BABYLON. 
about it were the walls of the city, the temple of Belus, 
Nebuchadnezzar’s palace, the hanging-gardens, the banks 
of the river, the artificial lake, and canals. The city 
was furrounded with walls, in thicknefs eighty-feven feet, 
in height 350 feet, and in compafs 480 furlongs or fixty of 
cur miles, ft hus Herodotus, who was himfelf at Babylon; 
and, though fome difagree with him in'thefe dimenfions, 
yet mod writers give the lame, or nearly the fame, as he 
does. Diodorus Siculus diminilhes the circumference of 
thefe walls very confiderably, and takes fomewhat from the 
height of them, as in Herodotus ; though he feems to add 
to their breadth, by faying that fix chariots might drive 
abreafl thereon, while the former writes that one chariot 
. only might turn upon them ; but then he places buildings 
on each lide of the top of thefe Walls, which, according to 
him, were but one flory high ; which may pretty well re¬ 
concile them together in this refpedl. [t is oblerved, that 
thole, whogive the height of thefe walls but at fifty cu¬ 
bits, fpeak of them only as they were after the time of 
Darius Hyllafpis, who had cauled them to be beaten down 
to that level. Thefe walls formed ah exadt fquare, each 
fide of which was 120 furlongs, or fifteen miles, in length; 
and were all built of large bricks cemented together with 
bitumen, which in a fhort time grows harder than the very 
brick and ftone which it holds together. The city was 
encompalled with a vail ditch filled with water, and lined 
with bricks on both Tides ; and, as the earth that was dug 
out of it ferved to make the bricks, we may judge of the 
depth and largenefsof the ditch from the height and thick¬ 
nefs of the walls. In the whole compafs of the wall there 
were 100 gates, that is, twenty-five on each of the four 
Tides, all made of folid bra Is. Between every two of 
thefe gates, at proper diftances, were three towers, and 
four more at the four corners of this great fquare, and 
three between each of thefe corners and the next gate on 
either fide, and each of thefe towers was ten feet higher 
than the walls. But this is to be underftood only of thofe 
parts of the walls where towers were needful for defence. 
For fome parts of them being upon a morafs, and inaccef- 
fible by an enemy, there the labour and coll; was fpared, 
which, though it muff have fpoiled the fymmetry of the 
whole, muff be allowed to have favoured of good econo¬ 
my ; though that is.what one would not have expedfed 
from a prince who had been fo determined, as Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar muff have been, to make the city complete both 
for firength and beauty. The whole number, then, of 
thefe towers amounted to no more than 250; whereas a 
much greater number would have been neceffary to have 
made the uniformity complete all round. From the twen¬ 
ty-five gates on each fide of this fquare, there was a firaight 
fireet, extending to the correfponding gate in the oppofite 
wall ; whence the whole number of the ffreets muff have 
been but fifty ; but then they were each about fifteen miles 
long, twenty-five of them eroding the other twenty-five 
exactly at right angles. Befides thefe whole ffreets, we 
muff reckon four half-ffreets, which were but rows of 
houfes facing the four inner Tides of the walls. Thefe 
four half-ftreets were properly the four tides of the city 
within the walls, and were each of them 200 feet broad, 
the whole fireet being about 150 of the fame. By this 
interfedfion of the fifty ffreets, the city was divided into 
676 fquares, each of four furlongs and an half on each 
fide, or two miles and a quarter in compafs. Round thefe 
fquares on every fide towards the fireets, flood the houfes, 
all of three or four ffories in height, and beautified with 
all manner of ornaments; and the fpace within each of 
thefe fquares was all void, and taken up by yards, or gar¬ 
dens, either for pleafure or convenience. A branch of 
the Euphrates divided the city into two, running through 
the midft of it, from north to fouth; over which, in the 
center, was a bridge, a furlong in length, or, according to 
others, five furlongs in length, though but thirty feet 
broad, a difference we (hall never be able to decide. This 
bridge, however, is find to have been built with wonder¬ 
ful art, to fupply a defedf in the. bottom of the river. At 
Vol. II. No. 91. 
each end of this bridge were two palaces; the old palace 
on the eaflfide, the new one on the weft fide, of the river; 
the former of which took up four of the Iquares above- 
mentioned, and the latter nine. The temple of Belus, 
which (food next to the old palace, took up another of the 
fame fquares. 
