Accumulations in Syria and Persia. 141 



belief in demoniacal possessions, in the power of witches and 

 fairies, and in spectral appearances, universally prevailed. It 

 would be unjust to the memory of the historians and chroniclers 

 of that and the preceding ages, to reject their testimony, because 

 they believed in supernatural events and appearances, which 

 have lost all hold upon the present race, except among the most 

 ignorant of the vulgar. 



If, in extracting from the writings of antiquity what relates 

 more immediately to the subject of our inquiry, it should occa- 

 sionally appear that incredible events are related, the sound 

 judgment of the reader will enable him to separate the facts from 

 the fictions in which they may be enveloped ; and he may find 

 amusement, if not instruction, in observing the great credulity 

 of the eminent men of antiquity, and in comparing their habits 

 of investigation and discrimination with those of the ablest 

 writers of their own age and country. 



Assyria and Persia. — It appears from the relations of Diodo- 

 rus, that large masses of gold and silver had been collected to- 

 gether by Ninus, the founder of Nineveh, " who possessed him- 

 self of all the treasures of Bactriana, among which there was 

 abundance of gold and silver*." From the same writer we 

 learn that Semiramis, the wife of Belus, and the successor to his 

 dominion, who built the city of Babylon, among other stupen- 

 dous and almost incredibly magnificent works, erected in that 

 city a temple to Jupiter, or Belus ; " upon which were placed 

 the statues of Jupiter, of Juno, and of Rhea, all of beaten gold. 

 That of Jupiter was standing upright, was forty feet in height, 

 and weighed a thousand Babylonian talents. That of llhea 

 was of the same height, sitting on a throne of gold, having a 

 lion on each side of her, and one at her knee ; and near them 

 two vastly large serpents of silver, weighing 30 talents. The 

 statue of Juno was in an erect posture, and weighed 800 talents. 

 An altar was erected for their deities of beaten gold, 40 feet 

 long and 15 broad, weighing 500 talents, upon which were 

 two cups, each of them weighing 30 talents, and near to them 

 as many censers, weighing 300 talents. There were also three 

 drinking vases of gold, the largest of which was dedicated to 



• Dioilorup, book ii. cap. 1. 



