well be selected than this warm and rich vale sheltered by mountaius. Judging by the grandeur of the ruins, the place must have been very large and very beautiful. Splendid relics of the famous temple of Baal still remain to make the surrounding scenery mournful in the thought of the transient nature of human greatness, when not placed in excellence of head or heart. In the ruins are found chambers, which seem to have been designed for some mysterious, perhaps some guilty purpose, and call to mind the voluptuous sensualities that were connected with the worship of Baal. Among the numerous remains of art, we select for engraving THE GRAND GATEWAY OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN AT BAALBEC. BABEL (H. confusion), a name which carries the mind back into the deep shadows of primitive antiquity, when the earth was hardly yet dry from the waters of the deluge; and it is a fact which adds no small confirmation to the Biblical narratives regarding the infancy of the world, that the accounts supplied by these narratives are not only probable in their general substance, but accord with such fragments of information as may be gathered, whether from ruined cities, or the more destroyed pages of history. Those,' says Eupolemus, in a passage preserved by Eusebius, 'who escaped from the deluge, constructed the city of Babylon, and that tower, celebrated by all historians, which was overturned by the power of the Divinity.' The student of Scripture needs not to be informed, that these words correspond in sense with the account that is preserved in the book of Genesis (xi.) In the rich plains of Shinar or Babylon, the descendants of Noah built a tower, whose summit they intended should rise so high as to be lost from view in the clouds. The Bible informs us, that instead of stone, which is not found there in situ, they made use of burnt brick, cemented together by bitumen, of which the country yields large supplies; and Herodotus, in speaking of the edifices of Babylon, states that the same materials were employed. The reasons may have been various which induced the builders to undertake such a work. Sacred and profane history unite iu assigning pride as chief among these reasons. A less improper reason is intimated in the Bible (Gen. xi. 4), in a natural desire on the part of these early dwellers on earth to possess a building so large and high, as might be a mark and rallying-point in the vast plains where they lived, in order to prevent their being scattered abroad; for otherwise BAB the ties of kindred would be rudely sundered, individuals would be involved in peril, and their numbers be prematurely thinned, at a time when population was weak and insufficient. The idea of preventing this dispersion by building a lofty tower, is applicable, in the most remarkable manner, to the wide and level plains of Babylonia, where scarcely one object exists different from another, to guide the traveller in his journeying; and which, in those early days, as at present, were a sea of land, the compass being then unknown. It was not, however, a part of God's plan that society should yet be aggregated together in large masses, still less fix itself and spread out its branches on one sole spot of earth. The world had to be peopled; and, therefore, these first congregations of men must go forth to the east, to the west, to the north, and to the south, in order that the earth might be occupied and tilled. Nor can there be a doubt that such a dispersion was fitted to make the most for man, of the yet virgin soil, and the golden opportunities which offered themselves untouched on every side. As yet, however, there was but -a fact which agrees not only ene language, with history, but also with the tendency of the most recent and best ascertained results of philological scholarship. But so long as imen were united by language, the aggregative would be stronger than the dispersive power. Nothing so unites men as identity of speech: nothing so separates them as its diversity. Divine Providence, therefore, brought into operation causes, which occasioned such a difference in tongues, that these primitive men could no longer understand, and, in consequence, could no longer And as it is communicate with each other. easy to see how diverse external influences would, in a few generations, give rise to such different dialectical varieties as would be sufficient to produce the alleged effect in the then uncultivated state of the human mind, so these varieties, when they had once come into existence, would go on constantly increasing; and as they increased, so would they tend to scatter men abroad, dividing a race into tribes, and tribes into clans, and clans into households; and by a reverse operation, under the aid of the prolific powers of nature, augmenting households into clans, and clans into tribes, and tribes into races, and races into nations,-nations distantly seated on the face of the earth, and soon marked by many signs to the superficial observer of essential and original individuality. On the right bank of the river Euphrates stand the ruins of an edifice, bearing the name of Birs Nimrod, which the best antiquarian authority identifies with the tower of Babel. Opinions, however, are divided as to the question, whether this Birs Nimrod is the same as the temple of Belus described by Herodotus; and though we incline to think that the latter may have been a sumptuous BABYLON is a Greek form of Babel, and birth Two noble rivers offered facilities of intercourse, and