Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/378

 Nimrúd, an idea which appears to have occurred to Niebuhr (Voy. vol. ii. p. 236), though the state of the country did not allow him to pay it a visit. Ker Porter, who surveyed the neighbourhood of Babylon with great attention in 1818, differs from Mr. Rich in thinking that there are remains of ruins on the western side of the river, almost all the way to the Birs-i-Nimrúd, although the ground is now, for the most part, very flat and marshy. He considers also that this ruin must have stood within the limits of the original city, at the extreme SW. angle. With regard to this last and most celebrated ruin, it has been conjectured that, after all, it was no part of the actual town of Babylon, the greater part of which, as we have seen, in all probability dates from Nebuchadnezzar, in accordance with his famous boast, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built?" (Dan. iv. 30), but that it represents the site of the ancient Borsippus (to which Nabonnedus is said to have fled when Cyrus took Babylon), its present name of Birs recalling the initial letters of the ancient title. According to Col. Rawlinson, the name Borsippa is found upon the records of the obelisk from Nimrúd, which is at least two centuries and a half anterior to Nebuchadnezzar (As. Journ. xii. pt. 2. p. 477), and Mr. Rich had already remarked (p. 73) that the word Birs has no meaning in the present language (Arabic) of the country. It is certain that this and many other curious matters of investigation will not be satisfactorily set at rest, till the cuneiform inscriptions shall be more completely decyphered and interpreted. It is impossible to do more here than to indicate the chief subjects for inquiry. (Rich, Babylon and Persepolis; Ker Porter, Travels, vol. ii.; Rawlinson, Journ. As. Soc. vol. xii. pt. 2.)

 BA'BYLON (, Strab. xvii. p. 807; Diod. i. 56; Joseph. Antiq. ii. 5; Ctesias Fr.; Ptol. iv. 5. § 54), the modern Baboul, was a fortress or castle in the Delta of Egypt. It was seated in the Heliopolite Nome, upon the right bank of the Nile, in lat. 31° N., and near the commencement of the Pharaonic Canal, from that river to the Red Sea. It was the boundary town between Lower and Middle Egypt, where the river craft paid toll ascending or descending the Nile. Diodorus ascribes its erection to revolted Assyrian captives in the reign of Sesostris, and Ctesias (Persica) carries its date back to the times of Semiramis; but Josephus (l. c.), with greater probability, attributes its structure to some Babylonian followers of Cambyses, in 525. In the age of Augustus the Deltaic Babylon became a town of some importance, and was the head-quarters of the three legions which ensured the obiodience of Egypt. In the Notitia Imperii Babylon is mentioned as the quarters of Legio XIII. Gemina. (It. Anton.; Georg. Ravenn. &c.) Ruins of the town and fortress are still visible a little to the north of Fostat or Old Cairo, among which are vestiges of the Great Aqueduct mentioned by Strabo and the early Arabian topographers. (Champollion, l'Egypte, ii. p. 33.)

 BABYLO'NIA, a province of considerable extent on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, and the 9th satrapy of Dareius. (Her. iii. 183.) Its capital was Babylon, from which it is probable that the district adjoining derived its name. It is not easy to determine from ancient authors with any strictness what its boundaries were, as it is often confounded with Mesopotamia and Assyria, while in the Bible it receives the yet more indefinite appella-tion of the land of the Chaldees. In early times, however, it was most likely only a small strip of land round the great city, perhaps little more than the southern end of the great province of Mesopotamia. Afterwards it is clear that it comprehended a much more extensive territory. A comparison of Strabo and Ptolemy shows that, according to the conception of the Roman geographers, it was separated from Mesopotamia on the N. by an artificial work called the Median Wall [], which extended from the Tigris, a little N. of Sittace, to the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, and that it was bounded on the E. by the Tigris, on the S. by the Persian Gulf, and on the W. and SW. by the desert sands of Arabia. Eratosthenes (ap. Strab. ii. 80) compares its shape to that of the rudder of a ship. The most ancient name for Babylonia was Shinar which is first mentioned in Genesis (x. 10), where it is stated that the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod was Babel in the land of Shinar: a little later we meet with the name of Amraphel, who was king of that country in the time of Abraham (Gen. xiv. 1, &c.) It long continued a native appellation of that land. Thus we find Nebuchadnezzar removing the vessels of the temple of Jehovah to the house of his god in "the land of Shinar" (Dan. i. 2); and, as late as 519, Zephaniah declaring that a house shall be built "in the land of Shinar" (Zeph. v. 11). A fragment of Histiaeus (ap. Joseph. Antiq. i. 43) shows that the name was not unknown to Greek writers, for he speaks of "."

It has been thought by some that the ancient name has been preserved in the classical Singara (, Ptol. v. 18. § 2; Amm. Marc. xxiii. 5, xxv. 7), now Sinjar. But this seems very doubtful; as the character of the Sinjar country is wholly different from the plain land of Babylonia. If, however, we adopt this view, and Bochart inclines to it, we must suppose the name of the high northern land of Mesopotamia to have been gradually extended to the lowlands of the south (Wahl, Asien, p. 609; Rosenm. Bibl. Alt. ii. 8). Niebuhr has noticed this attribution. D'Anville (Comp. Anc. Geogr. p. 433) has rejected it; while Beke (Orig. Bibl. p. 66) has identified Shinar and the present Kharput Dawassi, for which there seem to be no grounds whatever.

The inhabitants of Babylonia bore the general name of Babylonians; but there also appears everywhere in their history a people of another name, the Chaldaeans, about whom and their origin there has been much dispute in modern times. Their history is examined elsewhere. [.] It is sufficient to state here that we think there is no good evidence that the Chaldaeans were either a distinct race from the Babylonians, or a new people who conquered their country. We believe that they were really only a distinguished caste of the native population, the priests, magicians, soothsayers, and astrologers of the country; till, in the end, their name came to be applied as the genuine title of the main body of the people, among whom they were, originally, only the class who devoted themselves to scientific pursuits. Strabo (xvi. p. 739), indeed, speaks as though he considered them as a separate but indigenous nation, and places them in the southern part of Babylonia, adjoining the Persian Gulf and the Deserts of Arabia (see also Ptol. v. 20. § 3), but the authority of these writers will be diminished, when it is remembered that seven centuries had elapsed between the extinction of the 