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Assyria

ASSYRIA (Ancient country) PERSIAN GULF
  Assyria (he Assuria, Herod. ii. 17, iv. 39: Ptol. vi. 1. § 1; Steph. B.; Arrian, Anab. vii. 21: Assyria, Tacit. Ann. xii. 13; Amm. Marc. xxiii. 6; Atouria, Strab.xvi. p. 736; Steph. s. v. Ninos; Dion. Cass. lxviii.; Athura, on Pers. Cun. Inscr., and Assura, on the Median, Rawl. J. As. Soc. xi. pt. i. p. 10: Eth. Assyrii, Assurioi, Steph. ; Herod. i. 193; Assures, Steph.; Eustath. in Dion. de Situ Orbis, p. 70), a district of Asia, the boundaries of which are variously given in the Greek and Roman writers, but which, in the strictest and most original sense, comprehended only a long narrow territory, divided on the N. from Armenia by M. Niphates, on the W. and SW. from Mesopotamia and Babylonia by the Tigris; on tie SE. from Susiana, and on the E. from Media,by the chain of the Zagrus. Itwas,in fact, nearly the same territory as the modern Pacha-lik of Mosul, including the plain land below the Kurdistdan and Persian mountains. Its original name, as appears from the Cuneiform Inscriptions, is best represented by Aturia (Atouria), which strabo (xvi. 736) says was part of Assyria (as understood at the time when he wrote); although Dion Cassius seems to consider that this form of the name was a barbarous mis-pronunciation. In later times, as appears from Pliny (vi. 12) and Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 6), it bore the name of Adiabene, which was properly a small province between the Tigris, Lycus (or Zabatus), and the Gordiaean mountains. (Dion Cass. lxviii.; Ptol. vi. 1. § 2.)
  In the wider sense Assyria comprehended the whole country which was included in Mesopotamia and Babylonia (Strab. xvi. p. 736), while it was often confounded with adjoining nations by the Greek and Roman writers: thus, in Virg. (Georg. ii. 465), Assyrio veneno is used for Tyrio; in Nonn. Dionys. (xli. 19) the Libanus is called Assyrian; and in Dion. Perieg. (v. 975) the Leuco-Syrians of Pontus and Cappadocia are termed Assyrians. It is curious that Scylax of Caryanda placed Assyria among the nations on the Pontus Enxinus, between the Chalybes and Paphlagonia, and includes in it the river Thermodon and the Greek towns of Thermodon, Sinope, and Harmene. (Scyl. Car. ap. Hudson. Geogr. Graec. Min. p. 33.) The author of the Etymologicumn Magnum has preserved a tradition (Etym. Maqn. in voc.) from Xenocrates, that this land was originally called Euphratis, then Chaldaea, and lastly, from Assyrus the son of Suses, Assyria: he appears also to consider it as the same as Babylonia.
  The chief mountains of ancient Assyria are known under the general name of the chain of Zagrus, which extended, under various denominations, along the whole of its eastern frontier from N. to S., and separated it from Media and Persia.
  Its rivers may be all considered as feeders of the Tigris, and bore the names of Zabatus (Zabatos), Zabas, Zerbis, or Lycus, which rose in the N. mountains of Armenia; the Bumadus or Bumodus; the Caprus; the Tornadotus or Physcus (Phuskos); the Silla or Delas,- probably the same stream which elsewhere bears the names of Diabas, Durus (Douros), and Gorgus (Gorgos); and the Gyndes. Its provinces are mentioned by Ptolemy and Strabo under the following names: Aturia, Calacene or Calachene, Chazene, Arrhapachitis,Adiabene, Arbelitis, Apolloniatis or Chalonitis, and Sittacene; though there is some difference between the two geographers, both as to their relative extent and as to their positions.
  Its chief cities were: Ninus (he Ninos), its most ancient and celebrated capital, Nineveh; Ctesiphon (he Ktesiphon), the seat of government under the Parthian rulers; Arbela (ta Arbela), Gaugamela (ta Gaugamela), Apollonia, Artemita, Opis, Chala or Celonae (Kelonai), and Sittace (Slttake) or Sitta.
  It is of considerable importance to distinguish as accurately as we can between the land or territory comprehended under the name of Assyria, and the kingdom or empire which was established in that country. The former, as we have seen, was, strictly speaking, only a small province, at first probably little more than the district to the NE. of the junction of the Tigris and the Zabatus. The latter varied very much, both in power and extent, according to the individual influence and successful conquests of particular kings. For the history of the Assyrian empire the materials at our command are extremely limited, and the sources from which we must draw our conclusions have not - with the exception of the Bible, which only describes the later portion of Assyrian history-been preserved to us in the works of the original writers. Considerable discrepancy, therefore, prevails in the accounts which the copyists of the more ancient documents have left to us; so that it is by no means easy to derive from their comparison a satisfactory view of the origin or progress of this ancient empire.
  It seems, however, useful to put together as concisely as possible the results of the narratives which occur in the three principal and differing authorities; so that the amount of real knowledge to be obtained from them may be more readily perceived. We shall therefore state what is known of Assyrian history from: 1. The Bible. 2. Herodotus. 3. Ctesias, and others who have more or less borrowed from his work.
