powert succours from the Arabians, his neighbours, he took the field, and in the space of seventeen years conquered a vast extent of country, from Egypt, as far as India and Bactriana, which he did not then venture to attack.*

At his return, before he entered upon any new conquests, he conceived the design of immortalizing his name by the building of a city answerable to the greatness of his power; he called it Nineveh, and built it on the eastern banks of the Tigris. Possibly he did no more than finish the work his father had begun. His design, says Diodorus, was to make Nineveh the largest and noblest city in the world, and not leave it in the power of those that came after him, ever to build, or hope to build such another. Nor was he deceived ir his view, for never did any city rival the greatness and magnificence of this: it was one hundred and fifty stadia, or eighteen miles and three quarters in length, and ninety stadia, or eleven miles and one quarter, in breadth; and conse. quently was an oblong square. Its circumference was four hundred and eighty stadia, or sixty miles. For this reason we find it said in the prophet Jonah, that Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days journey; which is to be understood of the whole circuit or compass of the city. The walls of it were a hundred feet high, and of such a thickness, that three chariots might go abreast upon them with ease. They were fortified and adorned with fifteen hundred towers two hundred feet high.

After he had finished this prodigious work, he resumed his expedition against the Bactrians. His army, according to the relation of Ctesias, consisted of seventeen hundred thousand foot, two hundred thousand horse, and about sixteen thousand chariots, armed with scythes. Diodorus adds, that this ought not to appear incredible, since, not to mention the innumerable armies of Ďa rius and Xerxes, the single city of Syracuse, in the time of Dionysius the tyrant, furnished one hundred and twenty thousand foot, and twelve thousand horse, besides four hundred vessels well equipped and provided. And a little before Hannibal's time, Italy, including the citizens and allies, was able to send into the field nearly a million of men. Ninus made himself master of a great number of cities, and at last laid siege to Bactria, the capital of the country. Here he would probably have seen all his attempts miscarry, had it not been for the diligence and assistance of Semiramis, wife to one of his chief of ficers, a woman of an uncommon courage, and particularly exempted from the weakness of her sex. She was born at Ascalon, a city of Syria. I think it needless to recite the account Diodorus gives of her birth, and of the miraculous manner of her being nursed and brought up by pigeons, since that his torian himself looks upon it only as a fabulous story. It was Semiramis that directed Ninus how to attack the citadel, and by her means he took it, and then became master of the city, in which he found an immense treasure. The husband of this lady having killed himself, to prevent the effects of the king's threats and indignation, who had conceived a violent passion for his wife, Ninus married Semiramis.

After his return to Nineveh, he had a son by her, whom he called Ninyas. Not long after this he died, and left the queen the government of the kingdom. She in honour of his memory, erected him a magnificent monument, which remained a long time after the ruin of Nineveh.

I find no appearance of truth in what some authors relate concerning the manner of Semiramis's coming to the throne. According to them, having secured the chief men of the state, and attached them to her interest by her benefactions and promises, she solicited the king with great importunity to put the sovereign power into her hands for the space of five days. He yielded

*Diod. l. ii.

90-95. P.

Diodorus says, it was on the banks of the Euphrates, and speaks of it as if it was so,

but he is mistaken.

Junah, iii. 3.

in many places; It is hard to believe, that Diodorus does not speak of the magnitude of Nineveh with some exaggera tion: therefore, some leary d men have reduced the stadium to little more than one half, and reckon fifteen them to the Roman mik instead of eight.

ᎥᏉ

to her entreaties, and all the provinces of the empire were commanded to obey Semiramis. These orders were executed but too exactly for the unfortunate Ninus, who was put to death, either immediately, or after some years imprisonment.*

SEMIRAMIS. This princess applied all her thoughts to immortalize her name, and to cover the meanness of her extraction by the greatness of her deeds and enterprises.t She proposed to herself to surpass all her predecessors in magnificence, and to that end she undertook the building of the mighty Babylon, in which work she employed two millions of men, who were collected out of all the provinces of her vast empire. Some of her successors endeavoured to adorn that city with new works and embellishments. I shall here speak of them altogether, in order to give the reader a more clear and distinct idea of that stupendous city.

The principal works, which rendered Babylon so famous, were the walls of the city; the quays and the bridge; the lake, banks, and canals made for the draining of the river; the palaces, hanging gardens, and the temple of Belus; works of such surprising magnificence, as is scarcely to be comprehended. Dr. Prideaux having treated this matter with great extent and learning, I have only to copy, or rather abridge them.

I. THE WALLS.

BABYLON stood on a large flat or plain, in a very rich and deep soil.§ The walls were every way prodigious. They were eighty-seven feet thick, three hundred and fifty feet high, and four hundred and eighty furlongs, or sixty of our miles in circumference. These walls were drawn round the city in the form of an exact square, each side of which was one hundred and twenty furlongs, or fifteen miles, in length, and all built of large bricks cemented together with bitumen, a glutinous slime arising out of the earth in that country, which binds in building much stronger and firmer than lime, and soon grows much harder than the bricks or stones themselves, which it cements together. These walls were surrounded on the outside with a vast ditch, full of water, and lined with bricks on both sides. The earth that was dug out of it, was made into the bricks wherewith the walls were built; and therefore, from the vast height and breadth of the walls, may be inferred the greatness of the ditch.

