182 say the Chaldees, who are the priests of Belus. These same individuals assert-not that I give any credit to what they say that the god himself comes to the temple, and reposes in the bed, just in the same manner as the Egyptians say is the case at Thebes in Egypt; for, in fact, a woman there also lies in the temple of Thebaic Jove: both women, we are told, have no communication whatever with men. Exactly the same thing takes place at Patres, in Lycia, with the woman that propounds the oracle, when there is a god there; for there is not constantly an oracle at that place: in such case as there is, the woman lies with the god at night, 183 within the temple. There is another temple, besides, in the Babylonian precinct below. Here is seen a colossal statue of Jove, seated; close to which stands a gold table: the flight of steps up to the throne, and the throne itself, are of gold; and, according to the Chaldees, all these articles are computed to be eight hundred talents of gold. Outside of the temple is a golden altar; together with another large altar, where all full-grown sheep are sacrificed, none but sucklings being allowed to be sacrificed on the golden altar. On the larger of these altars, annually, the Chaldees burn one thousand talents of frankincense, when they celebrate the feast of this god Belus. There was at that time, also, in the precinct, a statue of twelve cubits of solid gold;— not of course that I ever saw it: what I say, I repeat on the authority of the Chaldees. Darius the son of Hystaspes coveted this statue, but durst not seize it: Xerxes son of Darius, however, took it away, and killed the priest that warned him not to move the image. Thus have I described how the holy precinct was decorated. I must add, there

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were abundance of private offerings.

Several sovereigns, at different times, have ruled over Babylon, whom I shall mention in my Assyrian history: they were the builders of the walls and sacred edifices. Two of them, especially, were women: she who reigned the first, was many generations anterior to the second; her name was Semiramis: this princess accomplished several works on the plain, that are worthy of contemplation: previously to her reign, the river was wont to inundate, and make a sea 185 of the whole plain. The second queen, that flourished after Semiramis, bore the name of Nitocris: her genius was greater than that of the queen before her: she left, as a memento, the works which I shall presently describe: in the next place, seeing the Medes' empire great and never at rest, and observing, among other cities, that of Nineveh captured by that power, she adopted beforehand every

possible expedient for preservation. First, then, by making deep excavations high up the stream, she so altered the course of the Euphrates which passes through Babylon, that, from straight that it was, it became so winding as to touch three times at one and the same village in Assyria, as it flows down: the name of this village is Ardericca; and even to this time, those that, travelling from the Mediterranean shore down to Babylon, embark on the Euphrates, pass three times, within three successive days, at this spot: this was, therefore, one of the things she accomplished. She threw up, on both sides of the river, a prodigious mound, astonishing by its magnitude and height: she effected, a long distance above Babylon, a reservoir for a lake; which she placed not far from the river, digging for the depth till she came to water, and making its extent the circumference of four hundred and twenty stades: the earth thrown out in this excavation she expended in forming an embankment on the sides of the river. When the lake was finished digging out, she brought stones, with which she ran a case all round. These two works-I mean the windings of the stream, and the whole excavated marsh-were performed for the purpose of lengthening the course of the river; breaking its force in many windings, and making the passage to Babylon intricate; and that travellers, on quitting their barks, might still have to make the long circuit of the lake. In this manner she threw up these vast works in that part of the country where the shortest road from Media enters Babylonia, in order that the Medes might cease to communicate with the Babylonians, and spy into her affairs. These fortifications 186 completed, Nitocris added the following performance, the effectual success of which was the consequence of her previous works. The town being divided into two districts, by the river flowing between, whoever, under former reigns, wished to pass over from one to the other, was obliged to cross in a boat: and that, I conceive, must have been an annoyance. Nitocris provided for this. After she had dug out the basin for the lake, she determined to leave another monument of the utility of the works thrown up on the Euphrates. She caused large blocks of stone to be hewn: when they were ready, and the basin had been excavated, she turned the whole stream of the river into the hollow she had dug. While that was filling, the original bed of the river became dry: seizing the opportunity, the queen built up, with baked bricks, the banks of the river within the city, and the steps leading down from the smaller gates to the river, after the same fashion as the great wall had been

put together. Besides this, about the middle of the city she constructed a bridge of cut stone, fastened together with lead and iron. During the day, square floors of wood were laid from pier to pier, by which the Babylonians crossed over: but at night these boards were taken away, for the purpose of preventing people from going across, in the dark, and committing robberies. When the hollow had been replenished by the river, and the bridge was finished, Nitocris brought the stream of the Euphrates back again, into its old bed, out of the lake. Thus the hollow, becoming a marsh, proved itself adapted for the purpose intended; and 187 the inhabitants were accommodated with a bridge. This same queen, Nitocris, planned the following deception. Over the gate, which is the greatest thoroughfare of the city, she erected her own sepulchre, high above the gate itself; and engraved on it an inscription to this purport:-" Whoever "may, after me, be the ruler of Babylon, if in want of cash, "let him open 280 this sepulchre, and take what he chooses: not, however, unless he be truly in want, let him open "it 281 for it would be no good." This sepulchre remained untouched, until the throne came to Darius. That king conceived, that it was absurd he should not be able to make use of that gate, nor touch the money there deposited; money, too, that seemed to invite his grasp. The reason that induced him not to make use of this gate, was, that if he went through, there would be a dead body over his head. He opened the sepulchre: instead of money he found nothing but the skeleton, and a scroll, purporting: "Had you not "been so greedy of money and disgraceful pelf, you would not have broken into the sojourn of the dead." 188 It was against the son of this queen that Cyrus was accordingly directing his next attack: this Babylonian king inherited the name of Labynetus, and the Assyrian empire, from his father. When the great king goes to war, he travels provided with provisions well preserved, and cattle, from home: he takes, especially, with him, water from the Choaspes, a river that flows by Susa, of which, and no other, the king drinks. A vast number of four-wheel waggons, drawn by mules, follow in his train, wherever he goes: they are loaded with the Choaspes' water, boiled previously, and 189 stored in silver vases. In his march to Babylon, Cyrus came to the Gyndes 282, a river that rises in the Matianian mountains, flows athwart the land of the Dardanians, and

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