Ruins of Ancient Cities Part 31

[87] Herodotus; Thucydides; Pliny, the younger; Plutarch; Pausanias; Wheler; Rollin; Chandler; Stuart; Barthelemy; Sandwich; Montague; Brewster; Rees; Byron; Dodwell; Clarke; Hobhouse; Eustace; Quin; Williams; De la Martine.

[88] Gen. c. x. v. 10.

[89] Gen. xi. v. 4.--"The schemes that men of coa.r.s.e imaginations have raised from a single expression in the Bible, and sometimes from a supposition of a fact no where to be found, are astonis.h.i.+ng. If you believe the Hebrew doctors, the language of men, which, till the building of Babel, had been one, was divided into seventy languages. But of the miraculous division of the languages there is not one word in the Bible."--"Dissertation on the Origin of languages," by DR. GREGORY SHARPE, 2nd Ed. p. 24.

[90] The greatest cities of Europe give but a faint idea of the grandeur which all historians unanimously ascribe to the famous city of Babylon.--DUTENS.

[91] "It is conceivable," says an elegant writer on civil architecture, "that walls of the height of the London monument might have, during the long existence of a great empire, been raised to protect so great a city as Nineveh; but it requires a much greater stretch of thought to conceive them, as in the case of Babylon, to be raised to a height equal to that of the cross which terminates the dome or cupola of St. Paul's cathedral in London. Yet, when we recollect that Nebuchadnezzar was intoxicated with conquest, in possession of unbounded power and riches, and ambitious of erecting a metropolis for all Asia, upon a scale which should surpa.s.s every city the world had seen, we shall hesitate in condemning as improbable even the descriptions of Herodotus."

[92] It must be confessed, indeed, that in the comparison of ancient and modern measures, nothing certain has been concluded. According to vulgar computation, a cubit is a foot and a half; and thus the ancients also reckoned it; but then we are not certainly agreed about the length of their foot.--MONTFAUCON.

The doubt expressed by Montfaucon appears unnecessary; these measures being taken from the proportions of the human body, are more permanent than any other. The foot of a moderately-sized man, and the cubit--(that is, the s.p.a.ce from the end of the fingers to the elbow), have always been twelve and eighteen inches respectively.--BELOE.

[93] Thus, saith the Lord, to his anointed, to Cyrus, I will go before thee; I will break in pieces the gates of bra.s.s.--ISAIAH.

[94] The original Erythraean, or Red Sea, was that part of the Indian ocean, which forms the peninsula of Arabia; the Persian and Arabian gulfs being branches of it.--BELOE.

[95] It is necessary to bear in mind, that the temples of the ancients were altogether different from our churches. A large s.p.a.ce was inclosed by walls, in which were courts, a grove, pieces of water, apartments sometimes for the priests; and, lastly, the temple, properly so called, and where, most frequently, it was permitted the priests alone to enter.

The whole inclosure was named [Greek: to hieron]: the temple, properly so called, or the residence of the deity, was called [Greek: naos]

(_naos_) or the cell.--HARVEY.

[96] The streets crossed each other, and the city was cut into six hundred and seventy-six squares, each of which was four furlongs and a half on every side; viz., two miles and a quarter in circ.u.mference.

[97] Porter.

[98] Anon.

[99] This is said to have been done at the building of old London Bridge.

[100] These ca.n.a.ls having been suffered to decay, the water of the river is much greater now than formerly.

[101] Herodotus. Megathenes says seventy-five feet. "We relate the wonders of Babylon," says Rollin, "as they are delivered down to us by the ancients; but there are some of them which are scarce to be comprehended or believed; of which number is the lake. I mean in respect to its vast extent."

[102] Vol. xlviii. 199.

[103] The reviewer then goes on to say:--"By way of comparing this with a work of modern times, we may notice, that the Bristol s.h.i.+p ca.n.a.l, one of the late projects, was intended to have been eighty miles long, one hundred feet wide, and thirty feet deep; and the estimated cost was four millions sterling. To be sure, labour was cheaper at Babylon than in London, and well it might be; for if the Babylonian lake were to be made now in England, it would cost the trifling sum of four thousand two hundred and twenty-one millions sterling!"

[104] The reader will naturally be reminded of the tunnel now constructing under the Thames; a much more difficult and extensive undertaking.

[105] Going in and out, we should suppose, with every angle. Should any one do this with a rule at St. Paul's Cathedral, it is probable he might compa.s.s a mile.

