Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 1 27 



The AfTyrians were very fond of formal gardens 

 fet with trees planted in rows at equal diftances 

 from each other, and with walks geometrically 

 regular, efpecially around temples. Canals or 

 aqueducts frequently fupplied thefe gardens with 

 water. What Rawlinfon calls " the monftrous 

 invention of Hanging Gardens," 1 were known in 

 AiTyria as early as the time of Sennacherib. It was 

 not till a much later date, however, that they were 

 introduced into Babylonia, where the celebrated 

 Hanging Gardens of Babylon were efteemed one 

 of the wonders of the ancient world. To us thefe 

 gardens feem rather a laudable attempt to make 

 the defert rejoice and blorTom as the rofe. They 

 were conftrucled by Nebuchadnezzar to gratify 

 the home-fick longings of his favourite wife, 

 Amyitis, and were in the form of " a fquare, each 

 fide of which meafured 400 Greek feet. It was 

 fupported upon feveral tiers of open arches, built 

 one over the other like the walls of a claffic theatre, 

 and fuftaining at each ftage or ftory a folid plat- 

 form, from which the piers of the next tier of 

 arches rofe. The building towered into the air to 

 the height of at leaft feventy-five feet, and was 

 covered at the top with a great mafs of earth, in 

 which there grew not merely flowers and fhrubs, 

 but trees alfo of the largeft fize. Water was 

 fupplied from the Euphrates through pipes, and 

 was raifed, it is faid, by a fcrew, working on the 

 principle of Archimedes." It was built of bricks, 

 ftrongly cemented with bitumen, and protected by 



1 Rawlinfon, "Ancient Monarchies," i. 585, and ii. 517. 



