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 [pg 319] memory, erected 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.[976] 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 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.
Semiramis. This princess applied all her thoughts to immortalize her name, and to cover the meanness of her extraction by the greatness of her enterprises.[977] She proposed to herself to surpass all her predecessors in magnificence, and to that end she undertook the building of the mighty Babylon,[978] in which work she employed two millions of men, which 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 all together, in order to give the reader a more clear and distinct idea of that stupendous city.
The principal works which rendered Babylon so famous, are 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 a surprising magnificence, as is scarce to be comprehended. Dr. Prideaux having treated this subject with great extent and learning, I have only to copy, or rather abridge him.
I. The Walls.—Babylon stood on a large plain, in a very fat and rich soil.[979] The Avails were every way prodigious. They [pg 320] were in thickness eighty-seven feet, in height three hundred and fifty, and in compass four hundred and eighty furlongs, which make sixty of our miles. These walls were drawn round the city in the form of an exact square, each side of which was one hundred and twenty furlongs,[980] 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 much stronger and firmer than mortar, 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 made 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.
In 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 promises to Cyrus the conquest of Babylon, he tells him,[981] that he would break in pieces before him the gates of brass. 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 went 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 was fifty, each fifteen miles long, whereof twenty-five went one way, and twenty-five the other, directly 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 [pg 321] city was cut out into six hundred and seventy-six squares, each of which was four furlongs and a half on every side, that is, two miles and a quarter in circumference. Round these squares, on every side towards the street, stood the houses (which were not contiguous, but had void spaces between them,) all built three or four stories high, and beautified with all manner of ornaments towards the streets.[982] The space within in the middle of each square, was likewise all void ground, employed for yards, gardens, and other such uses; so that Babylon was greater in appearance than reality, near 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 cross the city, from the north to the south side;[983] 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, over-against every street that led to the river, were gates of brass, and from them descents by steps to the river, for the conveniency 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. The brazen gates were always open in the daytime, and shut in the night.