The whole city flood in a large flat or plain, in a fat 
and deep foil : that part or half of it on the eaft fide of 
the river was the old city, and the other on the weft was 
added by Nebuchadnezzar, both being included within 
the vaft fquare bounded by the walls. The form of the 
whole was feemingly borrowed from Nineveh, which was 
alfo 480 furlongs ; but, though it was equal in dimenfions 
to this city, it was lefs with refpedt to its form, which 
was a parallelogram, whereas that of Babylon was an ex¬ 
adt fquare. It is fuppofeil, that Nebuchadnezzar, who 
had deftroyed that old feat of the Aftyrian empire, pro- 
pofed that this new one fliould rather exceed it ; and that 
it was to fill it with inhabitants, that he tranfported fitch 
numbers of the captives from other countries hither; 
though that may be difptited, feeing lie only followed the 
ufual practice of the kings of Affyria, who thought this 
the mod certain means of alluring their conquefts either to 
themfelves or their pofterity. ' 
But it plainly appears, that it was never wholly inha¬ 
bited ; fo that, even in the meridian of its glory, it may 
be compared with the flower of the field, which flourifties 
to-day, and to-morrow is no more. It never had time to 
grow up to what Nebuchadnezzar vifibly intended to have 
made it ; for, Cyrus removing the feat of the empire foon 
after to Shufhan, Babylon fell by degrees to utter decay : 
yet it muff be owned, that no country was better able to 
fupport fo vaft and populous a city, had it been completed 
up to its firff deiign. But fo far was it from being fmiibed 
according to its original defign, that, when Alexander 
came to Babylon, Curtins tells us, “ No more than 
ninety furlongs of it were then built which can be no 
othervvife underftood than of fo much in length ; and, if 
we allow the breadth to be as much as the length (which 
is the utmoft that can be allowed), it will follow, that no 
more than 8ico fquare furlongs were then built upon : 
but the whole fpace within the walls contained 14,400 
fquare furlongs ; and therefore there muff been 6300 
fquare furlongs remaining unbuilt, which, Curtins tells 
us, were ploughed and fown. And, befides this, the 
houfes were not contiguous, but all built with a void 
fpace on each fide, between houfe and houfe. 
The next great work of Nebuchadnezzar was the tem¬ 
ple of Belus. The wonderful tower, however, that flood 
in the middle of it, was not his work, but was the famous 
tower of Babel. This tower is faid to have been com- 
pofed of eight pyramidal ones railed above one another, 
and by Herodotus faid to have been a furlong in height; 
but, as there is an ambiguity in his expreflion, it has been 
dilputed whether each of the towers was a furlong in 
length, or the whole of them taken together. On the 
latter fuppofition, which is the mod probable, this tower 
muff have exceeded the higheft of the Egyptain pyramids 
by 179 feet, though it fell fhort of its breadth at the ba- 
fis by thirty-three. The way to go up was by flairs on 
the outfide round it; whence it feems moll likely, that 
the whole afeent was, by the benching in, drawn in a Hop¬ 
ing line from the bottom to the top c-ight times round it ; 
and that this made the appearance of eight towers, one 
above the other. Till the times of Nebuchadnezzar, it 
is thought that this tower was all the temple of Belus ; 
but, as he did by the other ancient buildings of the city, 
fo he did by this, making great additions thereto, by vaft 
edifices eredted round it, in a fquare of two furlongs on 
every fide, and juft a mile in circumference, which ex¬ 
ceeded the fquare at the temple of Jerufalem by 1800 feet. 
On the outfide of thefe buildings was a wall, which in- 
clofed the whole ; and, in confideration of the regularity 
wherewith this city was to all appearance marked out, it 
is llippofed, that this wall was equal to the fquare of the 
7 M city 