the only supply which a fine rich soil needed, in order to pour forth the utmost vegetable affluence. The sky was serene and cloudless, the air pure, the position of the city lay mid-way between the east and the west, and so united both. Here might the dreams of the wildest ambition hope to be fulfilled. Even Alexander contemplated making Babylon the centre of his universal monarchy. And the duration of the city, through so many vicissitudes, and so long a period of time, is of itself sufficient proof that Nimrod made a wise choice for his great and yet untried experiment, and serves to justify the Biblical narratives, in placing the commencement of our present civilisation in the land of Shinar, and on the banks of the noble and wellsituated streams, the Euphrates and the Tigris. In all probability, the peculiar facilities afforded by the spot had already attracted to it the earliest fathers of our race, who thus offered to Nimrod a temptation for his ambition, and a prepared sphere for his enterprise. He seized the opportunity, and became the founder of a city and a kingdom, whose fame will never pass away. We are not, however, to imagine that Nimrod left the city in that grandeur of which we find it possessed in the pages of the historian. For the attainment of this, many ages and many minds would be requisite. Nor was the progress of the city towards the splendour of its later history, unbroken or unchecked. The times in these early days were too full of violence and trouble, to allow in any human work a continuous and steady development. Darkness, storm, and even ruin, came now a restorative, now an embellishing hand was needed; and as the course of events was imperfectly known even by professed historians in ancient times, so was it easy for an honest and well-informed chronicler to set down as a new creation, that which was in reality only a renovation or an improvement. Accordingly, the zeal which Ninus, Semiramis, Nebuchadnezzar, and Netocris employed, one after the other, in enlarging and embellishing this city, has caused them each to be sometimes set forth as its founders. Babylon was divided into two nearly equal parts by the Euphrates, on whose banks it lay; a fact which will enable the reader to understand how easy it was for Cyrus, when he had drained off the waters into a reservoir excavated for the purpose, to enter the beleaguered city of a sudden, in the dead of the night, down the empty bed of the stream. Of the height, the breadth, and the strength of its walls, and of other points of detail connected with the city and its palaces, we have not room to speak. It must suffice to say, that they were all of the grandest dimensions. The area covered by the city was such, that it had in the midst of it, not only large parks and gardens, but also arable land of such extent as to furnish supplies of food in case of a siege. Such was the magnitude of the city, that hours elapsed before its capture by Cyrus was known to its inhabitants who dwelt at the extremity opposite to that where the conqueror entered. The myriads of human beings who were gathered together within the walls of this immense place were supplied with the necessaries, and no few of the luxuries, of life, partly by vessels and rafts that navigated the Euphrates, but still more by the canals, which were led from the river like a net-work all over the soft and yielding soil, carrying, by a wide-spread system of irrigation, fertility far and wide, and bringing back the rich products of eastern climes to the great living centre In order to aid the scriptural student in forming a conception of Babylon the Great' (Rev. xvii. 5), we shall say a few words of its hanging gardens, and of the temple of Belus, which some make the same as the tower of Babel and the Birs Nimrod. There were in Babylon two splendid palaces, one on the right, one on the left bank of the river. From the latter, which was surrounded by a triple enclosure of walls, standing far apart from each other, and sculptured with various kinds of animals, among which there was seen a leopard, against which Semiramis was hurling a lance, while her husband pierced a lion, there sprang the celebrated hanging gardens, the wonder of the world, whose formation is ascribed by Berosus to the gallantry of Nebuchadnezzar, who had them constructed in order to gratify his spouse Amytis; for she missed and regretted in the unwooded, flat, and less fertile Babylonia, the noble mountains, the stately trees, the productive and lovely vales, to which she had been used in her native Media. The splendid monarch, in consequence, caused a quadrangle, whose sides measured 1600 feet, to be enclosed, in which amphitheatrical terraces were thrown up, bearing on the surface a rich artificial soil, to such a height that in some parts the gardens reached to the top of the city walls. These terraces were connected with each other by flights of steps, on which pumps were placed in order to distribute the waters of the Euphrates over the verdant and flowery plots in whose deep beds large and lofty trees held firm root, and which presented to an eye that looked on the gardens from a distance the appearance of mountains covered with forests. Of this vast mass of galleries, terraces, gardens, flowers, shrubs, and trees, there now remains scarcely a distinct trace, amid ruins that, in their confused and gigantic masses, indicate the greatness ~nd splen dour of the constructions whence they were derived. The place, however, where these BAB