Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/25

Rh man in the narrow streets hastening homeward with a vessel full of hot bitumen, to make or mend some household utensils. The roofs of the houses above your head are smeared with bitumen, but on the streets beneath your feet it is rarely used." This use of bitumen for mortar in the buildings and quays of Babylon furnishes an interesting commentary on the Tower of Babel story in the eleventh chapter of Genesis: "And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime [bitumen] had they for mortar." (Gen. xi. 3.)

Herodotus places Arderikka on the Euphrates, some distance above Babylon. In this vicinity it is said the Babylonian queen, Nitocris, turned the course of the Euphrates, through artificial canals, so that the stream had to touch Arderikka three times in its course. Herodotus says: "Those who go from this sea (Mediterranean) to Babylon, and sail down the Euphrates, must come to this village three times in three days." (I., 185.)

The situation of Arderikka is to-day hard to determine. Since the buildings ascribed to Nitocris (as will be discussed later), were very probably the work of Nebuchadrezar, we may naturally recall in this description one of the canal structures erected by that king. In all probability Nebuchadrezar had to dig a new bed for the Euphrates with great curves, so as to regulate the course of the stream. He then diverted the current of the stream to the great basin