The heaps of ruins which rise out of the plains some miles to the south-west of Babylon—the Arabs call them Birs Nimrud, i. e. "the fortress of Nimrod"—exhibit the same plan of structure as the ruins of the temples at Ur and Erech. Within a square wall, on a platform of brick, rises a square story, 272 feet on every side, and 26 feet in height; over this is a second story, of the same height, but forming a square of 230 feet only, and not placed exactly in the middle of the lower story, but in such a manner that on one side it recedes 12 feet only, but on the other 30 feet from the edge of the lower plateau. In the same way the third and still smaller story rests on the second. It is of the same height as the others. The fourth story is only 15 feet in height. The loose mass of ruins does not allow us to trace any more stories. Hence the building in all probability consisted of seven stories. It appears that these ruins, like the extensive heaps of remains lying to the east of them (Tel Ibrahim), mark the site of the ancient Borsippa. The tiles of the stories, which lie one over the other, bear the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar II., and in the angles of the building cylinders have been discovered,[401] on which Nebuchadnezzar relates that the temple of the seven lamps of the earth, the tower of Borsippa, which an earlier king had commenced but not completed, and which had fallen into decay for many years, was again erected by him, and the pinnacles covered with copper. In his great inscription of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar further tells us that he "restored the marvel of Borsippa, the temple of the seven spheres of the sky and of the earth, and covered the pinnacles with copper." In the same inscription it is said that Nebuchadnezzar built temples at Borsippa to the goddess Nana, to Adar, Bin, and Sin, and that he restored and completed Beth-Sida, i. e. the chief temple of Nebo at Borsippa; nevertheless we may be certain, from the cylinders actually found in the ruins, that the remains are those of the temple of the seven lamps.[402]
Turning from Borsippa to Babylon, we find Herodotus describing the largest temple of the city in the following manner:—"The sanctuary of Zeus Belus—it is in existence still—forms a square of two stadia on every side, and is furnished with iron gates. In the midst is a massive tower, a stadium in the square. Over this tower stands another, and again another, till there are eight towers, one over the other. They are ascended from the outside, and the ascent goes up round all the towers. Half-way up there is a resting-place, and seats for those who are ascending. On the highest tower is a large temple, and in the temple a large and beautifully-prepared bed, and beside it a golden table. There is no image there, nor does anyone watch there through the night except a woman of the country, whom, as the Chaldæan priests say, their god has chosen out of all the land. They also declare, though I do not believe it, that the god sometimes comes into the temple and rests on the bed. In this sanctuary there is also another temple below, and in this there is a great image of the seated Zeus, of gold, and a large golden table; the footstool and seat are also of gold; and altogether, as the Chaldæans say, the amount of gold used is 800 talents. Outside this temple is a golden altar, on which only sucking creatures may be sacrificed, and also a larger altar, where the full-grown animals are sacrificed. On this the Chaldæans burn in every year 1,000 talents of incense when they celebrate the festival of the god. Here was another golden image of the god, 12 cubits high. But this I did not see; I only repeat what the Chaldæans told me. This image Xerxes had taken away. Such were the adornments of the temple, and besides these there were in it many dedicatory offerings given by individuals."[403]
Diodorus, who wrote four hundred years later than Herodotus, relates:—"In the middle of the city was the sanctuary of Zeus, whom the Babylonians call Belus. But as the writers give different accounts of the temple, and the structure has fallen from age, it is not possible to say anything certain about it. Yet they agree that it was extremely high, and that the Chaldæans here made their observations of the stars, as the height of the building enabled them to observe accurately their rising and setting. The whole building is said to have been constructed of burnt brick and bitumen, with great skill and much ornament. On the top were three statues of Zeus, Hera, and Rhea, of beaten gold. The statue of Zeus represented him standing and advancing. It was 40 feet high and 1,000 Babylonian talents in weight. Of the same weight was the statue of Rhea, in which the goddess was seated on a golden throne. Beside her knees were two lions, and close at hand two very large serpents of silver, each weighing 30 talents. The standing figure of Hera weighed 800 talents; in her right hand she held a serpent by the head, and in the left a sceptre studded with precious stones. Before these statues was a common table of beaten gold, 40 feet long and 15 feet broad, and 500 talents in weight. On the table were two chalices, each 30 talents in weight. There also were two vessels for incense, each 30 talents in weight, and three great jars, of which that consecrated to Zeus was 1,200 talents in weight, and the two others 600 talents each."[404] Strabo contents himself with the remark: "The now ruined grave of Belus was a square pyramid of burnt bricks. It was a stadium in height, and a stadium on every side. Alexander intended to rebuild it, but the work was enormous, and required a long time; the removal of the debris alone employed 10,000 workmen for two months, so that he could not bring it to an end, for soon after he fell sick and died."[405] What Diodorus tells us of the many thousand talents of gold, of the statues and utensils on the top of the temple-tower, is borrowed from Ctesias, and belongs to the romance or poetry of the East from the time of the empire of the Medes. But we cannot doubt that there was a considerable amount of gold in the greatest sanctuary at Babel. The seated image of gold in the lower temple, which Herodotus saw, weighed, according to the Chaldæans, 800 talents, i. e., on the light imperial scale, 50,000 pounds.