1. The Bible. There is no reason to doubt that the earliest notice which we have of Assyria is that in Gen. x. 10, et seq., in which Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, is mentioned as possessing a kingdom at the cities of Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar; and Assur as having gone out from that land, and founded the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen. The inference from this statement is that the country round Babel (afterwards called Babylonia) was the elder empire, and Assyria (which, according to universal opinion, has derived its name from Assur) a colony or dependency of Nimrod's original kingdom. After this first notice a long period elapsed, during which the Bible has no allusion to Assyria at all; for the passages where that name occurs (Num. xxiv. 22; Psal. lxxiii. 9) have no historical importance; and it is not till the reign of Menahem, king of Israel, B.C. 769, that we have any mention of an Assyrian king. From that time, however, to the absorption of the empire of Assyria Proper into that of Babylon, we have a line of kings in the Bible, who shall be briefly mentioned here, together with the dates during which they reigned, according to the general consent of chronologers. 1. Pul, the first king of Assyria in Holy Scripture, invaded Palestine about the fortieth year of Uzziah, B.C. 769 (2 Kings, xv. 19), but was induced by Menahem to retire, on receiving a present of 1000 talents. 2. Tiglath-pileser, who succeeded Pul, was on the throne before the death of Pekah, king of Israel, B.C. 738, and had previously conquered Syria (2 Kings, xv. 29, xvi. 5-9); though the precise date of his accession is not determinable. 3. About ten years later Shalmaneser was king, in the beginning of the reign of Hoshea, B.C. 730, and he was still living at the capture of Samaria, B.C. 721. (2 Kings, xvii. 1-9, xviii. 9-11.) 4. Sennacherib was on the throne eight years after the fall of Samaria, and must therefore have succeeded his father between B.C. 721 and 713. (2 Kings, xviii. 13; Is. xxxvi. 1.) He was slain by his sons fifty-five days after his flight from Palestine, B.C. 711. (Clinton, F. H. p. 273; Tobit, i. 21.) 5. Esarhaddon, his son, succeeded Sennacherib (2 Kings, xix. 37), but we have no means of determining from the Bible to what length his reign extended. During some portion of it, it may be inferred from the story of Manasseh (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11) that he was master of Babylon. 6. Nabuchodonosor is the last king of Assyria mentioned in the Bible; but whether he immediately succeeded Esarhaddon we have no means of telling. The date of his accession is fixed to B.C. 650, as it coincided with the forty-eighth year of Manasseh. His reign is remarkable for the overthrow of the Median king Arphaxad (Phraortes), B.C. 634, and the expedition of Holophernes against Judaea in B.C. 633. During the last part of it, also, the invasion of the Scythians must have occurred. Subsequently to Nabuchodonosor no king of Assyria Proper appears in Holy Scripture, and the Empire of the East is in the hands of the rulers of Babylon. The fall of Nineveh itself may be determined to the year B.C. 606.
2. Herodotus. The notice in Herodotus of the history of Assyria is very brief; and there seems reason to suppose that it is so because he had already treated of Assyria in another work which is now lost (Her. i. 106-184); if, indeed, we may infer from those passages that Herodotus really did compose a separate work on Assyrian history.
  According to him (Her. i. 95), the Assyrian empire had lasted 520 years, when the Medians revolted. Now, it may fairly be inferred, that the Median revolt did not take place till after the death of Sennacherib, in B.C. 711. According, therefore, to this theory, the Assyrian empire must have dated from about, B.C. 1231. Josephus (Ant. x. 2) confirms this for the period of the independence of the Medes; though the subsequent evidence of the Bible proves that the Assyrian empire was not overthrown, as he supposes, by the Median defection. Herodotus mentions afterwards (Her. i. 106) the capture of Ninus (Nineveh) by Cyaxares the Mede; the date of which - allowing for the twenty-eight years of the nomad Scythian invasion - coincides, as we shall see hereafter, with the year B.C. 606. Herodotus says little more about Assyria Proper. When, as in i. 177-178, he speaks of Assyria and the great cities which it contained, it is clear from the context that he is speaking of Babylonia; and when, as in vii. 63, he is describing the arms of the Assyrians in the army of Xerxes, he evidently means the inhabitants of N. W. Mesopotamia, for he adds that the people whom the Greeks called Syri, were termed by the Barbarians, Assyrii.
3. Ctesias. The remains of Assyrian history in Ctesias, preserved by Diodorus (ii. 1-31), differ widely from the Bible and Herodotus. According to him, Ninus, the first king, was succeeded by Semiramis, and she by her son Ninyas, who was followed by thirty kings, of whom Sardanapalus was the last. A period of 1306 years is given to these thirty-three reigns, the last of which, according to his chronology, must have been in B.C. 876, - as Ctesias adds four reigns (158 years) to the 128 years which Herodotus gives for the continuance of the separate kingdom of Medes. On this theory, the commencement of the Assyrian empire must have been in B.C. 2182; and, to make the story in Ctesias harmonize at all with the Bible and Herodotus, we must suppose that there were two Median revolts: the first, a partial one, in B.C. 876, when the Medes became independent of Assyria, but did not destroy the seat of go. vernment; and the second, and more complete one, in B.C. 606, when, in conjunction with the Babylonians, they sacked Ninus (Nineveh), and put an end to the separate existence of the Assyrian empire. Ctesias himself imagined that Nineveh was destroyed at the time of the first Median revolt (Diod. ii. 7), - the only one, indeed, mentioned by him.
  Many writers have more or less followed Ctesias in assigning a very high antiquity to the Assyrian empire. Thus Strabo (xvi. p. 737) - grouping Assyria and Babylonia together, as countries inhabited by those whom the Greeks called generically Syrians - states that Ninus founded Nineveh, and his wife Semiramis Babylon; and that he bequeathed the empire to his descendants to the time of Sardanapalus and Arbaces. He adds that it was overthrown by the Medes, and that Ninus (its capital) ceased to exist in consequence (ephanisthe parachrema meta ten ton Suron katalusin).
  Nicolaus Dam. (ap. Excerpt. Vales. p. 229) makes Ninus and Semiramis the first rulers of Ninus. Aemilius Sura (ap. Velleium, i. 1, 6) gives 1995 years as the time from Ninus to Antiochus, which would place the commencement of the empire at B.C. 2185. Justin (i. 1, 3) mentions Ninus, Semiramis, and Ninyas, in succession, and adds that the Assyrians, who were afterwards called Syrians, ruled 1300 years, and that Sardanapalus was their last king. Velleius (i. 6) gives 1070 years for the duration of the Assyrian empire, and makes its transference to the Medes occur 770 years before his time. Duris (ap. Athenaeum, xii. p. 529, a.) mention the names of Arbaces and Sardanapalus, but describes the fate of the latter differently from other writers. Abydenus (ap. Euseb. Chron. i. 12, p. 36) speaks of Ninus and Semiramis, and places the last king Sardanapalus 67 years before the first Olympiad, or B.C. 840. Castor (ap. Euseb. Chron. i. 13, p. 36) calls Belus the first Assyrian king in the days of the Giants; and names Ninus, Semiramis, Zames (or Ninyas), and their descendants in order, to Sardanapalus.
