The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)

"It can be maintained with good reason," says Diodorus, "that the Chaldæans are far before all other nations in their knowledge of the heavens; and that they devoted the greatest attention and labour to this science." At an early period, by comparing the course of the sun with that of the moon, they had perceived that the sun returned to the same position after passing through about twelve cycles of the moon; hence they fixed the year at twelve months of thirty days, which they, by intercalations of various kinds, brought into harmony with the astronomical year of 365¼ days.393 The observation, that the sun after a course of twelve months returns to the same constellation, led them on to determine the changing position of the sun in the other months by constellations. Thus the Babylonians marked off the constellations which seemed to touch nearest upon the course of the sun, and arrived at the signs of the ecliptic or zodiac. Each of these twelve stations through which the sun passed they again divided into thirty parts. The week they fixed at seven days by the course of the moon; to the day they allotted twelve hours, to correspond to the twelve months of the year; the hours they divided into sixty parts, and each of these sixtieths was again subdivided into sixty parts. Their measures were also duodecimal. The cubit was twenty-four finger-breadths; and on the same system, their numerals were based upon the sossus, or sixty, – a derivative from twelve, and the sarus, or square of the sossus. When they attempted to fix the position and intervals of the stars in the sky, the basis taken for their measurements was the diameter of the sun. They divided the daily course of the sun, like the ecliptic, into 360 parts, and then attempted to measure these at the equinox. At the moment when the sun was seen in the sky on the morning of the equinox, a jar filled with water was opened. From this the water was allowed to run into a second small jar, till the orb of the sun was completely visible; then it ran into a third and larger jar, till the sun was again seen on the horizon on the following morning. They concluded that the diameter of the sun must stand in the same proportion to the cycle it passed through as the water in the small jar stood to the water in the large one. Hence they found that the diameter of the sun was contained 720 times in its course, and this diameter they fixed at 1/30 of an hour.394 The observation that an active foot-courier could accomplish a certain distance in the thirtieth part of an equinoctial hour, and thirty times as much in the whole hour, supplied the Chaldæans with a longitudinal measurement on the same basis. The measure of the hour was the parasang (3/4 of a geographical mile), and the thirtieth part of the parasang was the stadium. Till we obtain help from the inscriptions we must remain acquainted only with the Persian name of the first measure and the Greek name of the second. At the equator the sun was supposed in every hour to traverse a distance of thirty stadia. On this system also the Chaldæans fixed the length of their cubit. The stadium was divided into 360 cubits, and the sixth part of the stadium, or plethron, into sixty cubits, and the foot was fixed at 3/5 of this cubit. Consequently the Babylonian cubit was fixed at twenty-one inches of our measure (525 millimeters).395

From this division of the sphere the Babylonians, though aided by very simple instruments, the polus and gnomon,396 arrived at very exact astronomical observations and results. They discovered a period of 223 months, within which all eclipses of the moon occurred in a similar number and equal extent. By means of this period they fixed the average length of the synodic and periodic month with such accuracy that our astronomers here found the first to be too large by four seconds only, and the last by one second. Their observations of ten lunar eclipses, and three conjunctions of planets and fixed stars, have come down to us. The oldest of these observations is that of a lunar eclipse of the year 721 B.C., which took place "a good hour after midnight." The second took place in 720 B.C., "about midnight;" the third in the same year "after the rising of the moon." In these observations also our astronomers have found but little to correct.

As the Chaldæans brought their measures of the sphere, of time and length into correlation, so also they attempted to preserve the same relation in their cubic measures and weights. For their weights and cubic measures the division of the units into sixtieths (minæ, i. e. parts) was retained. The quadrantal, or Maris, contained one Babylonian cubic foot, and the sixtieth part of this was the Log. The weight in water of a Babylonian cubic foot was, according to the statistics of our physicists, about sixty-six pounds (32,721 kilogrammes), but the Chaldæans reckoned it at only 60⅗ pounds (30,300 kilogrammes).397

