They were such great
observers of the courses of the stars, that astronomy is said to have
begun with them; but this was chiefly because they fancied that the
heavenly bodies would help them to foretel coming events, for they put
great faith in soothsayers. They settled upon the bank of the Euphrates,
near the ruins of the Tower of Babel, round which a city arose,
sometimes free, sometimes under the power of the King of Nineveh.
In the time of the weak and luxurious Saracus, Nabopolassar was
governor of Babylon. He joined himself to the Medea, giving his son,
Nebuchadnezzar, in marriage to the Median Princess Amytis; and as has
already been said, the two nations together destroyed Nineveh,
after which, Babylon became the head of the Assyrian Empire, and
Nebuchadnezzar was the king.
He made the city exceedingly grand and beautiful. It was fifty five
miles in circuit, square, surrounded by a wall eighty-seven feet thick,
and three hundred and fifty high, with houses and a street on the top,
and an enormous ditch filled with water all round, another lesser wall
some way within. There were one hundred brazen gates in the wall,
besides two larger gateways upon the Euphrates, which ran through the
middle, dividing the city into two parts.
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