  Cephalion - according to Suidas, an historian in the reign of Hadrian (Euseb. Chron. i. 15, p. 41) - followed Ctesias in most particulars, but made Sardanapalus the twenty-sixth king, and placed his accession in the 1013th year of the empire, throwing back the period of the revolt of Arbaces 270 years. According to him, therefore, the Median independence began in B.C. 1150, and the Assyrian empire in B.C. 2184. Eusebius himself mentions thirty-six kings, and gives 1240 years from Ninus to Sardanapalus; placing the Median revolt forty-three years before O1. 1, er at B.C. 813. (Euseb. Chron. i. p. 114.) Georgius Syncellus (p. 92, B.) commences with Belus, and reckons forty-one reigns, and 1460 years; placing the commencement in B.C. 2285, and the termination in B.C. 826. His increased number is produced byinterpolating four reigns after the twenty-seventh king of Eusebius. Lastly, Agathias (ii. 25, p. 120) gives 1306, and Augustine (Civ. Dei, xviii. 21) 1305 years, for the duration of the Assyrian empire.
  We have been thus particular in mentioning the views of Ctesias and his successors on the subject of the duration of the Assyrian empire, because it seemed of importance that all which has been handed down to us should be made accessible to students. We do not pretend to maintain that Ctesias has given us the history as it really was,because it is contrary to universal experience that there should be so numerous a succession of kings, reigning in order for the number of years which must on the average have fallen to each, - and this, too, in an Oriental land, where the per-petuity of any one dynasty is far less common than in Europe. Yet, though the list of kings and their number may be wholly imaginary, though there may never have been either a Ninus or Semiramis, the statement of Ctesias - who, as Court Physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon had abundant opportunity of consulting, and did consult the royal records (basilikai diphtherai) - is valuable, as indicating a general belief that the Assyrian empire ascended to a far remoter antiquity than that assigned to it by Herodotus. It is not, indeed, necessary to suppose that the records of Herodotus and Ctesias contradict each other; though, as we have shown, there is considerable discrepancy between them. A very acute writer (Fergusson, Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, Lond. 1851, p. 43) has conjectured, and, we think with some probability on his side, that the two accounts confirm and elucidate one another, and that one is the necessary complement to the other; though we confess we are not wholly convinced by some of the chronological arguments which he adduces.
  According to Mr. Fergusson, the earlier period given by Ctesias to the Median revolt, which that author says took place by the agency of Arbaces the Mede and Belesys the Babylonian, is to be accounted for on the supposition, that the result of the outbreak was the establishment of Arbaces and his descendants on the throne of Ninus, under the name of Arbacidae ; and that Herodotus does not allude to this, because he is speaking only of a native revolution under Deioces, which he placed 100 years later. Mr. Fergusson considers that this theory is proved by a passage which Diodorus quotes from (possibly some lost work of) Herodotus, in which Herodotus states that between the overthrow of the Assyrian empire by the Medes, and the election of Deioces an interregnum of several generations occurred (Diod. ii. 32). We confess, however, that, though much ingenuity has been shown in its defence, we are not converts to this new theory, but are content to believe that the Median revolt did not take place till after the death of Sennacherib B.C. 711, and that even then, agreeably with what the Bible would naturally lead us to suppose, no change of dynasty took place-and that, though Media continued for some years independent of the Assyrian power, it was not till the final overthrow of Ninus (Nineveh) about B.C. 606, that the Medes succeeded in completely subduing the territory which had. belonged for so many years to the Elder Empire.
  With regard to the kings of Assyria mentioned in the Bible, commencing with Pul, it may be worth while to state briefly some of the identifications with classical names which have been determined by chronological students. Mr. Clinton (F. H. vol. i. p. 263-283) has examined this subject with great learning, and to him we are indebted for the outline of what follows. According to Mr. Clinton, it is clear that the Sennacherib of Holy Scripture does not correspond with the Sennacherib of Polyhistor and Abydenus, who have ascribed to him many acts which are much more likely to be true of his son Esarhaddon. Esarhaddon (under the name of Sardanapalus) loses the Median Empire, and is commemorated as the founder of Tarsus and Anchiale (Schol. in Aristoph. Aves, v. 1022 ; Athen. xii. p. 529). Again. the Sardanapalus of Abydenus is most likely the Nabuchodonosor of the Book of Judith, who reigned 44 years, and invaded Judaea 27 years before the destruction of Nineveh. The combined testimony of Hellanicus, Callisthenes, and Clitarchus, go to establish the fact that the ancients believed in two Sardanapali-one, a warlike prince who was reigning when the Medes revolted, and who seems to correspond with the Scriptural Esarhaddon; and the other, named Saracus by Abydenus, but by Ctesias,Sardanapalus,who was luxurious and effeminate in his habits, but who, when his capital was attacked, made a gallant defence, and was burnt in his palace, on the capture of his city. The Bible, as we have seen, does not mention the name of the king who was on the throne at the time of the fall of Nineveh. Again, it appears from Alexander Polyhistor and the Astronomical Canon, that Babylon had always kings of her own from the earliest times: that they were sometimes subject to the Assyrians, and sometimes independent - and that they never acquired extensive dominion till the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The same view is confirmed as we have seen from the narrative in the Bible (2 Kings xvii. 24.; Ezra iv. 2).
  It may be remarked, that Clinton, agreeing with Usher and Prideaux, attempts to distinguish between what he and they call the Assyrian Empire and the Assyrian monarchy, supposing that the first terminated in the revolts of the Medes, but that the latter was continued to the time of the final destruction of Nineveh. We confess that we see no advantage in maintaining any such distinction. It is clear that an Assyrian Royal house continued exercising great power till the fall of Nineveh, whether we term that power an empire or a monarchy; and we are not convinced that there is any statement of weight in any ancient author from which it may be satisfactorily inferred that there was any change in the ruling dynasty. One great impediment to the correct comparison of the account in the Bible with those in profane authors, is the great variety of names under which the Assyrian rulers are named - add to which the strong probability that at the period of the compilation of the records of the Bible, the name Assyria was not used with its proper strictness, and hence that some rulers who are there called kings of Assyria were really chief governors of Babylonia or Mesopotamia.
