela (ed. Asher, 1841), in the twelfth century, asserts that nothing was to be seen but the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace, into which no one dared enter, owing to the quan tity of serpents and scorpions with which the place in the classical narratives, whether or not the Euphrates had ever flowed between the present mounds, and whether the Birs-i-Nimrúd could be identified with the Temple of Belus. It is sufficient here to mention that Rennell considered that honour to belong to the Mujelebè, and Mr. Rich to the Birɛ-i Nimrúd, an idea which appears to have occurred to tion of the land of the Chaldees. In early times, however, it was most likely only a small strip of land round the great city, perhaps little more than the southern end of the great province of Mesopotamia. Afterwards it is clear that it comprehended a much more extensive territory. A comparison of Strabo and Ptolemy shows that, according to the conception of the Roman geographers, it was separated from Mesopotamia on the N. by an artificial work called the Median Wall [MEDIAE MURUS], which extended from the Tigris, a little N. of Sittace, to the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, and that it was bounded on the E. by the Tigris, on the S. by the Persian Gulf, and on the W. and SW. by the desert sands of Arabia. Eratosthenes (ap. Strab. ii. 80) compares its shape to that of the rudder of a ship. The most ancient name for Babylonia was Shinar which is first mentioned in Genesis (x. 10), where it is stated that the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod was Babel in the land of Shinar: a little later we meet with the name of Amraphel, who was king of that country in the time of Abraham (Gen. xiv. 1, &c.) It long continued a native appellation of that land. Thus we find Nebuchadnezzar removing the vessels of the temple of Jehovah to the house of his god in "the land of Shinar" (Dan. i. 2); and, as late as B.C. 519, Zephaniah declaring that a house shall be built "in the land of Shinar" (Zeph. v. 11). A fragment of Histiaeus (ap. Joseph. Antiq. i. 43) shows that the name was not unknown to Greek writers, for he speaks of “Zevraap | τῆς Βαβυλωνίας.” It has been thought by some that the ancient name has been preserved in the classical Singara ( Ziyyápas, Ptol. v. 18. § 2; Amm. Marc. xxii. 5, xxv. 7), now Sinjar. But this seems very doubtful; as the character of the Sinjar country is wholly different from the plain land of Babylonia. If, how ever, we adopt this view, and Bochart inclines to it, we must suppose the name of the high northern land of Mesopotamia to have been gradually extended to the lowlands of the south (Wahl, Asien, p. 609; Rosenm. Bibl. Alt. ii. 8). Niebuhr has noticed this attribution. D' Anville (Comp. Anc. Geogr. p. 433) has rejected it; while Beke (Orig. Bibl. p. 66) has identified Shinar and the present Kharput Dawassi, for which there seem to be no grounds what ever. BABYLON (Basʊλwv, Strab. xvii. p. 807; Diod. i. 56; Joseph. Antiq.ii. 5; Ctesias Fr.; Ptol. iv. 5. § 54), the modern Baboul, was a fortress or castle in the Delta of Egypt. It was seated in the Heliopolite Nome, upon the right bank of the Nile, in lat. 31° N., and near the commencement of the Pharaonic Canal, from that river to the Red Sea. It was the boundary town between Lower and Middle Egypt, where the river craft paid toll ascend ing or descending the Nile. Diodorus ascribes its erection to revolted Assyrian captives in the reign of Sesostris, and Ctesias (Persica) carries its date back to the times of Semiramis; but Josephus The inhabitants of Babylonia bore the general (l. c.), with greater probability, attributes its struc- name of Babylonians; but there also appears everyture to some Babylonian followers of Cambyses, in where in their history a people of another name, the B. C. 525. In the age of Augustus the Deltaic Chaldaeans, about whom and their origin there has Babylon became a town of some importance, and been much dispute in modern times. Their history is was the head-quarters of the three legions which examined elsewhere. [CHALDAEA.] It is sufficient to ensured the obedience of Egypt. In the Notitia state here that we think there is no good evidence that Imperii Babylon is mentioned as the quarters of the Chaldaeans were either a distinct race from the Legio