gardens probably stood still bears among Still more considerable was the temple of Herodotus, 115 who had looked on it with dazzled eyes, BAB The posture, stood a second golden table, on Whatever their with the offerings of king and people, and hononred as long as the sway of the Chaldæans lasted at Babylon. But, after the conquest of Cyrus, it fell rapidly. Indignant at the frauds which Daniel had laid bare, that prince put the priests of the idol to death, and permitted the prophet to overturn his altars. These were at a later period again raised up; but, from the time of Daniel, the sanctuary ceased to be sacred in the eyes of the conquerors of Babylon. Darius ventured to violate it: he was strongly inclined to carry off the standing golden image, and desisted only in consequence of the resistance of the attendant priest. This priest was slain by Xerxes, his son and successor, who took possession of the idol and the other treasures of the temple, destroying, at the same time, the parts of it which were appropriated to the residences of the priests and their families. Alexander, surnamed the Great, became in turn conqueror of Babylon. His entry into the city is thus graphically described by Q. Curtius: :-'A great part of the inhabitants stood on the walls, eager to catch a sight of their new monarch: many went forth to meet him. Among these, Bagophanes, keeper of the citadel and royal treasures, strewed the entire way before the king with flowers and crowns: silver altars were also placed on both sides of the road, which were loaded not merely with frankincense, but all kinds of odoriferous herbs. He brought with him for Alexander gifts of various kinds, flocks of sheep and horses: lions also and panthers were carried before him in their dens. The magi came next, singing in their usual manner their ancient hymns. After them came the Chaldæans, with their musical instruments, who are not only the prophets of the Babylonians, but their artists. The first are wont to sing the praises of the kings: the Chaldæans teach the motions of the stars, and the periodic vicissitudes of the times and seasons. Then followed, last of all, the Babylonian knights, whose equipment, as well as that of their horses, seemed designed more for luxury than magnificence. The king, Alexander, attended by armed men, having ordered the crowd of the townspeople to proceed in the rear of his infantry, entered the city in a chariot, and repaired to the palace. The next day he carefully surveyed the household treasure of Darius, and all his money. For the rest, the beanty of the city and its age turned the eyes, not only of the king, but of every one, to its own splendid spectacles. After the death of Alexander, Seleucus Nicator, his successor in this province, transported to Selencia the inhabitants of Babylon, intending to reduce that ancient city to nothing, in order to make place for the new city which he had just founded, calling it after his own name. Nevertheless, preserving an appearance of respect for the now almost forgotten god, he permitted his priests to rebuild the ruins of the enclosure, and again to fix their dwellings around its interior. In the second century, Pausanias visited Babylon, and found this gigantic monument, the temple of Bel, which he terms the grandest ruin of the place. He is the last ancient writer that speaks on the subject. Modern travellers think they find its remains in the ruins of an immense square tower, built of bricks, bearing arrowheaded inscriptions, and surmounted by shattered and broken remnants of ancient buildings. This confused mass the natives call Mijahlibah (turned upside down). We read in the book of Daniel (iv. 30), that Nebuchadnezzar, while walking in the sumptuous palaces with which he had adorned the city, suddenly broke forth in these vain-glorious words:- Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the capital of my empire, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?' Idle boast: poor, ignorant man! little did he think that the moment of humiliation and overthrow was at hand. The same hour he was driven from men; for, his weak intellect becoming dazzled and disordered by glare, vanity, and excess, he was, like other wretched maniacs of old, expelled from human society, and, living on the spontaneous products of the soil, did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws. -This great vaunted city also now drew near to the pangs of that destruction with which she had been threatened by the truthful voice of Hebrew prophecy (Isa. xlv. seq.), which foretold the overthrow of the idolatrous and tyrannical empire, with unequalled precision and force, even naming the agent whom the Almighty would employ, his anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him, to open before him the two-leaved gates. I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places. Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth; they stoop, they bow down together, themselves are gone into captivity. Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou no more shalt be called tender and delicate. The gates of brass' here mentioned present one of those minute points that cannot be invented. Three brazen gates led into the grand area of the temple, and every considerable gate throughout the city was of brass. The predicted overthrow came. Belshazzar, given up to his pleasures, threw the cares of government entirely on his mother. After making some feeble efforts to arrest the hastening torrent, he soon de |