  The late remarkable discoveries in Assyria, many of them, as may fairly be presumed, upon the site of its ancient capital Ninus, have thrown an unexpected light upon the manners and customs of the ancient people of that land. The world are greatly indebted to the zeal with which the excavations in that country have been carried on by Mr. Layard and M. Botta, and it is probably only necessary that the numerous inscriptions which have been disinterred should be fully decyphered, for us to know more of the early history of Assyria than we do at present of any other Eastern nation. Already a great step has been made towards this end, and Col. Rawlinson, who has been so honourably distinguished for his remarkable decypherment of the Rock Inscriptions of Dareius the son of Hystaspes, with other scholars in England and France, has made considerable progress in determining the correct interpretation of the Assyrian Cuneiform records. It is premature here to attempt to lay before the public the results of their investigations, as the constant discovery of new inscriptions tends almost necessarily to change, or at least to modify considerably, previous statements, and earlier theories. It may, however, be stated generally, that all that has yet been done appears to show that the monuments of ancient Assyria ascend to a very early period; that many towns, known from other sources to have been of very ancient foundation, have been recognised upon the inscriptions, and that it is quite clear that the ruling city Ninus and the kings resident in it possessed a very extensive empire at least as early as the 15th century B.C. Those who wish to consider the bearing of the discoveries of the inscriptions will find all that has yet been done in Rawlinson, Journ. of As. Soc. vol. xii. pt. 2, vol. xiv. pt. 1; Hincks, Ibid. vol. xii. pt. 1; Botta, Mem. sur l'Ecriture Assyr., Paris, 8vo. 1848; Lowenstein, Essai de dechiffr. de l'Ecrit. Assyr. Paris, 4to. 1850.

This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited October 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks

Babylon

BABYLON (Ancient city) MESSOPOTAMIA
  Babylon (Babulon), in later times called also Babylonia (Justin, i. 2; Solin. c.37: Eth. Babulonios, rarely Babuloneus, fem. Babulonis),the chief town of Babylonia, and the seat of empire of the Babylonio-Chaldaean kingdom. It extended along both sides of the Euphrates, which ran through the middle of it, and, according to the uniform consent of antiquity, was,at the height of its glory,of immense size. There seems good reason for supposing that it occupied the site, or was at least in the immediate vicinity, of Babel, which is mentioned in Genesis (x. 10) as the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom, and in Genesis (xi. 1-9) as the scene of the confusion of tongues: its name is a Graecized form of the Hebrew Babel. There is, however, no evidence that it was at an early period a place of importance, or, like Ninus (Nineveh), the imperial seat of a long line of kings. The name of Babel is said to be derived from the circumstance of its having been the place of this confusion of tongues (Gen. xi. 9); another and perhaps more natural derivation would give it the meaning of the gate or court of Bel, or Belus, the Zeus of that country. A tradition of this event has been preserved in Berossus, who says that a tower was erected in the place where Babylon now stands, but that the winds assisted the gods in overthrowing it. He adds that the ruins still exist at Babylon, that the gods introduced a diversity of tongues among men, and that the place where the tower was built is called Babylon on account of the confusion of tongues ; for confusion is by the Hebrews called Babel. (Beross. ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. ix.; Syncell. Chron. 44; Euseb. Chron. 13.) A tradition of the diversity of tongues and its cause is preserved also in a fragment of Histiaeus (ap. Joseph. Ant. i. 4), and in Alex. Polyhist. (ap. Sync. 44, and Joseph. Ant. i. 4). Eupolemus also (ap. Euseb. Fraep. Evang. ix.) attributes the foundation of Babylon to those who escaped from the Deluge, and mentions the tower and its overthrow. He adds that Abraham lived in a city of Babylonia called Camarina, or by some Uric [i.e. Ur], which is interpreted to mean a city of the Chaldaeans.
  Of Babel or Babylon, believing them, as we do, to represent one and the same place, we have no subsequent notice in the Bible till the reign of Hoshea, about B.C. 730 (2 Kings, xvii. 24), when the people of Samaria were carried away captive. It seems probable that during this long period Babylon was a place of little consequence, and that the great ruling city was the Assyrian capital Ninus. As late as the time of Hezekiah (B.C. 728-700) it is clear that Babylon was dependent on the Assyrian Empire, though Merodach-Baladan is mentioned in Isaiah (xxxix. 1) as, at that time, king or ruler in that city; for Polyhistor (ap. Euseb. Arm. Chron. 42) states that after the reign of the brother of Sennacherib, Acises ruled; and that, after Acises had reigned thirty days, he was slain by Merodach-Baladanus, who held the government, but was in his turn slain and succeeded by Elibus. Polyhistor adds that, in the third year of the reign of Elibus, Sennacherib came up and conquered the Babylonians, took their king prisoner away into, Assyria, and made his own son Asardanus king in his place. Abydenus (ap. Euseb. ibid. p. 53) states the same thing, adding that he built Tarsus after the plan of Babylon. The fragments preserved of Berossus, who lived in the age of Alexander the Great, and who testifies to the existence of written documents at Babylon which were preserved with great care, supply some names, though we have no means of ascertaining how far they maybe depended on. The commencement of the narrative of Berossus is a marvellous and fabulous account of the first origin of Babylonia. In it he speaks of Belus, whom he interprets to mean Zeus,and states that some of the most remarkable objects which he has noticed were delineated in the temple of that god at Babylon. (See Castor, ap. Euseb. Arm. Chron. 81; Eupol. ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. ix.; Thallus, ap. Theophan. ad Ant. 281; Aesch. Suppl. 318 and 322; Hesiod, Fragm. ap. Strab. i. p. 42; and Eustath. ad Dionys. 927, for the name of Belus, and various legends connected with it.) Berossus mentions the name Xisuthrus, and with him a legend of a great flood, which has so remarkable a resemblance to the narrative of the Bible, that it has been usual to suppose that Xisuthrus represents the Noah of Holy Scripture; adding that, after the flood, the people returned to Babylon, built cities and erected temples, and that thus Babylon was inhabited again. (Beross. ap. Sync. Chron. 28 ; Euseb. Chron. 5. 8.) Apollodorus, professing to copy from Berossus, gives a different and fuller list of rulers, but they are a mere barren collection of names. (Apoll. ap. Sync. Chron. 39; Euseb. Chron. 5.) The Astronomical canon of Ptolemy commences with the era of Nabonassar, whose reign began B.C. 747 twenty-three years after the appearance of the Assyrian King Pul, on the W. of the Euphrates. It has been argued from this fact, in connection with a passage in Isaiah (xxiii. 13) Behold the land of the Chaldees; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness, that the first rulers of Babylon were of Assyrian origin; but this seems hardly a necessary inference. It is, however, curious that Syncellus, after stating that the Chaldaeans were the first who assumed the title of kings, adds that of these the first was Evechius, who is known to us by the name of Nebrod (or Nembrod) who reigned at Babylon for six years and one third. Nabonassar is said to have destroyed the memorials of the kings who preceded him. (Sync. Chron. 207) Of the monarchs who succeeded him according to the Canon we know nothing, but it is probable that they were for the most part tributary to the kings of Ninus (Nineveh). Mardoch-Empadus, the fifth, is probably the Merodach-Baladan of the Bible, who sent to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery from sickness. (2 Kings, xx. 12; Isaiah, xxxi. 1.) Somewhat later Manasses, king of Judah, is carried by the king of Assyria into captivity to Babylon. Then follow Saosduchinus and Chyniladan, who appear to have ruled partly at one city and partly at the other; and then Nabopollasar, who finally overthrew Ninus, and removed the seat of the empire of western Asia from the banks of the Tigris to Babylon.