XIII. Gemina. (It. Anton.; Georg. Raveun. Babylonians, or a new people who conquered their &c.) Ruins of the town and fortress are still visible country. We believe that they were really only a a little to the north of Fostat or Old Cairo, among distinguished caste of the native population, the which are vestiges of the Great Aqueduct mentioned priests, magicians, soothsayers, and astrologers of the by Strabo and the early Arabian topographers. country; till, in the end, their name came to be ap(Champollion, l'Egypte, ii. d. 33.) [W. B. D.] plied as the genuine title of the main body of the peo BABYLONIA ( Babuxavia), a province of ple, among whom they were, originally, only the class considerable extent on the banks of the Euphrates who devoted themselves to scientific pursuits. Strabo and Tigris, and the 9th satrapy of Dareius. (Her. iii. (xvi. p. 739), indeed, speaks as though he considered 183.) Its capital was Babylon, from which it is them as a separate but indigenous nation, and places probable that the district adjoining derived its name. them in the southern part of Babylonia, adjoining the It is not easy to determine from ancient authors with Persian Gulf and the Deserts of Arabia (see also Ptol. any strictness what its boundaries were, as it is often v. 20. §3), but the authority of these writers will be confounded with Mesopotamia and Assyria, while in diminished, when it is remembered that seven cellthe Bible it receives the yet more indefinite appellaturies had elapsed between the extinction of the Chaldaeo-Babylonian Empire and the era of those | large quantities, and which was used extensively in authors. Ptolemy (v. 20. § 3) divides Babylonia into the construction of their great works. Strabo (1. c.) three districts which he calls Auchanitis (Auxavi- confirms this statement, distinguishing at the same TIS), Chaldaea (Xaλdaía), and Amardocaea (Auapoo-time between the bitumen or asphalt of Babylonia, Kaía), of none of which, with the exception of Chaldaea, which was hard, and the liquid bitumen or naphtha, we know any thing; and mentions the following chief which was the product of the neighbouring province towns which are described under their respective of Susiana. He adds that it was used in the connames: BABYLON on the Euphrates, VOLOGESIA and struction of buildings and for the caulking of ships. BARSITA or BORSIPPA on the Maarsares canal; TE- (Comp. Diod. ii. 12.) REDON OR DIRIDOTIS near the mouth of the Tigris; and ORCHOE in the Marshes. He speaks also of several smaller towns and villages to which we have now no clue, omitting Seleuceia and some others, because, probably, at his time, they had either altogether ceased to exist, or had lost all importance. A few other places are mentioned by other writers, as Pylae, Charmande, Spasinae-Charax, and Ampe, about which however little is known; and another district called Mesene, apparently different from that in which Apameia was situated [APAMEIA]. These are noticed under their respective names. The great fertility of Babylonia is clear from the statement of Herodotus, who visited Babylon about seventy years after the destructive siege by Dareius, and who did not, therefore, see it in its magnificence. Even in his time, it supported the king of Persia, his army, and his whole establishment for four months of the year, affording, therefore, one-third of the produce of the whole of that king's dominions: it fed also 800 stallions and 16,000 mares for the then Satrap Tritantaechmes, four of its villages (for that reason free of any other taxes) being assigned for the maintenance of his Indian dogs alone (Her. i. 192; Ctesias, p. 272, Ed. Bähr.) We may presume also that its climate was good and less torrid than at present, as Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 7. § 22) expressly states that Cyrus was in the habit of spending the seven colder months at Babylon, because of the mildness of its climate, the three spring months at Susa, and two hottest summer ones at Ecbatana. Babylonia was an almost unbroken plain, without a single natural hill, and admirably adapted for the great fertility for which it was celebrated in antiquity, but liable at the same time to very extensive floods on the periodical rising of its two great rivers. Herodotus (i. 193) says that its soil was so well fitted for the growth of the cerealia, that it seldom produced less than two hundred fold, and in the best seasons as much as three hundred fold. He men- The fertility of Babylonia was due to the influence tions also the Cenchrus (Panicum miliaceum) and of its two great rivers, assisted by numerous canals Sesamum (perhaps the Sesamum Indicum, from which intersected the land between them. The remains which an useful oil was extracted: Plin. xviii. 