Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/391

 ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE THE PRINCIPAL TYPES. 369 of Bel or Belus at Babylon. As to whether the ruins of that building are to be identified with Babil (Fig- 3?) or the Dirs- Nimroud (Fig- 168) we shall inquire presently. This is the description of Herodotus : "In the other (fortress) was the. sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square inclosure two furlongs each way with gates of solid brass ; which was also remaining in my time. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the out- side, by a path which winds round all the towers. When one is about half way up one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are wont to sit some time on their vay to the summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned with a golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place nor is the chamber occupied of nights by any one but a single native woman. . . . Below in the same precinct there is a second temple, in which is a sitting figure of Jupiter all of gold .... outside the temple are two altars." 1 This description is, of course, very short ; it omits many details that we should have wished to find in it ; but like nearly all the descriptions of Herodotus it is very clear. The old historian saw well, and his mind retained what he saw. From his recital it is plain that this was the finest of the Babylonian temples, and that even when partly ruinous, under the successors of Alexander, its colossal dimensions were yet able to astonish foreign visitors. We may, then, take it as the type of the Chaldsean temple, as the finest religious building in the first city of Mesopotamia. Nebuchadnezzar reconstructed it and made it higher and richer in its ornamentation than before, but he kept to the ancient founda- tions and made no change in the general character of the plan. In this single edifice were gathered up all the threads of a long tradition ; it was, as it were, the supreme effort, the last word of the national art : and Herodotus declares plainly that it was a staged tower. Such an assertion puts the matter beyond a doubt, and enables 1 HERODOTUS, i, 181-3, Rawlinson's version. By Jupiter, or rather Zeus, we must understand Bel-merodach, Diodorus calls the god of the temple Zeus Belus.