The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

of mankind. Josephus makes Nimrod, as the founder of the kingdom of Babylon, the promoter of this wicked scheme. Nimrod intended the tower to be so high that a second flood could not reach the top, and thus men would be able to bid defiance to the gods, and yet be secure against a second destruction.[406]

Let us now inquire what conclusions, if any, can be derived from the inscriptions about the great temple of Babylon. From ancient times there was at this place a sanctuary of the name of Beth-Sagall, or Beth-Saggatu, i.e. "House of the Height." Whether this was erected as early as Hammurabi is doubtful; but an inscription of his successor tells us that he set up the image of the god Merodach (Marduk) in Beth-Sagall.[407] These inscriptions of king Esarhaddon, who ruled over Assyria and Babylonia from 681 B.C. to 668 B.C., tell us that "he caused tiles to be made in Babylon for Beth-Saggatu, the temple of the great gods."[408] After the restoration of the Babylonian empire Nebuchadnezzar always calls himself in his inscriptions, "Supporter of Beth-Saggatu, and Beth-Sida." Beth-Sida, i.e. "House of Prosperity," or "House of the Right Hand," was the name of the rich temple of Nebo at Borsippa. "Like a pious man," says Nebuchadnezzar in one of his inscriptions, "I have dealt towards Beth-Saggatu, and towards Beth-Sida. I have magnified the splendour of the god Merodach, and the god Nebo, my lords: I have completed Beth-Sida, the eternal house, where Nebo and Nana are enthroned, at Borsippa."[409] "I have set up Beth-Saggatu, and beautified it; Beth-Sida I have completed."[410] On the cylinders found in the ruins of the temple of the seven lamps, Nebuchadnezzar says: "Beth-Saggatu is the temple of the Heaven and the Earth, the dwelling of Merodach, the lord of the gods, and with pure gold have I caused the temple to be covered, where his splendour rests; the temple of the foundations of the earth, the tower of Babylon, I have restored, with tiles and copper I have completed it, and raised its summit."[411] The chief inscription on the stone of black basalt relates at greater length how Nebuchadnezzar adorned the sanctuary in Beth-Saggatu, where Merodach rested; how he set up the marvel of Babylon, the temple of the foundations of the heaven and the earth; how he raised the summit with tiles and copper. The description of this erection concludes with the satisfaction felt in seeing that Beth-Saggatu was now completed.[412] And not only does Nebuchadnezzar boast of the care and attention bestowed by him on Beth-Sida and Beth-Saggatu. The prince before whose arms the creation of Nebuchadnezzar, the restored kingdom of Babylon, was overthrown—Cyrus, the Persian, calls himself on the stamp of a tile at Senkereh, "Kuru, supporter of Beth-Saggatu and Beth-Sida, son of Kambuzija."[413]

      This series of evidence shows that the lofty temple of Belus, which Herodotus has described for us above, was to the Babylonians "the House of the Height," the temple of Bel Merodach (p. 268), and that it was the first of the three temples in which the kings of Assyria sacrificed when they trod the soil of Babylon at the head of their victorious armies, or as sovereigns; and that of these three rich temples, i.e. the temple of Nergal at Kutha, Beth-Sida, the temple of Nebo at Borsippa, and Beth-Saggatu, the temple of Merodach at Babel, the latter was certainly the most wealthy. Moreover, the inscriptions show that the foundation goes back as far as the times of king Hammurabi, whose accession we found it possible—on hypothesis only, it is true—to place in the year 1976 B.C. But even the Hebrew narrative of the building of the Tower of Babel, which must have been written down before 1,000 B.C. (below, chap. vii.) proves, in this respect harmonising with the inscriptions, that long before this time there must have been in Babylon a structure of great height, but unfinished.

Herodotus, in his description of Babylon, tells us that the Tower of Belus was on one side of the Euphrates, and the royal castle on the other. On which side each of these lay, he does not state. Xenophon speaks of the palace of Babylon, and beside this of special castles.[414] From the accounts of those who accompanied Alexander, it is clear that there were two royal castles in Babylon, one on the right hand and one on the left of the Euphrates, which certainly were not built under the Achæmenids. Berosus tells us that Nebuchadnezzar built himself a palace beside that of his father Nabopolassar. The inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar speak repeatedly of the continuation of the palace at Babylon which his father had begun.[415] As the two great heaps of ruins on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, El Kasr and Amran ibn Ali, exhibit on the tiles found there the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar, this palace of the ruler of the restored kingdom must have lain on the east bank of the Euphrates. Diodorus describes the two castles of Babylon, of which one was on the east and the other on the west bank of the river; while both were adorned with various ornaments. "That in the part lying towards the west" had a circuit of sixty stades, inclosed by lofty and costly walls. These were followed by a second circular wall, on the rude bricks of which various kinds of animals were stamped, and brought into a resemblance with the reality by the painter's art. The circumference was forty stades in length, and the wall was three hundred bricks in thickness; the height, according to Ctesias, was fifty fathoms, and the tower rose to sixty fathoms. The third interior wall which surrounded the buildings was twenty stades in circuit, but in height and thickness it surpassed the middle wall. On this and the towers belonging to it animals of all kinds were depicted with considerable skill in form and colour. The whole exhibited a chase, full of many different animals, which were of more than four cubits in size. Among these was a queen on horseback, who threw her dart at a panther; and at hand was the king, who thrust at a lion with his lance. This palace surpassed both in size and beauty the palace on the other side of the Euphrates. Here the exterior wall of burnt tiles was only thirty stades in circumference, and instead of the numerous animals were bronze statues of a king and a queen and of governors, and also a bronze statue of Zeus, whom the Babylonians call Belus. But in the interior were military evolutions and hunting scenes of every kind, which gave varied amusement to the spectator.[416] Ctesias, whom Diodorus followed in his description of the palace on the west bank, as in his account of the treasures in the Tower of Belus (p. 293), has also borrowed, in his description of this castle, the erection of which he ascribes to Ninus, from the Medo-Persian Epos, and this, as I shall show below, endeavoured to place the glory of Ninus and Semiramis in the most brilliant light. Hence, though here, as in the account of the treasures, considerable deductions are to be made, we can nevertheless recognise the fact that the castle of the ancient kings of Babylon on the western bank of the Euphrates was of considerable size, magnificent, and well fortified, although the remains now in existence are fewer and far smaller than those of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, where the painted and glazed tiles also confirm what Diodorus says of the battle and hunting scenes of this palace. If the ancient royal castle lay on the western bank, the Tower of Belus rose opposite it on the eastern bank. This is proved by an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, in which we are told:—"In order to protect Beth-Saggatu more strongly, and secure it from the attack of the enemy, I have erected a second wall, the wall of the rising sun, which no king had built before me."[417] Hence we may with certainty affirm that the most northern of the heaps on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, the heap of Babil, the summit of which still rises 140 feet above the river, is the remains of the great tower of Bel Merodach.

      The ancient kings of Babylon, Hammurabi and his successors, not only built temples and palaces, but also fortresses. Hammurabi has himself already told us, that he built the fortress of Ummubanit, "the towers of which were as high as mountains." Kurigalzu built the fortress of this name (Akerkuf, p. 262). Of the extensive walls of Ur and Erech we have already spoken, and Sennacherib could boast of having taken eighty-nine fortresses in Babylonia (p.