[106] The largest pyramid is 110 feet higher than St. Paul's, with a base occupying about the same area as Lincoln's Inn Fields.

[107] The advantageous situation of Babylon, which was built upon a wide, extended, flat country, where no mountains bounded the prospect; the constant clearness and serenity of the air in that country, so favourable to the free contemplation of the heavens; perhaps, also, the extraordinary height of the tower of Babel, which seems to have been intended for an observatory; all these circ.u.mstances were strong motives to engage this people to a more nice observation of the various motions of the heavenly bodies, and the regular course of the stars.--ROLLIN.

[108] Diodorus states, that in his time many monuments still remained with inscriptions upon them.

[109] Val. Max. ix. c. 3.

[110] A statue was erected in memory of this action, representing her in that very att.i.tude, and the undress, which had not prevented her from flying to her duty.

[111] Daniel, c. iv.

[112] Diodorus; Prideaux.

[113] "The hanging gardens," says Major Rennell, "as they are called, had an area of about three acres and a half, and in them were grown trees of considerable size; and it is not improbable, that they were of a species different from those of the natural growth of the alluvial soil of Babylonia. These trees may have been perpetuated in the same spot where they grew (or seeds from them), notwithstanding that the terraces may have subsided, by the crumbling of the piers and walls that supported them; the ruins of which may form the very eminences, spoken of by M. Niebuhr, and which are covered with a particular kind of trees." That is, with trees different from any that grow between the ruins and the Persian gulf, in which s.p.a.ce no other trees are to be found but date and other fruit trees.

[114] Daniel, ch. v., ver. 25.

[115] Isaiah xiii. 19, 22; xiv. 23, 24.--It has been well observed by Bishop Newton, that it must afford all readers of an exalted taste and generous sentiments, a very sensible pleasure to hear the prophets exulting over such tyrants and oppressors as the kings of a.s.syria. "In the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah," continues he, "there is an Epinikion, or a triumphant ode upon the fall of Babylon. It represents the infernal mansions as moved, and the ghosts of deceased tyrants as rising to meet the king of Babylon, and congratulate his coming among them."--"It is really admirable for the severest strokes of irony as well as for the sublimest strains of poetry. The Greek poet Alcaeus, who is celebrated for his hatred to tyrants, and whose odes were animated with the spirit of liberty no less than with the spirit of poetry, we may presume to say, never wrote any thing comparable to it."

[116] Partly, not entirely. "Herodotus states that Darius Hystaspes, on the taking of Babylon by the stratagem of Zopyrus, 'levelled the walls and took away the gates, neither of which Cyrus had done.' But let it be remarked that Darius lived a century and a half before Alexander, in whose time the walls appear to have been in the original state; or, at least, nothing is said that implies the contrary; and it cannot be believed, if Darius had taken the trouble to level thirty-four miles of so prodigious a rampart as that of Babylon, that ever it would have been rebuilt in the manner described by Ctesias, c.l.i.tarchus, and others, who describe it at a much later period. Besides, it would have been quite unnecessary to level more than a _part_ of the wall; and in this way, probably, the historian ought to be understood."--RENNELL.

[117] Herod. Thalia. c. v. ch. ix.

[118] Cyrus; Cambyses; Smerdis Magus; Darius the son of Hystaspes; Xerxes I.; Artaxerxes Longima.n.u.s; Xerxes II.; Sogdia.n.u.s; Darius Nothus; Artaxerxes Mnemon; Artaxerxes Ochus; a.r.s.es; and Darius Codoma.n.u.s.

[119] "Babylon was designed by Alexander to be not only the capital of his empire, but also a great port and naval a.r.s.enal. To contain his fleet, he ordered a basin to be excavated, capable of admitting a thousand sail, to which were to be added docks and magazines for stores.

The s.h.i.+ps of Nearchus, as well as others from Phoenicia, were already arrived. They had been taken to pieces on the Mediterranean coast, and conveyed overland to Thapsacus, where they had been put together, and then navigated down the Euphrates." The object of all this was to enable him to invade Arabia.

[120] Sir John Malcolm says, that many traditions still exist in Persia, in regard to this wonderful person. Amongst others, this:--"The astrologers had foretold, that when Alexander's death was near, he would place his throne where the earth was of iron and the sky of gold. When the hero, fatigued with conquest, directed his march towards Greece, he was one day seized with a bleeding at the nose. A general who was near, unlacing his coat of mail, spread it for his prince to sit on; and, to defend him from the sun, held a golden s.h.i.+eld over his head. When Alexander saw himself in this situation, he exclaimed, 'The prediction of the astrologers is accomplished, I no longer belong to the living!

