p. 203 | Babylon | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 3, 1879

Babylon.

It is singular that Herodotus, in speaking of "the many sovereigns who had ruled over Babylon, and lent their aid to the building of its walls and the adornments of its temples," does not even incidentally refer to Nebuchadnezzar, whose name was stamped upon the bricks of every important structure. What is styled the "standard inscription" of Nebuchadnezzar, is a document of high interest. In this the great monarch gives a minute account of his principal works. He tells how, "with bricks made as hard as stones, I made a way for the branch of the Shimat to the waters of the Yapur Shapu, the great reservoir of Babylon. With two long embankments of brick and mortar, I built the side of the ditch. Across the river, to the west, I built the walls of Babylon with brick. The reservoir I filled completely with water. Besides the outer wall, I constructed inside of Babylon a fortification such as no king had ever made before me, namely, a long rampart five miles square, as an extra defence against presumptuous enemies. Great waters I made use of continually. I did not allow the waters to overflow; but the fullness of the floods. I caused to flow on, restraining them with a brick embankment. Thus I completely made strong the defenses of Babylon. May it stand forever."

This fortress, we imagine, stood not upon the Euphrates itself, but upon both sides of a bayou, or comparatively shallow side-branch, running from it. This supposition enables us to comprehend the manner in which this strong citadel was captured by Cyrus. Herodotus, indeed, says Cyrus turned the course of the Euphrates itself into a huge artificial reservoir, 420 stadia in extent. But Sir Henry Rawlinson is confident that no such reservoir was ever practicable. If it had existed, it is scarcely possible that all traces of it should have vanished, the more especially as it is said to have been faced throughout with stone, and that, too, in a region where, for a hundred miles, not even a pebble is to be found. Xenophon, who, in such a matter, is much better authority than Herodotus, says that Cyrus drained the river by two cuttings, one above and the other below the city, and thus was able to enter the town by the dry bed of the stream. If we suppose that this stream was a bayou or side-channel, the operation is comprehensible. He had only to dam up the mouth of the bayou above the fortress, and deepen its channel below, by which it entered the Euphrates, and in a few hours the bed would be left dry. This, as we learn from the book of Daniel, was done in the dead of night. The defenders were so confident in the strength of their fortress, that they even neglected to close the water-gates which fronted the stream at the foot of each street; and so, when the water was drawn off, there was nothing to prevent the entrance of the besiegers into every part of the fortress.

Babylon, after its capture (B. C. 538), was made a royal residence of the Persian kings. But after two unsuccessful attempts at revolt, its fortifications were partly thrown down. It ceased to be a royal city; its walls and palaces, mainly of unburnt brick, fell into decay, and in the time of Alexander the great (B. C. 323) it was mostly a ruin. He had it in mind to restore Babylon, and make it the metropolis of his Asiatic dominions; but his death prevented the execution of the project. His Syrian successors made the neighboring Selucia their capitol, using many of the materials of Babylon in the building of the new city. In like manner Ctesiphon and Bagdad were subsequently built in part from materials of Babylon, which became a complete ruin about the commencement of the Christian era. Four centuries later, according to St. Jerome, the site had been turned into a hunting park for the sport of the Persian kings, who partially restored the walls in order to preserve the game. From that time it passed more and more out of the memory of man, until its very site was forgotten; and it was not again positively identified until 1847.—Sunday Magazine.