BABYLON 187 to be found, it is difficult to conceive whence these stones could be brought; and if once brought, it is equally difficult to imagine whith- er they have been carried. They are not there now, and are not to be found among the ruins of Seleucia or Ctesiphon, built from the frag- ments of Babylon. A careful comparison qf existing facts with the relations of the writer! from whom the accounts of Babylon have been drawn will evince that these accounts are greatly exaggerated. Still, there can be no doubt that Babylon as built by Nebuchadnez- zar and captured by Cyrus was one of the great cities of the world, though of necessity built mainly of perishable materials. The descrip- tion given by the great king in his " standard inscription " appears to tell the true story. We quote with abridgments a few passages : " The double enclosure which Nabopolassar, my fa- ther, had made, but not completed, I finished. Nabopolassar made its ditch. With two long embankments of brick and mortar he bound its bed. He lined the other side of the Euphrates with brick. He made a bridge over the Eu- phrates, but did not finish its buttresses. With bricks, burnt as hard as stones, he made a way for the branch of the Shimat to the waters of the Yapur-Shapu, great reservoir of Babylon. I finished the great double wall. With two long embankments of brick and mortar I built the side of its ditch. I strengthened the city. Across the river, to the west, I built the walls of Babylon with brick. The reservoir I filled completely with water. Besides the outer wall, the impregnable fortification, I constructed in- side of Babylon a fortification such as no king had ever made before me, namely, a long ram- part 4,000 ammas (5 miles) square, as an extra defence. Against presumptuous enemies, great waters I made use of abundantly. Their depths were like the depths of the vast ocean. I did not allow the waters to overflow ; but the full- ness of their floods I caused to flow on, restrain- ing them with a brick embankment. Thus I completely made strong the defences of Baby- lon. May it stand forever." He describes another structure : " Inside the brick fortifica- tions I made another great fortification of long stones of the size of great mountains. And this building I raised for a wonder ; for the de- fence of the people I constructed it." This is the only case in which stone is mentioned. Not improbably this was the structure spoken of as the hanging gardens. He describes his palace called Tapratinisi, " the wonder of the world," which had also been begun by his father. He tells how it used to be flooded by the inundations of the river, and how he raised the platform of brick upon which it stood ; and goes on : "I cut off the floods of the water, and the foundations (of the palace) I protected against the water with bricks and mortar. I finished it completely. Long beams I set up to support it. With pillars and beams plated with copper and strengthened with iron I built up its gates. Silver, and gold, and precious stones, whose names were almost unknown, I stored inside, and placed there the treasure- house of my kingdom." Here again there is nothing but brick and mortar and wooden beams; the gates of the palace itself, which Herodotus saw and supposed to be of solid brass, were of wood plated with copper and strength- ened with iron. The shapeless Kasr affords no means for testing the accuracy of the descrip- tion given by Nebuchadnezzar of his palace ; but there is a ruin which in a measure affords such a test. This is Birs Nimrud. (See BA- BEL.) The height of this mound, crowned by a tower, was 153 ft., and as it was beyond doubt among the loftiest of the Babylonian structures, we are enabled to rectify the extrav- agant heights attributed to the city walls. Eire Nimrud. Babylon, at least in its later period, after it had sprung up to be the capital of a great empire, was noted for the luxury and depravity of its in- habitants. " Nothing," says Q. Curtius, " could he more corrupt than its morals, nothing more fitted to excite and allure to immoderate pleas- ures. The rites of hospitality were polluted by the most shameless lusts." Once at least in her life every woman was obliged to prostitute herself in the temple of Belus. Of the popu- lation of Babylon there exists no ground for even probable estimate. As a centre of em- pire and commerce, its population would be limited only by the capacity for subsistence of the fertile region from which its supplies were drawn. Considering its vast extent, but bear- ing in mind that only a small portion, probably not more than a tenth, was built over, 1,500,000 is not an improbable conjecture. The site of the ancient Babel was probably at Borsippa (Birs Nimrud), a little below the later Baby- lon, and on the opposite side of the main Eu- phrates. Borsippa was a suburb with separate fortifications, for Nabonadius, after being de- feated in the field by Cyrus, threw himself into it, leaving Babylon proper in the charge of hif son Belshazzar. For an unknown period Baby- lon was a town of minor importance, the suc- cessive capitals of the Chaldean kingdom ly- ing lower down the plain. Babylon first comes prominently into notice about the time of the