It was this magnificent temple at Babylon to which the tradition of the Hebrews has attached the account of the building of that tower in the plain of Shinar of which the top should reach heaven. The mighty men, the giants of the ancient days, desired to climb heaven. Their insolence and wicked purpose was punished by the confusion of language and the dispersion of mankind. Josephus makes Nimrod, as the founder of the kingdom of Babylon, the promoter of this wicked scheme. Nimrod intended the tower to be so high that a second flood could not reach the top, and thus men would be able to bid defiance to the gods, and yet be secure against a second destruction.[406]
Let us now inquire what conclusions, if any, can be derived from the inscriptions about the great temple of Babylon. From ancient times there was at this place a sanctuary of the name of Beth-Sagall, or Beth-Saggatu, i. e. "House of the Height." Whether this was erected as early as Hammurabi is doubtful; but an inscription of his successor tells us that he set up the image of the god Merodach (Marduk) in Beth-Sagall.[407] These inscriptions of king Esarhaddon, who ruled over Assyria and Babylonia from 681 B.C. to 668 B.C., tell us that "he caused tiles to be made in Babylon for Beth-Saggatu, the temple of the great gods."[408] After the restoration of the Babylonian empire Nebuchadnezzar always calls himself in his inscriptions, "Supporter of Beth-Saggatu, and Beth-Sida." Beth-Sida, i. e. "House of Prosperity," or "House of the Right Hand," was the name of the rich temple of Nebo at Borsippa. "Like a pious man," says Nebuchadnezzar in one of his inscriptions, "I have dealt towards Beth-Saggatu, and towards Beth-Sida. I have magnified the splendour of the god Merodach, and the god Nebo, my lords: I have completed Beth-Sida, the eternal house, where Nebo and Nana are enthroned, at Borsippa."[409] "I have set up Beth-Saggatu, and beautified it; Beth-Sida I have completed."[410] On the cylinders found in the ruins of the temple of the seven lamps, Nebuchadnezzar says: "Beth-Saggatu is the temple of the Heaven and the Earth, the dwelling of Merodach, the lord of the gods, and with pure gold have I caused the temple to be covered, where his splendour rests; the temple of the foundations of the earth, the tower of Babylon, I have restored, with tiles and copper I have completed it, and raised its summit."[411] The chief inscription on the stone of black basalt relates at greater length how Nebuchadnezzar adorned the sanctuary in Beth-Saggatu, where Merodach rested; how he set up the marvel of Babylon, the temple of the foundations of the heaven and the earth; how he raised the summit with tiles and copper. The description of this erection concludes with the satisfaction felt in seeing that Beth-Saggatu was now completed.[412] And not only does Nebuchadnezzar boast of the care and attention bestowed by him on Beth-Sida and Beth-Saggatu. The prince before whose arms the creation of Nebuchadnezzar, the restored kingdom of Babylon, was overthrown—Cyrus, the Persian, calls himself on the stamp of a tile at Senkereh, "Kuru, supporter of Beth-Saggatu and Beth-Sida, son of Kambuzija."[413]
This series of evidence shows that the lofty temple of Belus, which Herodotus has described for us above, was to the Babylonians "the House of the Height," the temple of Bel Merodach ([p. 268]), and that it was the first of the three temples in which the kings of Assyria sacrificed when they trod the soil of Babylon at the head of their victorious armies, or as sovereigns; and that of these three rich temples, i. e. the temple of Nergal at Kutha, Beth-Sida, the temple of Nebo at Borsippa, and Beth-Saggatu, the temple of Merodach at Babel, the latter was certainly the most wealthy. Moreover, the inscriptions show that the foundation goes back as far as the times of king Hammurabi, whose accession we found it possible—on hypothesis only, it is true—to place in the year 1976 B.C. But even the Hebrew narrative of the building of the Tower of Babel, which must have been written down before 1,000 B.C. (below, chap. vii.) proves, in this respect harmonising with the inscriptions, that long before this time there must have been in Babylon a structure of great height, but unfinished.