  With his son Nebuchadnezzar commenced, in all probability, the era of Babylonian greatness, and the accounts in the Bible and in other writings are, for his reign, remarkably consistent with one another. The Bible relates many events of the reign of this king, his carrying the Jews into captivity, his siege and conquest of Tyre (Ezek. xxix 18), his descent into Egypt, and his subsequent return to Babylon and death there. Berossus (ap. Joseph. c. Ap.) states that Nebuchadnezzar was sent with a great army against Egypt and Judaea, and burnt the temple at Jerusalem and removed the Jews to Babylon, that he conquered Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia, and exceeded in his exploits all that had reigned before him in Babylon and Chaldaea. He adds that, on the return of the king from his Jewish war, he devoted much time to adorning the temple of Belus, rebuilding the city, constructing a new palace adjoining those in which his forefathers dwelt, but exceeding them in height and splendour, and erecting on stone pillars high walks with trees to gratify his queen, who had been brought up in Media, and was therefore fond of a mountainous situation. (Beros. ap. Joseph. c. Ap. i. 19; Syncell. Chron. 220; Euseb. Praep. Evang. ix.)
  Berossus goes on to state that after a reign of 43 years, Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by Evilmerodachus, Neriglissoorus, and Labrosoarchodus, whose united reigns were little more than six years, till at length, on a conspiracy being formed against the last, Nabonnedus obtained the crown, and reigned sixteen years, till, in his seventeenth year, Cyrus took Babylon, the king having retired to the neighbouring city of Borsippus; that, on Cyrus proceeding to besiege Borsippus, Nabonnedus surrendered himself to the king of Persia, who sent him out of Babylonia and placed him in Carmania, where he died. (Beros. ap. Joseph. c. Ap. i. 20; Euseb. Praep. Evang. ix.)
  Megasthenes (ap. Abyden.; Euseb. Praep. Evan. x., Chron. 49) tells nearly the same story, slightly changing the names of the successors of Nebuchadnezzar, and adding, that, Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt Babylon, turned the course of the Armakale (Nahr-Malcha), which was a branch of the Euphrates, constructed a vast receptacle for its waters above the city of Sippara, and built the city of Teredon near the Erythraean Sea, i. e. the Persian Gulf, to check the incursions of the Arabs.
  The first Greek who visited Babylon, so far as we know, was Antimenidas, the brother of the Poet Aleaeus, who was there B.C. 600-580 (Strab. xiii. p. 617; Fragm. Alc., Muller, Rhein.Mus. p. 287); and the earliest Greek historian who gives any description of Babylon is Herodotus, who travelled thither about a century after the first conquest by Cyrus. His testimony is more valuable than that of any other writer, for he is the only one whom we know to have been an eye-witness, and whose account of what he describes has reached us uncurtailed. There is more or less uncertainty about all the others. Thus, of Ctesias, we have only what Diodorus and others have extracted. Of Berossus, who was a century and a half later than Herodotus, we have only a few fragments. We have no: proof that Arrian or Strabo themselves visited Babylon, though the treatise of the former has this value, that he drew his information from the Notes of Aristobulus and Ptolemy the son of Lagus, who were there with Alexander. Of Cleitarchus, who also accompanied Alexander, and wrote ta peri Alexandrou, we have no remains, unless, as has been supposed by some, his work was the basis of that by Curtius. The incidental remarks of Herodotus have a manifest appearance of truth, and convey the idea of personal experience. Thus, in i. 177, he distinguishes between the length of the Royal and the Ordinary Cubit; in i. 182, 183, he expresses his doubts on some of the legends which he heard about the Temple of Belus, though the structure itself (or its remains) he evidently must have seen, as he describes it as still existing (es eme touto eti eon, i. 181.) His account also of the country round Babylon (i. 179, and i. 192-200) is, as is shown elsewhere, confirmed by all other writers, as well ancient as modern.
