" We say for the other, that is, this edifice, the house of the Seven Lights of the Earth, the most ancient monu- ment of Borsippa: A former king built it (they reckon forty-two ages), but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time people had abandoned it, without order ex- pressing their ivords. Since that time, the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed its sun-dried clay ; the bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great lord, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site, nor did I take away the foundation-stone. In a fortunate mouth, an auspicious day, I undertook to build porticos around the crude brick masses, and the casing of burnt bricks. I adapted the circuits. I pui the in- scription of my name in the-Kitir of the porticos.
"I set my hand to finish it, and to exalt its head. As it had been in former times, so I founded, I made it ; as it had been in ancient days, so I exalted its summit.
"Nebo, son of himself, ruler who exaltest Merobach, be propitious to my works to maintain my authority. Grant nie a life until the remotest time, a sevenfold progeny, the stability of my throne, the victory of my sword, the pacification of foes, the triumph over the lands 1 In the columns of thy eternal table, that fixes the destinies of the heaven and of the earth, bless the course of my days, inscribe the fecundity of my race.
" Imitate, O Merodach, king of heaven and earth, the father who begot thee; bless my buildinss, strengihen my authority. May Nel)uchaduezzar, the kiug-repiyrer, remain before thy face !"
This allusion to the Tower of the Tongues is the only one that has as yet been discovered in the cuneiform inscriptions (see Expedition en Mesopotamie, i, 208). The story is a Shemitic and not merely a Hebrew one, and we have no reason whatever to doubt of the exist- ence of the same story at Babylon. The ruins of the building elevated on the spot where the story placed the tower of the dispersion of tongues have therefore a more modern origin, but interest, nevertheless, by their stupendous appearance. Sec Bauel.
(2.) Historical. — The following are the principal pas- .sages of ancient authors, rescued from the wreck of time by the quotations of Josephus and Eusebitis. It scarce- ly need be said that we do not adduce these fragments as authorities in any other sense than that they repeat the traditional narratives which had descended from the remotest anticjnity among the people to whom tliey relate. The '' Sibyl" cited by Josephus is the fictitious appellation of some unknown author, probably about the 2d century B.C. Alexander Cornelius Polyhistor flourished about one hundred years before Christ. Eu- polemus was probably an Asiatic Greek, two or three centuries earlier. Abydenus (if he was Patephatus) lived in the middle of the 4th century B.C.
"Concerning this tower, and the discordance of lan- guage among men, the Sibyl also makes mention, saying thus: 'All men having one language, some of them built ji very high tower, as if they proposed by means of it to climb to heaven ; but the gods, by sending storms of wind, overthrew the tower, and gave to each person a pe- culiar language ; and on this account the city came to be called Babylon'" (Josephus, Ant. i, 4, 3).
The Sibyl here quoted may be that very ancient anonymous authority to which we have obscure refer- ences (in the discourse of Theophilus to Autolvcus) in X.-G G
Plutarch's Morals, in Virgil's Pollio, and in the StrO' mata of Clemens Alexandrinus.
"Alexander Polyhistor — a man of the highest celebrity for talents and attainments, in the estimaticm of those Greeks who are tlie most profoundly and accurately learn- ed— has the following passage: 'Eupolemus, in his book concerning the Jews of Assyria, says that the city of Bab- ylon was first built by those who had been preserved fnmi the Deluge ; that they were giants [the Greeks used this word to signify, not so much men of enormous stature as their mytliological heroes, of great prowess, and defying the gods] ; that they also erected the tower of which his- toiy gives account; but that it was overthrown by the mighty power from God, and C(nisequently the giants were scattered abroad over the whole earth'" (Eusebius, Privpar. Evaufi. col. 16S^).
"Further, with respect to the narrative of Moses con- cerning the building of the tower, and how, from one t(mgue, they were confounded so as to be brought into the use of many dialects, the author before mentioned [Abydenus], in his book concerning the Assyrians, gives his confirmation in these words: 'There are some who say that the first men sprang out of the earth ; that they boasted of their strength and size; that they contemptu- ously maintained themselves to be superior to the gods; that they erected a lofty tower where now is Babylon ; then, when it had been carried on almost up to heaven, the very winds came to assist the gods, and overthrew the vast structure upon its builders. Its ruins were called Babylon. The men, who before had possessed one tongue, were brought by the gods to a many-sounding voice ; and afterwards war arose between Kronos [Saturn] and Ti- tan. Moreover, the place in which they built the tower is now called Babylon, on account of the confusing of the prior clearness with respect to speech ; for the Hebrews call confusion Babel'" (Eusebius, Prcepar. Eoaiig. ix, 14).