The weight of the cubic measure was also the standard for imperial weight in Babylonia. The oldest weight which we know dates from the time of Ilgi, king of Ur. The stone, which in shape is not unlike a duck, has the inscription: "Ten minæ of Ilgi."398 There was a heavy talent (Kikkar, i. e. "orb") arranged to weigh twice as much as the quadrantal. Hence it weighed 121⅕ pounds (60,600 kils.), and the sixtieth, or mina, weighed over two pounds. The light talent weighed one quadrantal, according to the estimate of the Chaldæans, i. e. 60⅗ pounds, and the mina was a little heavier than a pound of our weight. But in weighing the precious metals, the Chaldæans used units, which differed from the imperial weights in use for all other purposes. They calculated by little circular pieces, or rings, or bars (tongues) of silver and gold, and the smallest of these was equivalent to the shekel, or sixtieth part of the mina of the heavy talent. These shekels were the commonest and most indispensable measure of value. It was found easier to reckon by units of 3,000 shekels, than by units of 3,600. And so it came about that the mina contained fifty shekels instead of sixty, and the talent 3,000 shekels instead of 3,600. The three thousand shekels as a whole, no longer weighed 121⅕ pounds, but only 101 pounds, and the mina, or sixtieth part, instead of weighing fully two pounds, weighed only about 1⅗ pounds.399

This weight, or the half of it (50½ pounds), was retained for the heavy and light gold talent. In the weight of silver trade caused a further deviation. It was necessary to exchange gold and silver, and in the East in antiquity the value of gold and silver was estimated at 13: 1, or more accurately 13⅓: 1.400 By making the silver shekel (i. e. the fiftieth part of the silver mina), which corresponded to the weight of the light gold talent, a little heavier, a silver coin was obtained which stood to the fiftieth of the light gold mina, nearly in the ratio of 10: 1. Ten silver shekels of this weight could therefore without any further trouble be exchanged for the fiftieth of the gold mina, or gold shekel of the light gold talent. Hence arose a silver talent of 67⅓ pounds (33,660 kil.), a silver mina of 11⁄10 pound, and a silver shekel of about eleven milligrammes.

CHAPTER III.

THE ART AND TRADE OF BABYLONIA

Like the Pharaohs, the rulers of Babylon sought their fame in magnificent buildings. But their works have not been able to withstand the ravages of time with the same durability as the stone mountains and porticoes on the Nile. The lower Euphrates does not lie, like the Nile, between walls of rocks, from which the most beautiful and hardest stone could be obtained. The plain of Babylonia afforded nothing but earth for the bricks, which were sometimes burnt, sometimes dried in the sun; and excellent mortar was to be obtained from the large asphalt pits on the Euphrates, especially at Hit. Hence it was necessary to unite the walls more strongly. In the palaces, and temples, the walls of brick were covered with slabs of gypsum, or limestone, which must often have been brought from a distance, and these slabs were then covered with sculptures, like the stone walls of the Egyptian buildings. But more commonly the ornaments on the inner walls, and occasionally even those on the outer walls, consist of bricks coloured and glazed. Though the material in Babylonia was more fragile than the granite of Egypt, the extent, scale, and splendour of these buildings were so great, that remains even of the oldest have come down to our time. The upper portions of the brick walls have fallen down, and the ruins of the Babylonian cities have thus for the most part become unsightly enough; but not the less do they point out the positions of the old buildings, and under the heaps are hidden the most valuable remains of those ancient periods.

As has been already remarked, the cities in the south of Babylonia are the first to emerge in the progress of the country. The oldest princes call themselves kings of Ur and Nipur; they build at Ur, at Nipur, at Erech, and at Senkereh, between Erech and Ur. Not till the time of Hammurabi, and perhaps through his power, did Babylon become the centre and metropolis of the kingdom. He and his successors built at Babylon, Borsippa, Sippara, and Kutha, as well as in the southern cities. The universal characteristic of these buildings, so far as the remains allow us to pass any judgment, is the extraordinary strength of the walls and the obvious effort to obtain, by placing one story of solid masonry upon another, higher positions, better air, and a more extensive view in the level plain. The temples seem almost universally to be built in this tower-like style, either in order to be nearer the gods in the purer and higher air, or because the gods, as spirits of the heaven, and as bright luminaries of the sky, received the sacrifices here offered to them, and the prayers hence addressed to them with greater favour. On the inside their structures were built of square bricks three or four inches in thickness, and on the outside these bricks are lined with burnt tiles. The tiles almost invariably carry in the middle the impression of the stamp of the king who used them.