10; of many great works, the chief objects of which were Diosc. ii. 124; Forskal, Flora Arab. p. 113) as the complete irrigation or draining of the country, growing to a prodigious size. He adds that there may yet be traced; though it is not easy, even since was a great want of timber, though the date-palm the careful survey of the Euphrates by Col. Chesney trees grew there abundantly, from which wine and and the officers who, with him, conducted the "Euhoney were manufactured by the people. (See also phrates Expedition," satisfactorily to identify many of Amm. Marc. xxiv. 3; Plut. Sympos. viii. 4; S. Basil. them with the descriptions we have of their ancient Homil. 5.) Xenophon (Anab. i. 5. § 10.) alludes courses. Rich. (p. 53.) and Ker Porter (p. 289) to the great fertility of the soil, and notices the honey state that, at present, the canals themselves show that made from the palm, the excellence of the dates they are of all ages, and that new ones are continuthemselves, which were so good that what the Baby- ally being made. Arrian (Anab. vii. 7.) considers lonians gave to their slaves were superior to those that a difference between the relative heights of the which found their way to Greece (Anab. ii. 3. §§ beds of the Euphrates and Tigris was favourable to 15, 16), and the intoxicating character of the wine their original construction, an opinion which has been made from their fruit. In the Cyropaedeia (vii. 5. borne out by modern examination; though it seems §11) he speaks also of the gigantic size of the Ba- likely that Arrian had exaggerated notions of the bylonian palm-trees. Strabo (xvi. p. 741) states beds of the two rivers, as he had, also, of the difference that Babylonia produced barley such as no other in the rapidity of their streams. Not far above country did; and that the palm-tree afforded the Babylon, the bed of the Euphrates was found to be people bread and honey, and wine and vinegar, and about five feet above that of the Tigris, according materials for weaving. Its nuts served for the black- to Mr. Ainsworth, (Researches, p. 44.) who consmith's forge, and when crushed and macerated in firms, generally, Arrian's views, and shows that, water were wholesome food for the oxen and sheep. owing to the larger quantity of alluvium brought In short, so valuable was this tree to the natives, down by the Euphrates than by the Tigris, it that a Poem is said to have been written in Persian, happens that, above Babylon, the waters of the enumerating 360 uses to which it could be applied. Euphrates find a higher level by which they flow At present Mr. Ainsworth says (Res. p. 125) that into the Tigris, while, at a considerable distance the usual vegetation is, on the river bank, shrub- below Babylon, the level of the Euphrates is so beries of tamarisk and acacia, and occasionally low that the Tigris is able to send back its waters, poplars, whose lanceolate leaves resemble the willow, He doubts, however (p. 110.), the statement of and have hence been taken for it. It is curious that the difference in the speed of the current of the two there is no such thing as a weeping willow (Salix Ba-rivers, which he considers to be much the same, and bylonica) in Babylonia. The common tamarisk is the Athleh or Atle of Sonnini (Athele, Ker Porter, ii. p. 369, resembling the Lignum Vitae, Rich, Mem. p. 66, the Tamarix Orientalis of Forskal, Flora Arab. p. 206) In the upper part of Babylonia, Herodotus (i. 179) mentions a village called Is, famous for the production of bitumen, which is procured there in not very rapid even in flood time. Rich (p. 53), on the other hand, says, that the banks of the Euphrates are lower, and the stream more equal than that of the Tigris. These points are more fully discussed elsewhere [EUPHRATES; TIGRIS]. The canals were not sunk into the land, but were rather aqueducts constructed on its surface. The water was forced |