ON THE WESTERN BANK OF THE RIVER. 
385 
capital of that name, proves that the army entered from the east. 
In the tumult of this surprise, the Babylonians fled, and took 
refuge in the temple of Belus. 
It is now generally acknowledged by all who study oriental 
subjects, that it was an ancient custom in the East (and the 
practice remains to this day) to name the gates of a city, not 
from objects within the walls, but from outward places to which 
they led. Had the alarmed Babylonians fled through the Be- 
lidian gate to the temple of Belus, (which some writers would 
infer,) the fugitives must have ran on the very pikes of the enter¬ 
ing Persians. This being an impossibility to suppose, the Belidian 
gate could not have received its name from the temple ; but, 
according to Mr. Rich’s suggestion, most probably from some 
now forgotten town eastward of the city. Hence, the natural 
fact appears to have been this : that the people, finding the 
eastern gates possessed by the enemy, and the invaders pressing 
forward to make themselves masters of the castellated palace on 
that side, would instinctively seek shelter in the strongest and 
most distant place they could reach in any time to escape the 
enemy ; and what so apparent as the temple of Belus, on the 
opposite shore of the river, (a safe-guard in itself!) and situated 
in the farthest western extremity of the city; and which was 
also doubly fortified by its brazen gates, and lofty walls ? Besides, 
had this temple been any where in the eastern quarter, the peo¬ 
ple would rather have avoided than fled to it; it being one of 
the first places, in such a case, to which the Persian soldiers 
would have hurried, for the plunder of its treasury. 
According to either computation, as represented by ancient 
authors, whether the circumference of this astonishing city com¬ 
prised a square of 60 or of 48 miles, still, to modern conception, 
3 D 
VOL. II. 
