to be on their guard, and not hastily to suppose that ruins now bearing titles resembling in some points Biblical names, must necessarily, and for that reason, represent also the sites of Biblical cities. Etymological resemblances have been at all times a fruitful source of error, and something more must be shown besides a similarity between an old and an existing name to determine with certainty the situation of any place in the East. Hardly any evidence, except the reading of the names on bricks or monuments, found in the respective localities, can be deemed a satisfactory proof that the ancient site has been really discovered. The names in the early chapters of the Bible have in fact no evidence in themselves of an antiquity, which ascends higher than the time of the Jewish captivity; though we may reasonably believe that they are those whereby such cities and lands have been known, traditionally, from the remotest ages.

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With regard to Babylon, we find it stated in the 10th chapter of Genesis, that it was the beginning" of the kingdom of Nimrod. Whatever this may mean, it is certainly interesting to know that the latest conclusions which have been formed upon the inscriptions discovered in Southern Babylonia, confirm, even if they do not enhance, this traditional antiquity. There is now good reason to believe that Babylon was, in very remote times, the chief town of a Chaldean empire; to which many of the earliest and most renowned cities owe their origin. Thus, Colonel Rawlinson states that in his belief authentic Babylonian chronology can now be traced up to the twenty-third century B.C., and that relics have been found during the last year (1854) both in Chaldea and Babylonia of monarchs who lived almost as early as B.C. 2000. We cannot, indeed, determine what duration Berosus gave to the earliest Median or Scythian dynasty of Babylon; but the Chaldean monarchy that followed was established about B.C. 1976 and continued to B.c. 1518, and it is during this period of 418 years that all those great cities of Babylonia and Assyria, in the ruins of which we find bricks stamped with the names of the Chaldean founders, must have been built.

A recent discovery has confirmed this chronology in the most satisfactory manner. In an inscription of the first year of Sennacherib from Bavián, a battle is noticed between the King of Babylon and the King of Assyria which occurred 418 years

before; and as Sennacherib ascended the throne about B.c. 702, the date of this conflict must have been в.c. 1120. Now the King of Assyria, mentioned in this passage, is named Tiglath Pileser, and is doubtless the same monarch whose annals are preserved on two cylinders, found by Colonel Rawlinson at Kalah Sherghát, and on a third from the same place, which was brought to England by Mr. Layard, in 1851. On one of the former cylinders (as on that now in the Museum, which has been noticed by Dr. Hincks, in a paper read before the Royal Society of Literature in 1853) the King Tiglath Pileser commemorates his restoration of a temple, which had been taken down by his third ancestor sixty years previously, after having existed 641 years from the time of its original founder, Shamasphal, the son of Ismi-dakan. The date, therefore, of Shamasphal will be about B.C. 1840. The whole of this has been confirmed in a most remarkable manner by the discovery of bricks at Muqueyer, belonging to Ismi-dakan, the father of Shamasphal, the builder of the temple at Ellasar (or Kalah Sherghát). Hence Colonel Rawlinson considers that Ismi-dakan must have reigned paramount over Chaldea, Babylonia, and Assyria in B.c. 1870, and though, from the fragmentary character of the materials, the exact order of this king's ancestors or successors has not been made out, there can be no question but that all the monarchs, about twenty in number, whose names are stamped on the bricks from Sipparah, Niffer, Warka, Senkereh, and Muqueyer-the same type of character being employed, and the same titles and geographical nomenclature prevailing throughout the seriesbelong to this one genuine Chaldean dynasty of Berosus which reigned from B.c. 1976 to B.c. 1518. Subsequent to this period Colonel Rawlinson believes that a dynasty of an Arab family ruled over these countries till B.C. 1273. The third, or Ninus, and the fourth, or Scriptural dynasty, we shall have an opportunity of noticing more fully hereafter.

It is not improbable that Babylon may have been the earliest town in which there was a large and settled people, and that from it the first rudiments of civilisation may have spread over the surrounding nations. It long enjoyed the pre-eminence it had so early acquired; no city but Rome can lay claim to equal greatness; and when it fell, as it did, just when Alexander the Great would have made it the capital of the greatest empire of the Old World,

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it still (as Heeren has remarked*) left traces of its former glory. For some time, Seleucia, the royal residence of the followers of Seleucus, kept alive the remembrance of the ancient city; then Ctesiphon, which followed Seleucia as the capital of the Parthian Empire, handed on its fame, though much shorn of its original brightness. When this fell before the arms of the conquering Arabs, the royal city of Baghdad arose in its place, preserving, though much decayed, some part of the ancient splendour of Babylon. Much of the early greatness of Babylon is no doubt attributable to the remarkable geographical advantages she enjoyed in a position nearly central, the chief city of a land watered by two noble rivers, Babylon must have soon become the foremost state of Western Asia, the natural centre for receiving and transmitting onward the international commerce of Asia. Between the Indus on the east, and the Mediterranean on the west, it must soon have been the central mart for such eastern luxuries as found a ready market in the west; at no great distance from the Persian Gulf, and in its great river possessing all that was necessary for inland traffic, it would be the natural place at which the seafaring nations of India were admitted to the heart of Asia, while it afforded the readiest means of communication with those who dwelt on the Euxine or Caspian shores. Thus favoured by nature, it was long the central point where the merchants of nearly all the nations of the civilised world assembled; and such through all its changes it continued till the operation of external causes changed the course which Asiatic commerce had hitherto pursued. Neither the sword of the conqueror nor the untiring hand of Oriental despotism could ruin, though for a time they might diminish its prosperity; and it was only when the enterprise of Europe found a path across the ocean to India, and the commerce of the world became a sea trade instead of a land trade, that the royal city on the banks of the Euphrates finally decayed.