  According to Herodotus, Babylon, which, after the fall of Ninus, became the seat of the Assyrian empire (i. 178), had already been ruled over by several kings, and by two remarkable queens, Semiramis and Nitocris, at an interval of five generations from one to the other. (i. 184, 185.) Of these, the elder erected immense embankments to keep the water of the Euphrates within its proper channel, the second made the course of the Euphrates, which had previously been straight, so tortuous that it thrice passed the village of Ardericca, dug an immense lake, and having turned the waters of the river into this lake, faced its banks with a wall of baked bricks, and threw a bridge across within Babylon, so as to connect the two sides of the river. (i. 186.) Herodotus adds a story of her tomb, which we may reasonably question, as he himself could only have heard of it by tradition when he was at Babylon (i. 187), and states that it was against the son of this queen, Labynetus, that Cyrus marched. Labynetus is, therefore, the Nabonnedus of Berossus, the Belshazzar of Holy Scripture. Herodotus says nothing about the founders of Babylon, and what is scarcely less remarkable, does not mention Nebuchadnezzar, -he simply describes the town as we may presume he saw it. He states that it was placed in a great plain, and was built as no other city was with which he was acquainted; that it was in form an exact square, each side being 120 stadia long, with a broad and deep trench round it, the materials dug from which helped to make the bricks, of which a wall 200 royal cubits high, and 50 broad, was composed. Warm bitumen procured from the village of Is (now Hit) served for mortar, a layer of reeds being inserted at every thirtieth course. (i. 178, 179.) A hundred brazen gates opened into the city, which was divided into two distinct quarters by the Euphrates, had all its streets at right angles one to the other, and many houses of three and four stories. (i. 180.) Another wall, hardly inferior in strength, but less gigantic, went round the city within the one just described. In each of the two quarters of the city, there was an immense structure: one, the Royal Palace, the other, the brazen-gated Temple of Belus, within a square space two stadia each way, itself one stadium in length and breadth; on the ground-plan of which a series of eight towers were built, one above the other. He adds some further remarks about the temple, and speaks of several things,which, as we have remarked, he did not see, and, apparently, did not believe (i. 181-183). The vast size Herodotus gives to Babylon has, in modern days, led scholars to doubt his history altogether, or at least to imagine he must have been misinformed, and to adopt the shorter measures which have been given by other authors. (Grosskurd, ad Strab. xvi. p. 738; Heeren, As. Nat.; Olearius, ad Philostr. Vit. Apoll. i. 25.) Yet the reasoning on which they have rested seems inconclusive; it is as difficult or as easy to believe in the 360 stadia of Ctesias (himself also an eye-witness) as in the 480 stadia of Herodotus. All that was required to effect such works was what the rulers of Babylon had, an ample supply of human labour and time; and, with more than thirty pyramids in Egypt and the wall of China still existing, who can set bounds to what they might accomplish?
  The simple narrative of Herodotus we find much amplified, when we turn to later writers. According to Diodorus (ii. 6), who, apparently, is quoting from Ctesias, Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, king of Assyria, founded Babylon (according to one statement, after the death of Ninus), and built its walls of burnt brick and asphalt, and accomplished many other great works, of which the following are the principal:
1. A bridge across the Euphrates, where it was narrowest, five stadia long. (Strab. xvi. p. 738, says its breadth was only one stadium, in which opinion Mr. Rich very nearly concurs.)
2. Two palaces or castles at each end of the bridge, on the E. and W. sides of the river, commanding an extensive view over the city, and the keys of their respective positions. On the inner walls of the western castle were numerous paintings of animals, excellently expressing their natural appearance; and on the towers representations of hunting scenes, and among them one of Semiramis herself slaying a leopard, and of Ninus, her husband, attacking a lion with a lance. (Is it possible that Ctesias preserves here a popular tradition of the bas-reliefs lately discovered at Nimrud and Khorsabad,- the situation of the scenes having been changed from Assyria to Babylonia?) This palace he states far exceeded in magnificence that on the other side of the river.
3. The temple of Belus or Zeus, in the centre of the city, a work which, in his day, he adds, had totally disappeared (Diod. vi. 9), and in which were golden statues and sacrificial vessels and implements. On the other hand, many of the ancients, besides Herodotus, seem to have doubted the attribution to Semiramis of the foundation of Babylon. Thus Berossus (ap. Joseph. c. Ap. 1) states that it was a fiction of the Greeks that Semiramis built Babylon; Abydenus (ap. Euseb. Praep. ix.) that Belus surrounded the town with a wall, the view also taken by Dorotheus Sidonius, preserved in Julius Firmicus. Curtius (v. 1) affirms the double tradition, and Amnmianus (xxiii. 6) gives the building of the walls to Semiramis and that of the citadel to Belus: lastly, Orosius (ii. 6) asserts that it was founded by Nimrod the Giant, and restored by Ninus or Semiramis. It has been suggested that the story of Belus is, after all, a Chaldaean legend: but this cannot, we think, be satisfactorily shown (see, however, Volney, Chron. Bab.; Perizon. Orig. Bab.; and Freinsheim. ad Curt. v. 1).
  Of the successors of Semiramis (supposing that she did reign in or found an empire at Babylon) we are in almost entire ignorance; though some names, as we have seen, have been preserved in Ptolemy (Astron. Canon.), and elsewhere.
  With regard to Nebuchadnezzar, another and an ingenious theory has been put forth, which seems generally to have found favour with the German writers. According to Heeren (As. Nat. i. p. 382), it has been held that, some time previous to Nebuchadnezzar's ascent of the throne in Babylon, a revolution had taken place in Western Asia, whereby a new race, who, descending from the north, had been for some time partially established in the plain country of Babylonia, became the ruling people; and that Nebuchadnezzar was their first great sovereign. The difficulty of accounting for the Chaldaeans has given a plausibility to this theory, which however we do not think it really merits. The Bible does not help us, as there is a manifest blank between Esarhaddon and Nebuchadnezzar which cannot be satisfactorily filled up, if at all, from fragments on which we cannot rely. So far as the Bible is concerned, Nebuchadnezzar appears before us from first to last, simply as a great ruler, called, indeed, the Chaldaean, but not, as we think, for that reason, necessarily of a race different from the other people of the country. Diodorus, indeed (ii. 10), attributes the Hanging Gardens to a Syrian king, telling the same story which we find in Berossus. It is probable, however, that he and Curtius (v. 1) use the word Syrian in the more extended sense of the word Assyrian, for all western and southern Asia, between Taurus and the Persian Gulf.