Herodotus, in his description of Babylon, tells us that the Tower of Belus was on one side of the Euphrates, and the royal castle on the other. On which side each of these lay, he does not state. Xenophon speaks of the palace of Babylon, and beside this of special castles.[414] From the accounts of those who accompanied Alexander, it is clear that there were two royal castles in Babylon, one on the right hand and one on the left of the Euphrates, which certainly were not built under the Achæmenids. Berosus tells us that Nebuchadnezzar built himself a palace beside that of his father Nabopolassar. The inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar speak repeatedly of the continuation of the palace at Babylon which his father had begun.[415] As the two great heaps of ruins on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, El Kasr and Amran ibn Ali, exhibit on the tiles found there the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar, this palace of the ruler of the restored kingdom must have lain on the east bank of the Euphrates. Diodorus describes the two castles of Babylon, of which one was on the east and the other on the west bank of the river; while both were adorned with various ornaments. "That in the part lying towards the west" had a circuit of sixty stades, inclosed by lofty and costly walls. These were followed by a second circular wall, on the rude bricks of which various kinds of animals were stamped, and brought into a resemblance with the reality by the painter's art. The circumference was forty stades in length, and the wall was three hundred bricks in thickness; the height, according to Ctesias, was fifty fathoms, and the tower rose to sixty fathoms. The third interior wall which surrounded the buildings was twenty stades in circuit, but in height and thickness it surpassed the middle wall. On this and the towers belonging to it animals of all kinds were depicted with considerable skill in form and colour. The whole exhibited a chase, full of many different animals, which were of more than four cubits in size. Among these was a queen on horseback, who threw her dart at a panther; and at hand was the king, who thrust at a lion with his lance. This palace surpassed both in size and beauty the palace on the other side of the Euphrates. Here the exterior wall of burnt tiles was only thirty stades in circumference, and instead of the numerous animals were bronze statues of a king and a queen and of governors, and also a bronze statue of Zeus, whom the Babylonians call Belus. But in the interior were military evolutions and hunting scenes of every kind, which gave varied amusement to the spectator.[416] Ctesias, whom Diodorus followed in his description of the palace on the west bank, as in his account of the treasures in the Tower of Belus ([p. 293]), has also borrowed, in his description of this castle, the erection of which he ascribes to Ninus, from the Medo-Persian Epos, and this, as I shall show below, endeavoured to place the glory of Ninus and Semiramis in the most brilliant light. Hence, though here, as in the account of the treasures, considerable deductions are to be made, we can nevertheless recognise the fact that the castle of the ancient kings of Babylon on the western bank of the Euphrates was of considerable size, magnificent, and well fortified, although the remains now in existence are fewer and far smaller than those of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, where the painted and glazed tiles also confirm what Diodorus says of the battle and hunting scenes of this palace. If the ancient royal castle lay on the western bank, the Tower of Belus rose opposite it on the eastern bank. This is proved by an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, in which we are told:—"In order to protect Beth-Saggatu more strongly, and secure it from the attack of the enemy, I have erected a second wall, the wall of the rising sun, which no king had built before me."[417] Hence we may with certainty affirm that the most northern of the heaps on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, the heap of Babil, the summit of which still rises 140 feet above the river, is the remains of the great tower of Bel Merodach.
