With regard to the height and breadth of the walls there is nearh' as much difference of statement as with regard to their extent. Herodotus makes the height 200 royal cubits, or 337i feet ; Ctesias, 50 fathoms, or SOOfee't; Pliny and Solinus, 200 royal feet ; Strabo, 50 oubits, or 75 feet. Here there is less appearance of in- dependent measurements than in the estimates of length. The. two original statements seem to be those i !' Herodotus and Ctesias, which onPy differ accidental- ly, the Litter having omitted to notice that the royal BCale was used. The later writers do not possess fresh data ; they merely soften down what seems to them an
ition— Pliny and Solinus changing the cubits of Herodotus into feet, and Strabo the fathoms of Cte- Bias into cubits. We arc forced, then, to fall back on the earlier authorities, who are also the only oye-wit-
and, surprising as it seems, perhaps we must believe the Btatement that the vast enclosed space above mentioned was surrounded by walls which have
well l n termed "artificial mountains," being nearly
the height of the dome of St. Paul's (see Grote's Greece, iii, 39; ; and, on the < the,- side, Mure's Lit, of Greeco, iv, 5 16 i. The ruined wall of Nineveh was, it must be remembered, in Xenophon's time, 150feet high (Anuh. iii. I, 1"). and another wall which he passed in Meso- pol imia was loo feet (ib. ii. 1, 12).
The estimates for the thickness of the wall are the following; Herodotus, 50 royal cubits, or nearly 85
feet ; Pliny and Solinus, 50 royal, or about 60 common feet ; and Strabo, 32 feet. Here again Pliny and So- linus have merely softened down Herodotus ; Strabo, however, has a new number. This may belong prop- erly to the inner wall, which, Herodotus remarks (i, 181), was of less thickness than the outer.
According to Ctesias, the wall was strengthened with 250 towers, irregularly disposed, to guard the weakest parts (Diod. Sic. ii, 7) ; and, according to He- rodotus, it was pierced with a hundred gates, which were made of brass, with brazen lintels and side-posts (i, 179). The gates and walls are alike mentioned in Scripture, the height of the one and the breadth of the other being specially noticed (Jer. Ii, 58 ; comp. 1, 15, and li, 53).
Herodotus and Ctesias both relate that the banks of the river, as it flowed through the city, were on each side ornamented with quays. The stream has proba- bly often changed its course since the time of Baby- lonian greatness, but some remains of a quay or em- bankment on the eastern side of the stream still exist, upon the bricks of which is read the name of the last king. The two writers also agree as to the existence of a bridge, and describe it very similarly. Perhaps a remarkable mound which interrupts the long flat valley — evidently the ancient course of the river — closing in the principal ruins on the west, may be a trace of this structure.
6. Present Character and Extent of the Ruins of Babylon. — The locality and principal structures of this once famous city are now almost universally admitted to be indicated by the remarkable remains near the modern village of Hillah, which lies on the W. bank of the Euphrates, about 50 miles directly S. of Bagdad.
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V
rian of part of the Ruins of Babylon, on the eastern hr.uk c.r the Euphrates.
About Cwc miles above Hillah, on the opposite bank of the Euphrates, occur a series of artificial mounds of enormous size, which have been recognised in all ages as probably indicating the site of the capital of south- ern Mesopotamia. They consist chiefly of three great masses of building— the high pile of unbaked brick- work called by Rich " Mujellibe," but which is known to the Arabs as "Babil;" the building denominated tho "A'asr" or palace; and a lofty mound upon which
BABYLON
599
BABYLON
stands the modern tomb of Amran ihn-Alb (Loftus's Chaldxa, p. 17). Besides these principal masses the most remarkable features are two parallel lines of rampart bounding the chief ruins on the east, some similar but inferior remains on the north and west, an embankment along the river side, a remarkable iso- lated heap in the middle of a long valley, which seems to have been the ancient bed of the stream, and two Ion? lines of rampart, meeting at a right angle, and with the river forming an irregular triangle, within j which all the ruins on this side (except Babil) are enclosed. On the west, or right bank, the remains ar3 very slight and scanty. There is the appearance of an enclosure, and of a building of moderate size with- j in it, nearly opposite the great mound of Amran, but otherwise, unless at a long distance from the stream, this side of the Euphrates is absolutely bare of ruins. (See Rawlinson*s Herodotus, ii, 473).
Scattered over the country on both sides of the Eu- phrates, and reducible to no regular plan, are a num- ber of remarkable mounds, usually standing single, which are plainly of the same date with the great mass of ruins upon the river bank. Of these by far the most striking is the vast ruin called the Mrs Nimrud, which many regard as the Tower of Babel, situated about six miles to the S.W. of Hillah, and almost that distance from the Euphrates at the near- est point. This is a pyramidical mound, crowned ap- parently by the ruins of a tower, rising to the height of 153$ feet above the level of the plain, and in cir- cumference somewhat more than 20U0 feet. See Ba- bel (Tower of). There is considerable reason to be- lieve from the inscriptions discovered on the spot, and from other documents of the time of Nebuchadnezzar, that it marks the site of Borsippa, and may thus have been beyond the limits of Babylon (Beros. Fr. 1-1).