According to Ctesias (ap. Liod. Sic. ii, 7 sq.), the cir- cuit of the city was a little, under 42 miles. It lay, he says, on both sides of the Euphrates, and the two parts were connected together by a stone bridge above 1000 yards long, and 30 feet broad, of the kind described by Herodotus. At either extremity of the bridge was a royal palace, that in the eastern city being the most magnificent of the two. It •was defended by a triple enceinte, the outermost 7 miles round ; the second, which was circular, A\ miles ; and the third 1\ miles. The height of the second or middle wall was 300 feet, and its towers were 420 feet. The elevation of the inner- most circuit was even greater than this. The walls of both the second and the third enclosure were made of colored trick, and represented hunting scenes — the chase of the leopard and the. lion — with figures, male and female, regarded by Ctesias as those of Ninus and Semiramis. The other palace was inferior both in size and magnificence. It was enclosed within a single enceinte 8§- miles in circumference, and contained rep- resentations of hunting and battle scenes, as well as statues in bronze, said to be those of Ninus, Semiramis, and Jupiter Belus. The two palaces were joined, not only by the bridge, but by a tunnel under the river. Ctesias' account of the temple of Belus has not come down to us. We may gather, however, that he rep- resented its general character in much the same way as Herodotus, but spoke of it as surmounted by three statues, one of Bel, 40 feet high, another of Rhea, and a third of Juno or Beltis. — Smith.
The account given by Quintus Curtius (v, 1) of the entrance of Alexander into Babylon may serve to en- liven the narrative, and, at the same time, make the impression on the reader's mind more distinct. "A great part of the inhabitants of Babylon stood on the walls, eager to catch a sight of their new monarch. Many went forth to meet him. Among these, Ba- gophanes, keeper of the citadel and of the royal treas- ure, strewed the entire way before the king with flow- ers 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 brou.L'ht 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 an- cient hymns. After them came the Chaldaeans, with their musical instruments, who are not only the proph- ets of the Babylonians, but their artists. The first are wont to sing the praises of the kings ; the Chal- daeans 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,
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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 towns-people to proceed in the rear of his infantry, entered the city in a chariot and repaired to the pal- ace. The next day he carefully surveyed the house- hold treasure of Darius, and all his money. For the rest, the beauty of the city and its age turned the eyes not only of the king, but of every one, on itself, and that with good reason." Within a brief period after this Alexander lay a corpse in the palace.
One or two additional facts may aid in conveying a full idea of this great and magnificent city. When Cyrus took Babylon by turning the Euphrates into a neighboring lake, the dwellers in the middle of the place were not for some time aware that their fellow- townsmen who were near the walls had been captured. This, says Herodotus (i, 191), was owing to the mag- nitude of the city, and to the circumstance that at the time the inhabitants were engaged in carousals, it be- ing a festive occasion. Nor, according to Xenophon, did the citizens of the opposite quarter learn the event till three hours after sunrise, the city having been taken in the night. Alexander had to employ 10,000 men during two months to remove the accumulated ruins precipitated by order of Xerxes nearly 200 years before. From the fallen towers of Babylon have aris- en not only all the present cities in its vicinity, but others which, like itself, have long since gone down into the dust. Since the days of Alexander, four cap- itals, at least, have been built out of its remains : Se- leucia, by the Greeks; Ctesiphon, by the Parthians; Al Maidan, by the Persians; and Kufa, by the ca- liphs; with towns, villages, and caravansaries with- out number. The necessary fragments and materials were transported along the rivers and the canals.
The antiquity of the canals of Babylonia dates from the most remote periods of the Chaldseo-Babylonian monarchy. The ancient kings of Assyria and Babj'- lonia well understood the value of canals, and their empire arose upon alluvial plains, amid a system of ir- rigation and draining which spread like a net-work over the land. It may be sufficient to specify the Nahr Malikah, or Royal Canal, the origin of which has been referred both to Nimrod and Cush. Abydenus, however, attributes it to Nebuchadnezzar. From the account of Herodotus, it appears to have been of suffi- cient breadth and depth to be navigable for merchant vessels. It is not, therefore, surprising that some writers have considered it as the ancient bed of the Euphrates. The soil around Babylon is of a light, yielding nature, easily wrought for canals and other purposes, whether of art or war. Cyrus, therefore, would find no great difficulty in digging a trench about the city sufficient to contain the waters of the river (Cyrop. vii). Alexander (Strabo, xvi, p. 510), in en- larging one of the canals and forming basins for his fleet, laid open the graves of many buried kings and princes, which shows how readily the soil yields and gives way before the labors of man.