The ruins of Ur (Mugheir), on the western bank of the Euphrates, occupy a considerable space, shut in by the remains still traceable, of a wall, running in an oval shape, and from three to four miles in circumference. Amid these ruins rises, to the north-west, a heap of bricks and broken tiles, which is even now about 70 feet above the surface of the plain. On a plateau about 20 feet in height is a rectangular building, with the four sides directed exactly to the four quarters of the sky. The two longer sides are about 200 feet in length, the shorter sides are about 130 feet. It was a solid mass of brick, joined with bitumen, about 27 feet high; the outer walls, of burnt tiles, are about 10 feet thick. Buttresses of eight feet in breadth surround the whole story at short distances. The centre of the structure is pierced by narrow air-passages extending from one side to the other. On this story is a second, 120 feet in length by 75 feet in breadth, and even now about 17 feet high. The ruins lying on this point to a third story, which may have contained the actual temple. There are traces still remaining of the entrance, which led up from the outside. The tiles of the lower story bear the stamp, "Urukh, king of Ur, has erected the temple of the god Sin;" on those of the upper story we find, "Ilgi, king of Ur, king of Sumir, and Accad." This building was, therefore, the temple of Sin, which Urukh commenced and his son Ilgi continued and completed – a fact which is further proved by the inscriptions of Nabonetus, the last king of Babylon, which were found in these ruins. To the south-east of this structure lies a platform, faced with tiles, 400 feet in circuit, which probably supported another temple or a palace. The foundation walls of various chambers can still be traced. Similar structures are found in the ruins of Abu Shahrein, south of Mugheir on the Euphrates. From a wide platform rises a square structure surrounded by a wall, in which are the remains of decorated chambers. North of Ur, on the east bank of the Euphrates, the remains of Senkereh form a circular plateau, not quite five miles in circumference; the ruins rise gradually towards the centre, which is marked by the remains of a structure 320 feet long and 220 broad, the walls of which, on one side, still rise 70 feet over the plain. In these and the other ruins of Senkereh inscriptions are found in considerable numbers, which give us the names of kings from Urukh to Cambyses.

In the ruins of Erech (Uruk, Warka), above Senkereh, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, are found the remains of an outer wall, broken by semicircular towers open to the city. This wall forms an irregular circle of more than five miles in circumference. Here and there the ruins are still about 40 feet high. Within the wall are three heaps of ruins. On the highest, which forms an exact square of more than 200 feet at the base, we may trace the ruins of a second story. This heap is about 100 feet in height. It consists of bricks alternating with layers of reeds at intervals of four or five feet in height. Here also there are buttresses, in which the tiles are cemented with bitumen. To the west lie the remains of an oblong structure of double the size. The ruins of Nipur are sixty miles to the north of Erech, in the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Here are several rounded heaps, but they are of less extent than the remains of Ur, Senkereh, and Erech.

The heaps of ruins which rise out of the plains some miles to the south-west of Babylon – the Arabs call them Birs Nimrud, i. e. "the fortress of Nimrod" – exhibit the same plan of structure as the ruins of the temples at Ur and Erech. Within a square wall, on a platform of brick, rises a square story, 272 feet on every side, and 26 feet in height; over this is a second story, of the same height, but forming a square of 230 feet only, and not placed exactly in the middle of the lower story, but in such a manner that on one side it recedes 12 feet only, but on the other 30 feet from the edge of the lower plateau. In the same way the third and still smaller story rests on the second. It is of the same height as the others. The fourth story is only 15 feet in height. The loose mass of ruins does not allow us to trace any more stories. Hence the building in all probability consisted of seven stories. It appears that these ruins, like the extensive heaps of remains lying to the east of them (Tel Ibrahim), mark the site of the ancient Borsippa. The tiles of the stories, which lie one over the other, bear the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar II., and in the angles of the building cylinders have been discovered,401 on which Nebuchadnezzar relates that the temple of the seven lamps of the earth, the tower of Borsippa, which an earlier king had commenced but not completed, and which had fallen into decay for many years, was again erected by him, and the pinnacles covered with copper. In his great inscription of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar further tells us that he "restored the marvel of Borsippa, the temple of the seven spheres of the sky and of the earth, and covered the pinnacles with copper." In the same inscription it is said that Nebuchadnezzar built temples at Borsippa to the goddess Nana, to Adar, Bin, and Sin, and that he restored and completed Beth-Sida, i. e. the chief temple of Nebo at Borsippa; nevertheless we may be certain, from the cylinders actually found in the ruins, that the remains are those of the temple of the seven lamps.402

