The population of Babylon was probably above 500,000 and the city contained more wealthy families than any other in Asia. The houses of these added to the beauty of the place, while two royal palaces, one on either side of the Euphrates, exceeded all former splendor in the southland. Streets were laid out at right angles, and the more important ones terminated in high gates leading out of the city walls. These gates were made of cedar and covered with bronze plates. Well might Nebuchadnezzar exclaim: "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power, and for the glory of my majesty?" And again: "For the astonishment of men I built this house; awe of the power of my majesty encompasses its walls. The temples of the great gods I made brilliant as the sun, shining as the day. In Babylon alone I raised the seat of my dominion, in no other city!"
DECORATION IN ENAMELED TILES ON ONE OF THE GATES OF THE HAREM IN SARGON'S PALACE.
CHAPTER XV.
Religion.
We have learned something of the primitive religious ideas of the Chaldeans, or Sumerians, who originally occupied Babylonia. However, when the Babylonian religion is mentioned, reference is made to the later faith of the valley, and this resulted from a blending of the Sumerian beliefs and the religious system brought in by the Semitic invaders.
The original inhabitants of the country, in their attempt to explain the forces of nature, had conceived that spirits belonged to animate as well as inanimate objects, and that these spirits had power to bless or injure. The rain could refresh the crops or it might wash them out of the earth; the sun could cause the grain to germinate or in a day could dry it up with withering heat. The evil which each spirit was likely to do so far exceeded the good that gradually these spirits were thought of as demons. It was a demon which took possession of a man and made him ill. Famines were brought by the south-west wind. In short, demons threatened on every hand, and only a diligent use of charms and frequent incantations could protect humanity and enable each to live out his days amidst such imminent dangers.
Now it is evident that there is no trace of our conception of a god in all this, but the early Sumerians had also their gods which were likewise personifications of nature, and these were later adopted by the Babylonian Semites, who also took over the earlier beliefs about the various spirits. In the course of perhaps several hundred years from the blending of the two beliefs, with such changes as growing intelligence brought, the religion of the Babylonians was evolved.