Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/657

Rh anxiety and trouble than any woman in Europe. She kept herself therefore concealed till they had left off searching; and, about a fortnight after, made her escape without any accident to her husband.

and LabarosoarchadLabarosoarchod [sic] usurped the throne. But in 555, Nabonidas and Belshazzar began to reign. This last was the son of Evil Merodac and Nitocris, and grandson of Nebuchadnezzar: he was an impious and pleasure loving prince, neglecting his subjects and kingdom; but Nitocris, a woman of great understanding and masculine spirit, took the main burden of the government upon herself; and whilst her son was following his pleasures, exerted her utmost effort to preserve the state. Herodotus ascribes to her the construction of the bridge, river banks, and artificial lake, for the preservation of the city from the overflowing of the Euphrates. Most probably she only completed the unfinished work of Nebuchadnezzar. Whilst the river was turned, for thus finishing its banks, and the walls of the city, she caused a wonderful vault or gallery to be made underneath it, leading from the old palace to the new, 12 feet high and 15 wide; and having covered it with a strong arch, and over that a layer of bitumen 6 feet thick, she turned the river again over it; for, as it is the nature of that bitumen to petrify when water comes over it, and become as hard as stone,