tended the empire to the Mediterranean and the borders of Egypt, adding to it Palestine, Ph[oe]nicia, etc. With his countenance the Medes and Lydians destroyed Nineveh (B. C. 601). The great abduction of Jewish captives by his orders took place B. C. 588. He was succeeded (B. C. 561) by his son, Evil-Merodach, who was dethroned (B. C. 559) by his brother-in-law Neriglissar, whose son and successor, Laboroso-archod, was dethroned, after a brief reign, by Nabonnedus, the Belshazzar of Scripture (B. C. 555); in the eighteenth year of whose reign (B. C. 538) Babylon was taken by Cyrus, and passed into the hands of the Persians.
It was during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar that the city of Babylon attained that glory which has rendered it a known word to all who are at all acquainted with history. Herodotus, who saw the city in its decline, gives a description of it which has seemed incredible to many, although now fully verified. 'The city, divided in the middle by the Euphrates, was surrounded with walls in thickness 75 feet, in height 300 feet and in compass 480 stadia, or about 60 of our miles.' Within this circuit there was included, besides the houses, a space of vacant ground, gardens, pasture, etc., sufficient to accommodate the country population in case of invasion: the height and strength of the walls rendered the city itself to all appearance impregnable. 'These walls formed an exact square, each side of which was 120 stadia, or 15 miles in length; and were built of large bricks cemented together with bitumen, a glutinous slime which issues out of the earth in that country, and in a short time becomes harder than the very brick or stone which it cements. The city was encompassed without the walls of a vast ditch filled with water, and lined with bricks on both sides; and as the earth that was dug out of it served to make the bricks, we may judge of the depth and largeness of the ditch from the height and thickness of the walls. In the whole compass of the walls there were a hundred gates—that is, twenty-five on each side, all made of solid brass. At intervals round the walls were 250 towers. From each of the twenty-five gates there was a straight street extending to the corresponding gate, in the opposite wall; the whole number of streets was therefore fifty, crossing each other at right angles, and each fifteen miles long. The breadth of the streets was about 150 feet. By their intersection the city was divided into 676 squares, each about two miles and a quarter in compass, round which were the houses, three or four stories in height; the vacant spaces within being laid out in gardens,' etc. Within the city the two greatest edifices were the royal palace with its hanging gardens, and the temple of Belus, composed of eight towers built one above another, to the enormous height, it is said, of a furlong.
Without the city were numerous canals, embankments, etc., for the purpose of irrigating the country, which, as little or no rain fell, depended on the river for moisture. 'The execution of such colossal works as those of Babylon and Egypt,' it has been remarked, 'demonstrates habits of regular industry, a concentrated population under one government, and above all, an implicit submission to the regal and kingly sway—contrasted forcibly with the small self-governing communities of Greece and western Europe, where the will of the individual citizen was so much more energetic.' In the latter countries only such public works were attempted as were within the limits of moderate taste. Nineveh is said to have been larger even
