NINEVEH AND BABYLON.[ToC]
Far away from the highways of modern commerce and the tracks of ordinary travel lay a city buried in the sandy earth of a half-desert Turkish province, with no trace of its place of sepulture. Vague tradition said it was hidden somewhere near the river Tigris; but for a long series of ages its existence in the world was a mere name—a word. That name suggested the idea of an ancient capital of fabulous splendor and magnitude; a congregation of palaces and temples, encompassed by vast walls and ramparts—of "the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly; that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me," and which was to become "a desolation and dry like a wilderness."
More than two thousand years had it lain in its unknown grave, when a French savant and a wandering scholar sought the seat of the once powerful empire, and searching till they found the dead city, threw off its shroud of sand and ruin, and revealed once more to an astonished and curious world the temples, the palaces, and the idols; the representations of war and the chase, of the cruelties and luxuries of the ancient Assyrians. The Nineveh of Scripture, the Nineveh of the oldest historians; the Nineveh—twin sister of Babylon—glorying in pomp and power, all traces of which were believed to be gone; the Nineveh in which the captive tribes of Israel had labored and wept, and against which the words of prophecy had gone forth, was, after a sleep of twenty centuries, again brought to light. The proofs of ancient splendor were again beheld by living eyes, and by the skill of draftsmen and the pen of antiquarian travelers made known and preserved to the world.
In the history of Jonah's visit, Nineveh is twice described as "that great city," and again as an "exceedingly great city of three days' journey."
The measurement assigned to Nineveh by the sacred writer applies, without doubt, to its circuit, and gives a circumference of about sixty miles.
None of the historical books of the Old Testament give any details respecting Nineveh. The prophets, however, make frequent incidental allusion to its magnificence, to the "fenced place," the "stronghold," the "valiant men and chariots," the "silver and gold," the "pleasant furniture," "carved lintels and cedar work." Zephaniah, who wrote about twenty-four years before the fall of Nineveh, says of it: