Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/208

 188 BABYLON foundation of the dynasty of Nabonassar (747 B. C.). Babylonia having been reconquered by Sennacherib, it became about 680 one of the two capitals of the Assyrian empire, Tinder Esarhaddon, the son of that conqueror. Its great importance dates from the fall of Nine- veh, when Nabopolassar made it the capital of the Chaldean empire, and began that great series of fortifications and public works which were completed by his son Nebuchadnezzar (604-561). The last successor of Nebuchad- nezzar, Nabonadius, joined the league formed to check the threatening power of Persia. This brought upon him the invasion by Cy- rus. Having associated with himself in the government his son Belshazzar, Nabonadius, leaving him in command of Babylon, advance^ to meet Cyrus. Being defeated in the field, he threw himself into Borsippa, while Cyrus ad- vanced to the siege of Babylon. The city was provisioned for a long siege and the strength of its walls defied direct assault. It was taken only by the stratagem of diverting the river from its course, and marching in through its dry bed. Herodotus relates that Cyrus turned the Euphrates into the great reservoir exca- vated by Nitocris. This appears incredible; for even assuming the existence of this reser- voir, its' waters must have been on a level with those of the river, and no cutting could have laid bare the river bed. Xenophon, a much better authority in this matter, says that Cyrus drained the bed by means of two new cuttings of his own, from a point above the city to an- other below it. If we suppose that the river was not the Euphrates itself, but a bayou or side branch, shallower than the river, the whole operation becomes perfectly comprehensible. He had only to dam up the mouth of the bayou above the city, and deepen the channel below by which it reentered the Euphrates. In an hour after cutting away the bulkhead below, the channel would be dry. This was done in the dead of night. It was a complete surprise. So confident were the besieged in the impreg- nability of their outer defences that they neg- lected to close the water gates which fronted the river at the foot of each street, and Bel- shazzar and his court passed the night in rev- elry. When morning dawned the inner de- fences had all fallen into the hands of the be- siegers (538). Cyrus, having dismantled Baby- lon, moved upon Borsippa, still held by Nabo- nadius, who surrendered and received kind treatment. Cyrus assigned him a residence and estate in Caramania, where the last king of Babylon ended his days in peace. For a time Babylon was a royal residence of the Per- sian kings. Two attempts were made to re- volt, and each time Babylon stood a siege and was further dismantled. It ceased to be a royal city ; its brick walls and palaces fell into decay; and when Alexander the Great took possession, it was comparatively a ruin. He intended to restore the city, and make it his Asiatic capital, but his death prevented the ex- ecution of the scheme. His Syrian successors chose for their capital Seleucia, a few miles to the northeast, on the Tigris. A great part of this city was built with materials carried from, Babylon; and when Seleucia fell into decay, from its materials the Parthians built Ctesiphon. Besides these great cities, the Persian Madain, the Cufah of the caliphs, and in a measure the more modern Bagdad, have been successively built from the ruins of Babylon. The place had become a ruin in the time of Strabo (about the beginning of the Christian era). St. Jerome, in the 4th century, learned that it had been con- verted into a hunting ground for the recreation of the Persian monarch, who in order to pre- serve the game had partially restored the walls. From that time it passed more and more out of notice, until its very site became forgotten. It is only since 1847 that it has been satisfactorily identified. Its modern representative is the A Babylonian Brick. village of Hilleh, with about 7,000 inhabitants. As Birs Nimrud marks the site of Borsippa, the ruins of Babylon proper consist mainly of three mounds : 1. Babil, probably the temple of Belus. ' This is an oblong mass, 200 yards long, 140 wide, and 140 ft. high. 2. The Kasr, or palace of Neb- uchadnezzar. This is an irregular square about 700 yards each way, surmounted with the re- mains of a square structure, the walls of which are composed of burnt bricks of a pale yellow color, of excellent quality, bound together with a lime cement, and stamped with the name of Nebuchadnezzar. 3. A mound, now called Amran, of an irregular triangular shape, the sides being 1,400, 1,100, and 850 ft. This is supposed to be the ruins of a palace older than Nebuchadnezzar, for bricks have been found there inscribed with the names of more ancient kings. Besides these there are merely frag- ments of embankments, which may be parts of some of the walls. For ancient Babylon the principal authorities are Herodotus and Diodo- rus Siculus ; for the history and ruins, Raw- Imson's "Herodotus" and "Five Ancient Mon- archies," Lenormant and Chevallier's "Ancient