Alas! that the work of my youth should be finished! Alas! that the plant of the spring should be cut down like the ripened tree of autumn!' He wrote to his mother, saying, he should shortly quit the earth and pa.s.s to the regions of the dead. He requested that the alms given at his death should be bestowed on such as had never seen the miseries of the world, and who had never lost those who were dear to them. In conformity to his will, his mother sought, but in vain, for such persons. All had tasted the woes and griefs of life; all had lost those whom they loved.

She found in this a consolation which her son had intended, for her great loss. She saw that her own was the common lot of humanity."

[121] In describing the overthrow, the prophet is admirable; rising by a judicious gradation into all the pomp of horror. _q. d._ "Now, indeed, it is thronged with citizens; but the hour is coming, when it shall be entirely depopulated, and not so much as a single inhabitant left.--Lest you should think, that in process of time it may be re-edified, and again abound with joyful mult.i.tudes, it shall never be inhabited more; no, never to be dwelt in any more, from generation to generation; but shall continue a dismal waste, through all succeeding ages.--A waste so dismal, that none of the neighbouring shepherds shall make their fold, or find so much as an occasional shelter for their flocks; where kings, grandees, and crowds of affluent citizens were wont to repose themselves in profound tranquillity. Even the rude and roving Arabian shall not venture to pitch his tent, nor be able to procure for himself the poor accommodation of a night's lodging; where millions of polite people basked in the suns.h.i.+ne of profuse prosperity.--In short; it shall neither be habitable, nor accessible! but a dwelling place for dragons, and a court for owls; an astonishment, and a hissing. What was once the golden city, and the metropolis of the world, shall be an everlasting scene of desolation, a fearful monument of divine vengeance, and an awful admonition to human pride."

[122] About the middle of the second century, when Strabo was there, the walls were reduced to fifty cubits in height, and twenty-one in breadth.

[123] About the year 1169.

[124] The soil of Babylonia, in the time of Herodotus, may be in no small degree judged of by what that historian states:--"Of all countries, which have come under my observation, this is far the most fruitful in corn. Fruit-trees, such as the vine, the olive, and the fig, they do not even attempt to cultivate; but the soil is so particularly well adapted for corn, that it never produces less than two-hundredfold; in seasons which are remarkably favourable it will sometimes produce three hundred; the ear of their wheat as well as barley is four digits in size. The immense height to which millet will grow, although I have witnessed it myself, I know not how to mention. I am well aware that they who have not witnessed the country will deem whatever I may say upon the subject, a violation of probability."--CLIO, CXCIII.

[125] There is a copy of Rauwolf's work in the British Museum, enriched by a mult.i.tude of MS. notes by Gronovius, to whom it would seem the copy once belonged.

[126] By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

2. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

3. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they, that wasted us, required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

4. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?--PSALM cx.x.xvii.

[127] The words of Beauchamp are:--"I employed two men for three hours in clearing a stone, which they supposed to be an idol. The part, which I got a sight of, appeared to be nothing but a shapeless ma.s.s: it was evident, however, that it was not a simple block, as it bore the marks of a chisel, and there were pretty deep holes in it." Sir Robert Ker Porter says, it is a common idea with the Turks, that the real object with Europeans, in visiting the banks of the Euphrates, is not to explore antiquities, as we pretend, but to make a laborious pilgrimage to these almost shapeless relics of a race of unbelievers more ancient than ourselves; and to perform certain mysterious religious rites before them, which excite no small curiosity amongst the Faithful to inquire into.

[128] It is probable, that many fragments of antiquity, especially of the larger kind, are lost in this manner. The inhabitants call all stones, with inscriptions or figures on them, idols.--RICH.

[129] "The ma.s.s on which the Kasr stands," says Sir R. K. Porter, "is above the general level full seven hundred feet. Its length is nearly four hundred yards; its breadth six hundred; but its form is now very irregular. Much of the _debris_, which this interesting spot presented to the Abbe Beauchamp and Mr. Rich in 1811, have now totally disappeared; the aspect of the summit and sides suffering constant changes from the everlasting digging in its apparently inexhaustible quarries for brick of the strongest and finest material.