CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



The Babylonian Empire. 



Up to the period of the dismemberment of 

 Assyria, the history of Babylonia is, as might be 

 Inferred from what we have said above, that of 

 the relations of a mutinous disaffected vassal 

 towards a stern, cruel, oppressive suzerain. As 

 often as its viceroys asserted their independence 

 of Assyria, they were crushed by the overwhelming 

 force of that great empire. It was only when 

 Assyria fell that Babylon rose upon her ruins into 

 permanent independent existence. 



Nabopolassar, the first monarch of independent 

 Babylon, reigned from 625 to 604 B.C. The 

 year before his death, he sent his son Nebuchad- 

 nezzar to recover Gaza, which Neco the Egyptian 

 monarch had wrested from him, in which under- 

 taking he was successful Nebuchadnezzar, on 

 succeeding to the throne in 605 B.C. found himself 

 lord of all the dominions that had ever pertained 

 to the monarchs of Assyria, with the exception of 

 the nations which acknowledged the sway of 

 Media. The long reign of this prince (605-561 B.C.) 

 was the epoch of Babylonian splendour. Besides 

 "his important acts as a conqueror the chief 

 of which was his conquest of Judaea, Phoenicia, 

 and Egypt, all of which countries he invaded 

 several times Nebuchadnezzar was celebrated 

 for the magnificence of his designs as a ruler. ' Is 

 not this great Babylon that I have built for the 

 house of the kingdom ?' is the expression attrib- 

 uted to him in the Book of Daniel, in which so 

 many interesting particulars concerning his reign 

 are recorded ; and the expression was justified by 

 the fact. Babylon had already been a great city, 

 Tjut under Nebuchadnezzar it became the metrop- 

 olis of the Asiatic world. Herodotus, who saw 

 the city in its decline, describes it as surrounded 

 with walls in thickness 75 feet, in height 300 feet, 

 and in compass 480 stadia, or about 60 of our 

 miles. These walls formed an exact square, each 

 side of which was 120 stadia, or 15 miles in length; 

 and were built of large bricks cemented together 

 with bitumen, a glutinous slime which issues out 

 of the earth in that country, and in a short time 

 becomes harder than the very brick or stone which 

 it cements. The city was encompassed without 

 the walls by a vast ditch filled with water, and 

 lined with bricks on both sides. In the whole 

 compass of the walls there were a hundred gates 

 that is, twenty-five on each side, all made of 

 .solid brass. At intervals round the walls were 250 

 towers. From each of the twenty-five gates there 

 was a straight street extending to the correspond- 

 ing gate in the opposite wall ; the whole number 

 of streets was therefore fifty, crossing each other 

 at right angles, and each fifteen miles long. The 

 breadth of the streets was about 150 feet By 

 their intersection the city was divided into 676 

 squares, each about two miles and a quarter in 

 compass, round which were the houses, three or 

 four stories in height ; the vacant spaces within 

 "being laid out in gardens, &c. Within the city, 

 the two greatest edifices were the royal palace 

 with its hanging gardens, and the temple of 

 Belus, composed of eight towers built one above 

 another, to the enormous height, it is said, of a 

 furlong. 



Nor was the execution of colossal works con- 

 fined to the city. The whole of Southern Meso- 

 potamia was intersected by canals, many of which 

 78 



ran quite across from the Euphrates to the Tigris, 

 and served both for irrigation and transport ; and 

 marshes were converted into vast tanks or reser- 

 voirs, one of which was fifty miles in circum- 

 ference, and faced all round with solid masonry. 

 The commerce of Babylon, when at the height of 

 its glory, not only for home consumption, but as 

 the great emporium between the east and west, 

 was immense. 



Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded (561 B.C.) by his 

 son, Evil-Merodach, who was dethroned (559 B.C.) 

 by his brother-in-law, Neriglissar (559-556 B.C.), 

 whose son and successor, Laborosoarchod, was 

 dethroned, after a brief reign, by Nabonadius, the 

 Belshazzar of Scripture (5 55 B.C.); in the eighteenth 

 year of whose reign (538 B.C.) Babylon was taken 

 by Cyrus, and passed into the hands of the 

 Persians. 



The Medes and Persians. 



Extending, as we have said, from the Mediter- 

 ranean to the Indus, the Assyrian empire had 

 included not only the chief Semitic nations of 

 Western Asia, but also that portion of the Indo- 

 Germanic family which was contained between 

 Mount Zagros and the river Indus. Essentially a 

 prolongation of the great race which inhabited 

 Hindustan, the nature of their country a vast 

 table-land, here and there rising into hills, or 

 presenting spots of great fertility had made them 

 quite different in character and habits from the 

 settled and stereotyped Hindus. All parts of this 

 plateau of Iran, as it was called, including the 

 present countries of Persia, Cabool, and Beloo- 

 chistan, were not alike : in some portions, where 

 the soil was fertile, there existed a dense agricul- 

 tural population ; in others, the inhabitants were 

 nomadic horse-breeders, cattle-rearers, and shep- 

 herds. All the tribes, however, were bound to- 

 gether by affinities of language and by a common 

 religion. This religion, a modification, probably, 

 of some more ancient form, from which Hinduism 

 may also have sprung, was taught by Zerdusht, or 

 Zoroaster, a great native reformer and spiritual 

 teacher, who lived at Bactra, now Balkh, six or 

 seven centuries before Christ. The principal 

 doctrine of his religion was that of the existence 

 of two great emanations from the Supreme and 

 perfect Deity the one a good spirit (Ormuzd), 

 who created man and fitted him for happiness ; 

 the other an evil spirit, named Ahriman, who has 

 marred the beauty of creation by introducing evil 

 into it. Between these two spirits and their 

 adherents, there is an incessant struggle for the 

 mastery ; but ultimately Ormuzd will conquer, 

 and Ahriman and evil will be banished from the 

 bosom of creation into eternal darkness. The 

 worship annexed to this doctrine was very simple, 

 dispensing with temples or images, and consisting 

 merely of certain solemn rites performed on 

 mountain-tops, &c. Fire, and light, and the sun, 

 were worshipped either as symbols or as inferior 

 deities. A caste of priests called the Magi, 

 answering in some respects to the Brahmins of 

 India, or the Chaldaeans of Babylon, superintended 

 these ceremonies, and commented on the religion 

 of Zoroaster. 



Various of the tribes of Iran associating them- 

 selves together, constituted small nations. Thus, 

 adjacent to Assyria, and separated from it by 

 Mount Zagros, was an agglomeration of seven 