  Differing accounts have been given of the manner in which Babylon was taken, in the Bible, in Herodotus, and in Xenophon's Cyropaedeia. That in the Bible is the shortest. We are simply told (Dan. v. 2-11 ) that Belshazzar, while engaged at a great feast, was alarmed by a strange writing on the wall of his banqueting room, which Daniel interpreted to imply the immediate destruction of the empire by the combined army of the Medes and Persians. In that night, the Sacred Record adds, was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldaeans slain. (Dan. v. 28.) Herodotus (i. 177, seq.) describes the gradual advance of the army under Cyrus, and his attempt to take the city by a regular siege, which, however, its vast extent compelled him to convert into a blockade. He mentions the draining the waters of the Euphrates by means of a canal cut above the city, and that by this means the Persians were enabled to enter the city, the water being only thigh-deep, the inhabitants being more careless of their defences, as the day on which they entered happened to be one of their great festivals. (Her. i. 191.) The narrative of Xenophon (Cyrop. vii. 5) is substantially the same, though he gives many details which are not found elsewhere. He mentions especially, that the time of attack was one of general festivity, the drunkenness of the royal guards, and the death of the king on the palace being forced.
  The subsequent history of Babylon may be told in a few words. From the time of its overthrow by Cyrus it never recovered its previous splendour, though it continued for some centuries a place of considerable importance, and the winter residence of its conqueror Cyrus during seven months of each year. (Xen. Cyrop. viii. 7. 22) Between the reign of Cyrus and that of Dareius, the son of Hystaspes, we hear nothing of it. In the reign, however, of the latter king, Herodotus (iii. 150) mentions a revolt of the Babylonians, and the cruel plan they adopted to prevent a scarcity of provision in the siege they expected: he appears, however, to have confounded this revolt with a subsequent one which took place in the reign of Xerxes. (Ctes. Persic. ap. Phot. p. 50, ed. Didot.) Herodotus, however, states that, at this time, the walls of the city were beaten down, which Cyrus had left standing, and 3000 of the inhabitants were put to death; though Berossus (ap. Joseph. c. Apion. i. 20) and Eusebius (Chron. Armen. i. p. 75) say that Cyrus only destroyed the outer walls. In neither case is it indeed necessary to suppose that much more ruin was caused than was necessary to render the place useless as one of strength. It is certain that Babylon was still the chief city of the empire when Alexander went there; so that the actual injury done by Dareius and Xerxes could not have been very great. The Behistan inscription mentions two revolts at Babylon, the first of which was put down by Dareius himself, who subsequently spent a considerable time there, while the second was quelled by his lieutenant. (Rawlinson, As. Journ. vol. x. pp. 188-190.) In the reign of Xerxes, Herodotus (i. 183) states that that king plundered the Temple of Belus of the golden statue which Dareius had not dared to remove; and Arrian (vii. 17) adds, that he threw down the temple itself, on his return from Greece, and that it was in ruins when Alexander was at Babylon, and was desirous of rebuilding it, and of restoring it to its former grandeur. Strabo (xvi. p. 738) adds, that he was unable to do so, as it took 10,000 men to clear away the ruins. Pliny (vi. 26), on the other hand, appears to have thought that the temple of Belus was still existing in his time.
  From the time of Alexander's death its decay became more rapid. Strabo (xvi. p. 738) states, that of those who came after him (Alexander) none cared for it; and the Persians, time, and the carelessness of the Macedonians aided its destruction. Shortly after, Seleucus Nicator built Seleuceia, and transferred to it the seat of government, till, at length, adds the geographer, speaking probably of his own time, it may be said of Babylon, as was said of Megalopolis by the Comic poet, The vast city is a vast desert. (Cf. also Plin. vi. 26; Paus. iv. 31, viii. 33; Dion Cass. lxxv. 9.)
  But though Babylon had ceased, after the foundation of Seleuceia, to be a great city, it still continued for many centuries to exist.
  At the time that Demetrius Poliorcetes took Babylon, two fortresses still remained in it (Diod. xix. 100), one only of which he was able to take.
  Evemerus, a king of Parthia, B.C. 127, reduced many of the Babylonians to slavery, and sent their families into Media, burning with fire many of their temples, and the best parts of their city. About B.C. 36 a considerable number of Jews were resident in Babylon, so that when Hyrcanus the High Priest was released from confinement by Phraates, king of Parthia, he was permitted to reside there (Joseph. Ant. xv. 2), and that this Babylon was not, as has been supposed by some, another name for Seleuceia, is, we think, clear, because when Josephus (Ant. xviii. 2. § 4, viii. 9. § § 8, 9) speaks of Seleuceia, he adds, on the Tigris, showing, therefore, that he was acquainted with its position.
  In the reign of Augustus, we learn from Diodorus that but a small part was still inhabited, the remainder of the space within the walls being under cultivation. Strabo, as we have seen, looked upon it as a desert, when he wrote in the reign of Augustus, though, at the same time, manifestly as a place still existing, as he draws a parallel between it and Seleuceia, which, he says, was at that time the greater city; so great, indeed, that Pliny (v. 26) asserts it contained 600,000 inhabitants; and according to Eutrop. (v. 8) at the time of its destruction, 500,000. Indeed, it is the magnitude of Seleuceia that has misled other writers. Thus Stephanus B. speaks of Babylon as a Persian metropolis called Seleuceia, and Sidonius Apollinaris (ix. 19, 20) describes it as a town intersected by the Tigris. When Lucan speaks of the trophies of Crassus which adorned Babylon, he clearly means Seleuceia. A few years later it was, probably, still occupied by a considerable number of inhabitants, as it appears from 1 Peter, v. 13, that the First Epistle of St. Peter was written from Babylon, which must have been between A.D. 49-63. It has indeed been held by many (though we think without any sufficient proof) that the word Babylon is here used figuratively for Rome; but it is almost certain that St. Peter was not at Rome before A.D. 62, at the earliest, while the story of his having been at Babylon is confirmed by Cosmas Indico-Pleustes, who wrote in the time of Justinian. Again, not more than twenty years earlier there was evidently a considerable multitude (probably of Jews) in Babylon, as they were strong enough to attack and defeat two formidable robbers, Anilaeus and Asinaeus, who had for some time occupied a fortress in the neighbourhood. (Joseph. Ant. xviii. 9.)