But not alone to her position, unrivalled as it seems to have been for carrying on a commerce with the whole world, was Babylon indebted for her greatness. Her people seem to have known full well how they could best assist the beneficent intentions of Nature. The very soil they dwelt on, and the river which fertilised their lands, had their respective advantages; and the

peculiar geological formation of their country, which was one vast alluvial basin of dried mud, like the generality of steppe regions, afforded them no stone where with they could exercise their architectural genius. The vast waters of the Euphrates roll on to the sea in a slow and sluggish tide between banks so low, that the least increase from the melting snows of Armenia would, but for artificial embankments, be ever causing an overflow. Emulating their kindred tribes in Egypt, the Babylonians had to wrest their lands from the invasion of the flood and the dominion of the waters; and an impulse was thus directly given to the progress of civilisation and of arts, which made them no less celebrated than their Egyptian brethren. Hence a variety of canals and lakes, some of extraordinary size, which were used to draw off the superfluous waters of the great river, and those remarkable constructions of baked and unbaked bricks which, from the earliest historian to the latest traveller, have been the wonder and admiration of the world.

It may be remarked that there are two passages, one in the Bible, and the other in Stephanus Byzantinus, which would seem to imply that the foundation of Babylon was comparatively recent. Thus, in Isaiah xxiii. 13, the Prophet states that it did not exist "till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwelt in the wilderness;" while Stephanus has preserved a fragment of Dicæarchus, which attributes the building of the city to a colony of Chaldean emigrants from Choge, within the limits of the historical period. It is curious that "Coche" has been handed down to us by Greek and Roman authors, by the Syrians, Sabæans, and Arabs, as the particular designation of the territory between the Tigris and the Kerkhah, where the seat of empire was originally placed. It will also be remembered that Nebuchadnezzar himself says (Daniel iv. v. 30), "Is not this great Babylon that I have built?"

Yet it does not follow necessarily that in either case the city was more than rebuilt, or adorned with greater and more surpassing ornaments than it had had before. It is natural that we should find no special mention of Babel or Babylon in the Biblical books which intervene between the ages of Genesis and of the Jewish prophets. As her inhabitants did not during this period come into collision with the Chosen Race, the Jewish annalists had no occasion to mention her. Hence, so far as the

records of the Bible are concerned, the great city is once mentioned at her first appearance, and then apparently vanishes from the page of history.

It must be borne in mind that we assume this early greatness of Babylon as the probable result of the peculiar excellence of its geographical position; no remains having as yet been discovered upon the site where Babylon is believed to have stood, which ascend to so remote a period. In fact, the bricks now found at Hillah, and in the neighbouring mounds, bear the single royal name of Nebuchadnezzar.

With this slight sketch of the presumed early history of Babylon,* we will take next in order that of its great rival, Nineveh.

Almost the whole history of Nineveh, except indeed, such as we are now able to obtain from the cuneiform inscriptions, is contained in the few notices which occur in the Bible. The earliest is, as we have seen, in the 10th chapter of Genesis; and we have no subsequent account of it, except in the Prophetical books of Jonah, Nahum, and Zephaniah. The narrative of Jonah (about B.C. 840) speaks of his mission to preach repentance to the inhabitants of Nineveh, and of his success (Jonah iii. 3, 4; iv. 11). Nahum (i. 14, and ii. 7—9), B.C. 700, and Zephaniah (ii. 13), B.c. 650, prophesy its speedy destruction. After this period, it is only mentioned incidentally, as in the Book of Judith.

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The Greeks and Romans give no account of Nineveh, which can be considered satisfactory, and so great a variety exists between the different reports which have been handed down to that it is not easy to deduce from them any one consistent account. Its entire overthrow preceded by a considerable period the first of the Greek historians; and, from the time of its destruction, we have no reason to suppose that it was ever like its sister city, rebuilt. Nor, indeed, was this unnatural; for, unlike Babylon, though well placed for land commerce, the position of Nineveh, at a great distance from the Persian Gulf, did not render its continuance so necessary to the purposes of the world; while it could never have been the centre of so extensive a trade.

The earliest classical mention of Nineveh is that of Herodotus,

* See note B., at end of Chapter.