Middletown transcript., 1870-07-16
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BABYLON.

This greai city was one of the wonders
of the ancient world The city was stu
ated in vast plain. We learn a good
many particulars of its grandeur from He
rodotus, the celebrated ancient historian
According to him-and he is generally
regarded as the best of authority-it was
ill form of perfect square, and was up
wards of fifty miles in circuit. 1t was
surrounded by wide and deep ditch,
lined with brck-work and full of water,
and the soil dug out was made into bricks,
with which the wall was built eighty y-seven
feet thick and three hundred and fifty feet
high. The bricks were baked in furnaces,
and hot bitumen was used to cement them
together. AT every thirty layers of
bricks, layer of reeds was placed. The
sides of the ditch were first built in this
manner, and then the walls above them.
In the walls there were a hundred gates,
twenty-five on each side. All these gates
were made of solid brass, and of prodi-
gious size and strength,
The Euphrates ran through the city,
dividing it into two parts. In the wall
lining the river there were smaller gates,
also of brass, from which steps conducted
down to the stream. Between every two
of the great gates there were three watch
towers, ten feet higher than the walls,
with four such towers at each of the four
angles of the wall, and three more be-
tween each of those angles and the next
adjoining gate on either side. There
we're, however, but two hundred and fifty
towers in all, as they were omitted on that
side where the morasses rendered such
protection unnecessary. The grand square
was divided into twenty-five grand streets,
which intcrsected each other, thus parting
the city into six hundred and twenty-six
squares. Each of the streets went quite
across the city in straight line, extend
ing from principal gate on one side to
another on the opposite side. The vast
squares formed by the intersections of the
streets were not built upon, but were laid
out in gardens and pleasure grounds; and
the houses that lined the streets stood at
some distance from each other, and were
of three and four stories in height, adorn-
ed with all the splendor of the ancient and
oriental taste.
AT each end of the bridge was mag
nifcent palace. The old palace was stu
ated on the east side of the river, and the
new palace on the west side The former
of these palaces took up four of the squares
already spoken of, and the other, nine of
these squares. The temple of Belus,
which stood next to the old palace, occu-
pied another square. The old city lay on
the east side of the river; the new city,
built by Nebuchadnezzar, on the west
side. Both cities were included in the
circuit of fifty miles.
To fill the immense city with inhabit-
ants, Nebuchadnezzar carried thither a
multitude of captives from Judea and 9TH
er countries which he conquered. But he
failed in carrying out his great plan. The
city never was supplied with inhabitants
according to its capacity This great
monarch died before he had time to carry
out his plan; and twenty-five years after
his death the royal seat of the empire was
moved from Babylon to Sheesan (the Chu-
san of scripture) by Cyrus, which put an
end to the growing glory of the former ci-
ty, and it never fourished afterward.
The temple of Belus was constructed by
Nebuchadnezzar ON the ancient structure
supposed to be the tower of Babel. The
original tower was square, and was half o
mile in circuit 1t consisted of eight tow.
ers, one built above the other, 1t was
certainly one of the most wonderful works
in the world, not excepting the largest o
the pyramids. The perpendicular meas
ure of the great pryamid is but four hun
hundred and eighty-one feet, whereas thu
tower was nearly six hundred feet il
breadth. The upper part of the temple
as fitted up by Nebuchadnezzar, was tht
place the principal devotions were per