  The writers of the succeeding century differ but little in their accounts. Thus Lucian of Samosata (in the reign of M. Aurelius) speaks of Babylon as a city which once had been remarkable for its numerous towers and vast circumference, but which would soon be, like Ninus (Nineveh), a subject for investigation. (Lucian, Charon. 23, Philopatr. 29.)
  In the third century, Eusebius of Caesareia states that the people of the surrounding country, as well as strangers, avoided it, as it had become completely a desert.
  St. Jerome believed that the ancient walls had been repaired, and that they surrounded a park in which the kings of Persia kept animals for hunting. He states that he learnt this from an Elamite father residing at Jerusalem, and it is certain that he was satisfied that in his time there were few remains of Babylon.
  St. Cyril of Alexandreia, about A.D. 412, tells us that the canals drawn from the Euphrates having filled up, the soil of Babylon had become nothing better than a marsh. Theodoret, who died A.D. 460, states it was no longer inhabited either by Assyrians or Chaldaeans, but only by some Jews, whose houses were few and scattered. He adds that the Euphrates had changed its course, and passed through the town by a canal. Procopius of Gaza, in the middle of the sixth century, speaks of Babylon as a place long destroyed.
  Ibn Haukal, in A.D. 917, calls Babel a small village, and states that hardly any remains of Babylon were to be seen.
  Lastly, Benjamin of Tudela (ed. Asher, 1841), in the twelfth century, asserts that nothing was to be seen but the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace, into which no one dared enter, owing to the quantity of serpents and scorpions with which the place was infested. (Rich, Babylon, Introd. pp. xxvii-xxix.)
  The ruins of Babylon, which commence a little S. of the village of Mohawill, 8 miles N. of Hillah, have been examined in modern times by several travellers, and by two in particular, at the interval of seven years, the late Resident at Baghdad, Mr. Rich, in 1811, and Sir Robert K. Porter, in 1818. The results at which they have arrived are nearly identical, and the difference between their measurements of some of the mounds is not such as to be of any great importance. According to Mr. Rich, almost all the remains indicative of the former existence of a great city are to be found on the east side of the river, and consist at present of three principal mounds, in direction from N. to S., called, respectively, by the natives, the Mujelebe, the Kasr, and Amran Ibn Ali, from a small mosque still existing on the top of it. On the west side of the river, Mr. Rich thought there were no remains of a city, the banks for many miles being a perfect level. To the NW., however, there is a considerable mound, called Towareij; and to the SW., at a distance of 7 or 8 miles, the vast pile called the Birs-i-Nimnrud. Of the mounds on the E. side, the Msjelebe is much the largest, but the Kasr has the most perfect masonry. The whole, however, of the ruins present an extraordinary mass of confusion, owing to their having been for centuries a quarry from which vast quantities of bricks have been removed for the construction of the towns and villages in the neighbourhood. Mr. Rich subsequently visited the Birs-i-Nimrud, the size of which is nearly the same as that of the Mujelebe; but the height to the top of the wall is at least 100 feet higher; and he then discusses at some length the question which of these two mounds has the best claim to represent the Tower of Babel of the Bible, and the Temple of Belus of profane authors. His general conclusions incline in favour of the Birs-i-Nimrud, but he thinks it is impossible satisfactorily to accommodate the descriptions of ancient authors with what now remains; while it is nowhere stated positively in which quarter of the city the Temple of Belus stood. Along the E. side of the river, the line of mounds parallel to the Kasr, at the time Mr. Rich was there, were, in many places, about 40 feet above the river, which had incroached in some places so much as to lay bare part of a wall built of burnt bricks cemented with bitumen, in which urns containing human bones had been found. East of Hillah, about 6 miles, is another great mound, called Al Heimar, constructed of bricks, similar to those at Babylon.
  On the publication of Mr. Rich's memoir in the Fundgruben des Orients, Major Rennell wrote an Essay in 1815, which was printed in the Archaeologia, vol. xviii., in which he combated some of the views which Mr. Rich had stated in his memoir, which produced a rejoinder from Mr. Rich, written in 1817, in which he goes over again more completely the ground mentioned in his first notice, and points out some things in which Major Rennell had been misled by imperfect information. The chief points of discussion are, as to how far any of the existing ruins could be identified with things mentioned in the classical narratives, whether or not the Euphrates had ever flowed between the present mounds, and whether the Birs-i-Nimrud could be identified with the Temple of Belus. It is sufficient here to mention that Rennell considered that honour to belong to the Mujelebe, and Mr. Rich to the Birs-i-Nimrud, an idea which appears to have occurred to Niebuhr (Voy. vol. ii. p. 236), though the state of the country did not allow him to pay it a visit. Ker Porter, who surveyed the neighbourhood of Babylon with great attention in 1818, differs from Mr. Rich in thinking that there are remains of ruins on the western side of the river, almost all the way to the Birs-i-Nimrud, although the ground is now, for the most part, very flat and marshy. He considers also that this ruin must have stood within the limits of the original city, at the extreme SW. angle. With regard to this last and most celebrated ruin, it has been conjectured that, after all, it was no part of the actual town of Babylon, the greater part of which, as we have seen, in all probability dates from Nebuchadnezzar, in accordance with his famous boast, Is not this great Babylon that I have built? (Dan. iv. 30), but that it represents the site of the ancient Borsippus (to which Nabonnedus is said to have fled when Cyrus took Babylon), its present name of Birs recalling the initial letters of the ancient title. According to Col. Rawlinson, the name Borsippa is found upon the records of the obelisk from Nimrud, which is at least two centuries and a half anterior to Nebuchadnezzar (As. Journ. xii. pt. 2. p. 477), and Mr. Rich had already remarked (p. 73) that the word Birs has no meaning in the present language (Arabic) of the country. It is certain that this and many other curious matters of investigation will not be satisfactorily set at rest, till the cuneiform inscriptions shall be more completely decyphered and interpreted. It is impossible to do more here than to indicate the chief subjects for inquiry. (Rich, Babylon and Persepolis; Ker Porter, Travels, vol. ii.; Rawlinson, Journ. As. Soc. vol. xii. pt. 2.)

This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited October 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks

Carrhae

CARRHAE (Ancient city) MESSOPOTAMIA