Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/379

 BABYLONIA. ChaldBeo-Babjloniaxi Empire and the en of tBoee anthora. Ptdemj (▼. 20. § 3) divides Babjloois into three districts which he calls Aachanitis (A^ov^- TCf ), Chaldaea(XaASala), and Amardocaea (A^top^o- iroia),ofnoneof which, with the exception of Chaldaea, wo know any thing ; and mentions tiie following chief towns which are described under their respective names : Babylon on the EaphrateSyVoLooESiA and Barsita or BoRSiPPA on the Msaraares canal; Tk- BEDON OB DiRiDOTis near the month of the Tigris; and Orchoe in the Marshes. He speaks also of several smaller towns and villages to which we have DOW no cine, omitting Seleuceia and some others, because, probablj, at Us time, they had either alto- gether ceased to ezist^ or had lost aU importance. A few other places are mentioned by other writers, as Pylae, Gharmande, Spasinae-Charax, and Ampe, aboat which however Httle is known; and another district called Meseoe, apparently different from that in which Apameia was situated [Apameia]. These are noticed under their respective names. Babylonia was an ahnost unbroken phun, without a ringle natural hill, and admirably adapted for the great fertility for which it was celebrated in antiquity, bat liable at the same time to very extensive floods on the periodical rising of its two great rivers. He- rodotus (i. 193) says that its soil was so well fitted for the growth of the cerealia, that it sddom pro- duced less than two hundred fold, and in the best seasons as much as three hundred fold. He men- tions also the Cenchrus (Panicum miliaceum) and Sesamum (perhaps the Sesamum Indicom, from which an useful oil was extracted: Plin. xviii. 10; Diosc iL 124 ; Forskal, Flora Arab. p. 113) as growing to a prodigious size. He adds that there was a great want of timber, though the dato-palm trees grew there abundanUy, from which wine and honey were manufactured by the people. (See also Amm. Marc. xxiv. 3; Plut Sympos. viiL 4 ; S. Basil HomiL 5.) Xenoj^on {Anab. L 5. § 10.) alludes to the great fertility of the soil, and notices the honey made from the pdm, the excellence d the dates themselves, which were so good that what the Baby- koians gave to their slaves were superior to those which found their way to Greece (^Anab. ii. 3. §§ 15, 16), and the intoxicating character of the wine made from their fruit In the Cyropaedeia (vii. 5. § 1 1) be speaks also of the gigantic size of the Bar byloniaa palm-trees. Strabo (xvi. p. 741) states that Babylonia produced barley such as no other country did; ai^ that the palm-tree afibrded the pec^le bread and honey, and wine and vinegar, and materials for weaving. Its nuts served for the black- smith's forge, and when crushed and macerated in water were wholesome food for the oxen and sheep. In short, so valuable was this tree to the natives, that a Poem is said to have been written in Persian, enumerating 360 uses to which it could be applied. At preMent Mr. Ainsworth says {JU§, p. 125) that the usual v^tation is, on the river bank, shrub- beries of taouuisk and acacia, and occasionaUy poplars, whose lanceolate leaves resemble the willow, and have hence been taken for it. It is curious that there is no such thing as a wee^nng willow (Salix Ba- bylonica) in Babylonia. The common tamarisk is the Athleh or Atle ci Sonnini (Athele, Ker Porter, ii. p. 369, resembling the lAgwum Ft'toe, Klch, Mem. p. 66, the Tamarix Orientalis of Forskal, Flora Arab, p. 206) In the upper part of Babybnia, Herodotus (i. 179) mentions a vUlage called Is, famous for the production of bitumen, which is procured there in BABYLONIA. 361 large quantities, and which was used extensively in the construction of their great works. Strabo (/. c.) confirms this statement, dbtingnishing at the same time between the bitumen or asphalt of Babylonia, which was hard, and the liquid bitumen or naphtha, which was the product of the neighbouring province cf Susiana. He adds that it was used in the con- struction of buildings and for the caulking of ships. (Comp. Diod. iL 12.) The great fertility of Babylonia is clear from the statement cf Herodotus, who visited Babylon about seventy years after the destructive si^e l^ Dareius, and who did not, therefore, see it in its magnificoice. Even in his time, it supported the king of Persia, his army, and his whole establishment for four monthsof tbeyear,affording, therefore, one-third of the produce of the whole of that king's dominions: it fed also 800 stallions and 16,000 mares for the then Satrap Tritantaechmes, four of ite villages (for that reason free of any other taxes) being assigned for the maintenance of his Indian dogs alone (Her. i. 192; Ctesias, p. 272, Ed. Blibr.) We may presume also that ite climate was good and less torrid than at present, as Xenophon (^Cyrop. viii. 7. § 22) expressly states that Cyrus was in the habit of spending the seven colder months at Baby- lon, because of ^e mildness of ite climate, the thr«e spring months at Susa, and two hottest summer ones at Ecbatana. The fertility of Babylonia was due to the influence of ite two great rivers, assbtod by numerous canals which intersected theUndbetween them. Theremains of many great works, the chief objects of whidi were the complete irrigation or draining of the country, may yet be traced ; though it is not easy, even since the careful survey of the Euphrates by Col. Chesney and the ofScers who, with him, conducted the "Eu- phrates Expedition," satisfactorily to identify many of ' them with the descriptions we have of their ancient courses. Rich. (p. 53.) and Ker Porter (p. 289) stete that, at present, the canals themselves show that they are of all ages, and that new ones are continu- ally being made. Arrian (^Anab. vii. 7.) considers that a dilforenoe between the relative heighte of the beds of the Euphrates and Tigris was fevourable to their original construction, an opinion which has been borne out by modem examination ; though it seems likely that Arrian had exaggerated notions of the beds (^ the two rivers, as he had,also, of the difference in the rapidity of their streams. Not far above Babylon, the bed of the Euphrates was found to be about five feet above that of the Tigris, according to Mr. Ainsw(Hlh, {Reuarchet^ p. 44.) who con- firms, generally, Arrian's views, and shows that, owing to tile larger quantity of alluvium brought down by the Euphrates than by the Tigris, it happens that, above Babylon, the waters of the Euphrates find a higher level by which they flow into the Tigris, while, at a considerable distance below Babylon, the level of the Euphrates is so low that the Tigris is able to send back ite waters. He doubts, however (p. 110.), the statement of the differoDce in the speed of the current of the two rivers, which be considers to be much the same, and not very rapid even in flood time. Bich (p. 53), dk the other hand, says, that the banks of the Eu- phrates are lower, and the stream moreequal than that of the Tigris. These pointe are more fhlly discussed elsewhere [Euphrates; Tigris]. The canals were not sunk into the land, but were rather aqueducts constructed on ite surfiice. The water was forced