BABYLON THE GREAT. 5 3 



they were dressed in white, lived only on vegetables, 

 slept on beds of leaves, worshipped the sun, and the 

 element of fire, as symbols of the deity, and followed 

 the precepts of Zoroaster. The Empire of the Medes 

 was bounded on the west by the Tigris. They in- 

 herited the Assyrian provinces in Central Asia, the 

 boundaries of which are not precisely known. 



The civilisation of Nineveh had been derived from 

 Babylon, a city famous for its rings and gems, which were 

 beautifully engraved, its carpets in which the figures 

 of fabulous animals were interwoven, its magnifying 

 glasses, its sun-dials, and its literature printed in cunei- 

 form characters on clay tablets, which were then baked 

 in the oven. Many hundreds have lately been de- 

 ciphered, and are found to consist chiefly of military 

 despatches, law papers, royal game books, observatory 

 reports, agricultural treatises, and religious documents. 

 In the partition of Assyria, Babylon obtained Mesopo- 

 tamia or the Land-between-the-Rivers and Syria, in- 

 cluding Bhcenicia and Palestine. Nebuchadnezzar was 

 the founder of the Empire ; he routed the Egyptians, 

 he destroyed Jerusalem, transplanted the Jews on 

 account of their rebellion, and reduced Tyre after a 

 memorable siege. He built a new Babylon, as Augus- 

 tus built a new Rome, and the city became one of the 

 wonders of the world. It was a vast fortified district, 

 five or six times the area of London, interspersed with 

 parks and gardens and fields, and enclosed by walls on 

 which six chariots could be driven side by side. Its 

 position in a flat country made it resemble in the dis- 

 tance a mountain with trees waving at the top. These 

 were the hanging gardens, a grove of large trees 

 planted on the square surface of a gigantic tower, and 

 ingeniously watered from below. Nebuchadnezzar 



