THE TEMPLE OF BELUS. 
319 
primeval design through all the additions he thought necessary 
to make, we still find traces that identify the present remains 
with our earliest impressions of the august original. And its 
being hardly doubted that Xerxes, in his destruction of the 
temple, overturned the whole of what had been added by the 
Babylonian monarchs, it does not seem improbable, that what 
we now see on the fire-blasted summit of the pile, its rent wall 
and scattered fragments, with their partially vitrified masses, 
may be a part of that very stage of the primeval tower which 
felt the effects of the divine vengeance ; and on whose adaman¬ 
tine substance the king chose to erect his more splendid, and 
less durable superstructure. That this should be the case, ap¬ 
pears to an eye-witness of these remains more credible, than 
tliat so very amazing a transformation should have taken place 
at any more recent period, or by any exertion of human power. 
Herodotus visited the spot scarcely thirty years after its de¬ 
vastation by Xerxes, and he describes it in these terms : — 
“ A sacred enclosure dedicated to Jupiter Belus, consisting of a 
regular square of two stadia (or 1000 feet) on each side, and 
adorned with gates of brasswhich existed even at the time he 
wrote. But, what is closer to our purpose, he adds “ that in the 
midst of this area rose a massive tower, whose length and breadth 
(he does not notice its height) was one stadium ; (which, ac¬ 
cording to Major Rennel, is 500 feet;) upon this tower rose 
another, and another, until the whole had numbered eight. On 
the outside, steps were formed, winding up to each tower; and 
in the middle of every flight, a resting-place was provided, with 
seats. In the highest tower, there was a magnificent chamber, 
expressly sacred to the god, furnished with a splendid couch, 
and table, of gold. In this chamber, there was no statue, the 