The ancient kings of Babylon, Hammurabi and his successors, not only built temples and palaces, but also fortresses. Hammurabi has himself already told us, that he built the fortress of Ummubanit, "the towers of which were as high as mountains." Kurigalzu built the fortress of this name (Akerkuf, [p. 262]). Of the extensive walls of Ur and Erech we have already spoken, and Sennacherib could boast of having taken eighty-nine fortresses in Babylonia ([p. 258]).
Herodotus observes that in Babylonia the river (Euphrates) does not overflow into the fields spontaneously, as in Egypt. It is not so active as the Nile, and the water has to be raised artificially by hand, and by wheels.[418] The provision of a sufficient supply of water for the land was not neglected by the kings. We have already seen ([p. 261]) that king Hammurabi boasted to have supplied Sumir and Accad with water for ever. The canal system of Babylonia began about 150 miles above the metropolis.[419] The main object was to protect the plain from the rapid floods of the Euphrates by dams, and to moderate the flow of the inundation. Reservoirs were required to receive the water of the overflow, and preserve it against the time of drought. It was also necessary to carry the water as far as the middle of the plain, which in ordinary years it failed to reach, to form a network of canals to convey water from the Euphrates even when there was no inundation, and finally to dig trenches to remove the water from districts where it lay too long, and to drain the broad marshes on the lower river near the mouth of the Euphrates. From the inscription of Hammurabi, and the numerous remains of dams and canals, we may conclude that the kings of Babylon constructed large and comprehensive works of this kind, which were of use not in agriculture only, but for commerce also. The brief duration of the later restoration of the kingdom could not allow time to complete the greater part of the vast structures and conduits, of which traces and ruins are still in existence. The canal Naarsares, which was carried from the Euphrates above Babylon toward the west, and ran parallel to the stream till within a short distance of the mouth; the canal Pallakopas, which was derived from the main stream 100 miles below Babylon, and emptied into the Chaldæan lakes, in order to convey to them the excess of water from the Euphrates; and three junction canals above Babylon between the Euphrates and Tigris, from which trenches branched off for irrigation, appear to belong to the time of the ancient kingdom (see below). These labours of the princes, the numerous dams and "waters of Babylon," attained their object. Babylonia was a garden where the land brought forth more abundant fruits than in Egypt.
Very few relics are left of the sculpture of the Babylonians. If we set aside a few sketches on cylinders and seals, we have no means of knowing at first hand the images of their gods. The form of the god Nebo on the cylinder of Urukh has been already mentioned ([p. 260]). The finished statues cannot have been very different from the images of the Assyrian gods and the statues of Nebo ([p. 267]). The remains of the ornaments of the friezes in the palaces of Babylon are scarcely to be distinguished from Assyrian sculptures. They are bearded, long-haired heads of serious expression, with tall, upright headdresses. Beyond these only a few figures in clay have been preserved, which are not without a certain truth of nature, though exaggerated, and a rude though powerful lion of stone standing over a prostrate man, from the ruins of Babylon. Whether we regard it as unfinished, or as belonging to the infancy of art, this work is all that we possess of full figures in stone, except a duck, intended for use as a weight ([p. 282]). The human forms on the numerous seal cylinders are often sketched in rude, childish outlines. On the other hand, the single relief of a king of Babylon hitherto discovered, though massive, is of artistic and neat workmanship. The king wears a long and very richly-adorned robe with close sleeves, which are fastened by bracelets round the knuckles. The robe reaches to the ankles, over which come the richly embroidered shoes. The head is covered by a tall, upright tiara, on which are horses with wings and horns. The king has a bow in his left hand, and two arrows in his right; in his girdle is a dagger. It appears to be an image of Mardukidinakh, the opponent of Tiglath Pilesar I. of Assyria ([p. 262]). The forms of the animals in the reliefs, and the cylinders, are lively in conception and vigorous in workmanship; they consist of dogs, birds, apes, deer, and antelopes. Humorous sketches of animals in caricature are also found on cylinders, and the earrings and ornaments, found in the ruins, are, in part, of delicate workmanship.