Turning from Borsippa to Babylon, we find Herodotus describing the largest temple of the city in the following manner: – "The sanctuary of Zeus Belus – it is in existence still – forms a square of two stadia on every side, and is furnished with iron gates. In the midst is a massive tower, a stadium in the square. Over this tower stands another, and again another, till there are eight towers, one over the other. They are ascended from the outside, and the ascent goes up round all the towers. Half-way up there is a resting-place, and seats for those who are ascending. On the highest tower is a large temple, and in the temple a large and beautifully-prepared bed, and beside it a golden table. There is no image there, nor does anyone watch there through the night except a woman of the country, whom, as the Chaldæan priests say, their god has chosen out of all the land. They also declare, though I do not believe it, that the god sometimes comes into the temple and rests on the bed. In this sanctuary there is also another temple below, and in this there is a great image of the seated Zeus, of gold, and a large golden table; the footstool and seat are also of gold; and altogether, as the Chaldæans say, the amount of gold used is 800 talents. Outside this temple is a golden altar, on which only sucking creatures may be sacrificed, and also a larger altar, where the full-grown animals are sacrificed. On this the Chaldæans burn in every year 1,000 talents of incense when they celebrate the festival of the god. Here was another golden image of the god, 12 cubits high. But this I did not see; I only repeat what the Chaldæans told me. This image Xerxes had taken away. Such were the adornments of the temple, and besides these there were in it many dedicatory offerings given by individuals."403

Diodorus, who wrote four hundred years later than Herodotus, relates: – "In the middle of the city was the sanctuary of Zeus, whom the Babylonians call Belus. But as the writers give different accounts of the temple, and the structure has fallen from age, it is not possible to say anything certain about it. Yet they agree that it was extremely high, and that the Chaldæans here made their observations of the stars, as the height of the building enabled them to observe accurately their rising and setting. The whole building is said to have been constructed of burnt brick and bitumen, with great skill and much ornament. On the top were three statues of Zeus, Hera, and Rhea, of beaten gold. The statue of Zeus represented him standing and advancing. It was 40 feet high and 1,000 Babylonian talents in weight. Of the same weight was the statue of Rhea, in which the goddess was seated on a golden throne. Beside her knees were two lions, and close at hand two very large serpents of silver, each weighing 30 talents. The standing figure of Hera weighed 800 talents; in her right hand she held a serpent by the head, and in the left a sceptre studded with precious stones. Before these statues was a common table of beaten gold, 40 feet long and 15 feet broad, and 500 talents in weight. On the table were two chalices, each 30 talents in weight. There also were two vessels for incense, each 30 talents in weight, and three great jars, of which that consecrated to Zeus was 1,200 talents in weight, and the two others 600 talents each."404 Strabo contents himself with the remark: "The now ruined grave of Belus was a square pyramid of burnt bricks. It was a stadium in height, and a stadium on every side. Alexander intended to rebuild it, but the work was enormous, and required a long time; the removal of the debris alone employed 10,000 workmen for two months, so that he could not bring it to an end, for soon after he fell sick and died."405 What Diodorus tells us of the many thousand talents of gold, of the statues and utensils on the top of the temple-tower, is borrowed from Ctesias, and belongs to the romance or poetry of the East from the time of the empire of the Medes. But we cannot doubt that there was a considerable amount of gold in the greatest sanctuary at Babel. The seated image of gold in the lower temple, which Herodotus saw, weighed, according to the Chaldæans, 800 talents, i. e., on the light imperial scale, 50,000 pounds.

It was this magnificent temple at Babylon to which the tradition of the Hebrews has attached the account of the building of that tower in the plain of Shinar of which the top should reach heaven. The mighty men, the giants of the ancient days, desired to climb heaven. Their insolence and wicked purpose was punished by the confusion of language and the dispersion 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.