[165] We shall here give a résumé of M. Place's observations (Ninive et l'Assyrie, vol. i. pp. 31-34).
[166] Place, Ninive, &c. vol. i. p.
[167] Ibid. p. 33.
[168] In every country in which buildings have been surmounted by flat roofs, this precaution has been taken—"When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence." (Deuteronomy xxii. 8). See also Les Monuments en Chaldée, en Assyrie et à Babylon, d'après les récentes découvertes archéologique, avec neuf planches lithographiés, 8vo, by H. Cavaniol, published in 1870 by Durand et Pedone-Lauriel. It contains a very good résumé, especially in the matter of architecture, of those labours of French and English explorers to which we owe our knowledge of Chaldæa and Assyria.
[169] Place, Ninive et l'Assyrie, vol i. p. 64.
[170] Xenophon, Anabasis, iii. 4, 7-11. The identity of Larissa and Mespila has been much discussed. Oppert thinks they were Resen and Dour-Saryoukin; others that they were Calech and Nineveh. The question is without importance to our inquiry. In any case the circumference of six parasangs (about 20½ miles) ascribed by the Greek writer to his Mespila can by no means be made to fit Khorsabad.
[171] See the History of Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. i. p. 113.
[172] Botta tells us how the courses of crude brick were distinguished one from another at Khorsabad (Monuments de Ninive, vol. v. p. 57).
[173] Speaking of Hillah, George Smith tells us (Assyrian Discoveries, p. 62):—"A little to the south rose the town of Hillah, built with the bricks found in the old capital. The natives have established a regular trade in these bricks for building purposes. A number of men are always engaged in digging out the bricks from the ruins, while others convey them to the banks of the Euphrates. There they are packed in rude boats, which float them down to Hillah, and on being landed they are loaded on donkeys and taken to any place where building is in progress. Every day when at Hillah I used to see this work going on as it had gone on for centuries, Babylon thus slowly disappearing without an effort being made to ascertain the dimensions and buildings of the city, or to recover what remains of its monuments. The northern portion of the wall, outside the Babil mound, is the place where the work of destruction is now (1874) most actively going on, and this in some places has totally disappeared."
[174] Layard, Discoveries, &c. p. 110.