On every side of this great square were twenty-five gates, that is, a hundred in all, which were all made of solid brass; and hence it is, that when God promised to Cyrus the conquest of Babylon, he tells him, That he would break in pieces before him the gates of brass. T Between every two of these gates were three towers, and four more at the four corners of this great square, and three between each of these corners and the next gate on either side; every one of these towers was ten feet higher than the walls. But this is to be understood only of those parts of the wall where there was need of towers.

From the twenty-five gates in each side of this great square extended twenty-five streets, in straight lines to the gates, which were directly over against them, in the opposite side; so that the whole number of the streets were fifty, each fifteen miles long, twenty-five of which passed one way, and twenty-five the other, crossing each other at right angles. And besides these, there were also four half streets, which had houses only on one side, and the wall on the other; these went round the four sides of the city next the walls, and were each of them two hundred feet broad; the rest were about a hundred and fifty. By these streets thus crossing each other, the whole city was

*Plut. in Mor. p. 753.

† Diod. I. i. p. 95.

We are not to wonder, if we find the founding of a city ascribed to different persons. It is common, even among profane writers, to say, such a prince built such a city, whether he was the person that first founded it, or that only embellished or enlarged it.

Her. l. i. c. 178, 180. Diod. I. ii. p. 95, 96. Q. Curt. 1. v. c. 1.

I relate things as I find them in the ancient authors, which Dean Prideaux has also done; but I cannot help believing that great abatements are to be made in what they say as to the immense extent of Babylon and Nineveh. Isa. xlv. 3.

divided into six hundred and seventy-six squares, each of which was four fur longs and a half on every side, that is, two miles and a quarter in circumference. Round these squares, on every side towards the streets, stood the houses, which were not contiguous, but had void spaces between them, all built three or four stories high, and embellished with all manner of ornaments towards the streets. The space within, in the middle of each square, was likewise all vacant ground, employed for yards, gardens, and other such uses; so that Babylon was greater in appearance than reality, nearly one half of the city being taken up in gardens and other cultivated lands, as we are told by Q. Curtius.*

II. THE QUAYS AND BRIDGE.

A BRANCH of the river Euphrates ran quite across the city, from the north to the south side; on each side of the river was a quay, and a high wall, built of brick and bitumen, of the same thickness as the walls that went round the city. In these walls, opposite to every street that led to the river, were gates of brass, and from them descents by steps to the river, for the convenience of the inhabitants, who used to pass over from one side to the other in boats, having no other way of crossing the river before the building of the bridge. These brazen gates were always open in the day-time, and shut in the night.

The bridge was not inferior to any of the other buildings either in beauty or magnificence; it was a furlong in length, and thirty feet in breadth, built with wonderful art, to supply the defect of a foundation in the bottom of the river, which was sandy. The arches were made of huge stones, fastened together with chains of iron and melted lead. Before they began to build the bridge, they turned the course of the river, and laid its channel dry, having another view in so doing besides that of laying the foundations more commodiously, as I shall hereafter explain. And as every thing was prepared beforehand, both the bridge and the quays, which I have already described, were built in that interval.

III. THE LAKE, DITCHES, AND CANALS MADE FOR THE DRAINING OF THE RIVER.

THESE works, objects of admiration for the skilful in all ages, were still more useful than magnificent. In the beginning of the summer, the melting of the snow upon the mountains of Armenia, causes a vast increase of waters, which running into the Euphrates in the months of June, July, and August, makes it overflow its banks, and occasions such another inundation as the Nile does in Egypt.§

To prevent the damage which both the city and country received from these inundations, at a very considerable distance above the town, two artificial canals were cut, which turned the course of these waters into the Tigris before they reached Babylon. And to secure the country yet more from the danger of inundations, and to keep the river within its channel, they raised prodigious artificial banks on both sides the river, built with brick, cemented with bitumen, which began at the head of the artificial canals, and extended below he city. T

**

To facilitate the making of these works, it was necessary to turn the course of the river another way; for which purpose, to the west of Babylon, was dug a prodigious artificial lake, forty miles square, one hundred and sixty in compass, and thirty-five feet deep according to Herodotus, and seventy-five feet according to Megasthenes. Into this lake the whole river was turned by an artificial canal, cut from the west side of it, till the whole work was finished,

* Quint. Curt. 1. v. c. 1.

† Her. l. i. c. 180. 186. Diod. i ii. p. 96.

Diodorus says this bridge was five furlongs in length, which can hardly be true, since the Euphrates was but one furlong broad.-Strab. 1. xvi. p. 758.

Strab. 1. xvi. p. 740. Plin. 1. v. c. 26.

Abyd. ap. Eus. Præp. Evang. 1. ix

Abyd. ib. Her. I. i. c. 185.

**The author follows Herodotus, who makes it four hundred and twenty furlongs, or fifty-two miles but I choose to follow Dean Prideaux, who in that prefers the account of Megasthenes.

square