South-eastern Independent. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1871-1871, 1871-11-03
The Downfall OF Rabyl0n.

OF the various wonders of Babylon, the
product of tie labors of its engineers or
architects, we have no leisure to speak,
yet the chief pride of the impulsive pop
ulation was its impregnable walls. Nature
had left the city easy of access on every
side /; the ingenuity of man had covered
it with Notifications. The Babylonians
Knocked at the futile efforts OF their foes.
A deep moat surrounded the city. Walls
more than three hundred feet high COW
cred each of the sides. They were
seventy-five feet wide, formed of IN
burned brick ; houses were built on the
spacious top : yet between them ran q
street so wide that a chariot of four
horses might drive or turn upon it at
will. An inner wall of not inferior
strength provided a new defense. Mas
sive gates of tronze secured every open
ing. The city was more ~impregnable to
ancient tactics than the finest work OF
Vauban to his coAtempories-than the
redoubts of Paris to modern cannon.
Twice only was Babylon taken I; once by
surprise, and once by treachery. No1
was any ancient engineer ever able to
dry its enormous ditch, to sap its gigan-
tic walls, taller than most European
spires, to crush in its solid gates, OF
penetrate its exterior defenses. The
mighty fortress ruled for centuries ovel
the plains of the Euphrates and the
Tigris ; the fame of its strength filled
the world it was celebrated Ii the an
nails Of Greece and the chronicles of the
Middle Ages /; and in the fanciful days oil
chivalry and Of barbarism every nightly
castle seems to have been modelled upon
tho plan of the Assyrian stronghold, and
possessed on an insignificant scale Its
ditch, its double walls, its interior keep,
and its protecting towers.
Yet, compared with the enormous
stone-work of Egypt or the Cyclopean
fortress of Mycene, Babylon seems to
have been singularly fragile 1t was q
mass of sun-dried bricks. Clay bound
together by chopped straw and asphal-
tum, was almost the sole material employ
ed by its architects. Palaces and temples,
its lofty houses and its towering walls,
were all composed of crumbling earth
and when at length decay settled upon
the mighty capital, and its deserted
buildings were abandoned to the ravages
of time, it melted away like a baseless
vision, and faded into a heap of dust.
Except a hill of broken bricks, no trace
remains of the tower Of Belus. The
Euphrates has broken its neglected EN-
b nkments, and converted the site OF
Babylon into a desolate marsh. Wild
beasts make their dens in the crevices of
the pile of ruins. Bats and owls cling to
the arid caverns. The fair plains OF
Babylonia, once clad in boundless har-
vests of Mesopotamian wheat, rich with
endless groves of palm, are sown alone
with brambles. The canals, the broad
highways, and the spacious inns are
gone. The gifted Semitic race, who
wrought the lowered muslins, and cut
the precious gems Of Babylon, are min
gled with the dust. All is solitude. The
scornful Euphrates sweeps ct will over
the fields it was once condemned to fer
tilize, and mocks at the faded glories of
Cyrus or Samiramis, of Darius and Alex
ander, SO low has Babylon fallen
Its renown was altogether material mo
poets, historians, musicians, artists,
sprang up amidst its crowded throngs.
A single Burns Or a Babylonian Pindar
might have saved it from contempt and
but for the pen of a cultivated GreeF its
mighty towers and its gigantic walls
would have risen and sunk Gndistinguish-
ed upon the Assyrian plain but for the
cry of Hebrew prophecy the name of
Babylon would never have become the
symbol of civic corruption, or its fate
the lesson of all ages.