onah. It is supposed, with the suburbs, to have
contained five hundred thousand people. The palaces of the great were
large and magnificent; but the dwellings of the people were mean, built of
brick dried in the sun. The palaces consisted of a large number of
chambers around a central hall, open to the sky, since no pillars are
found necessary to support a roof. No traces of windows are found in the
walls, which were lined with slabs of coarse marble, with cuneiform
inscriptions. The facade of the palaces we know little about, except that
the entrances to them were lined by groups of colossal bulls. These are
sculptured with considerable spirit, but _art_, in the sense that the
Greeks understood it, did not exist. In the ordinary appliances of life
the Assyrians were probably on a par with the Egyptians; but they were
debased by savage passions and degrading superstitions. They have left
nothing for subsequent ages to use. Nothing which has contributed to
civilization remains of their existence. They have furnished no _models_
of literature, art, or government.

(M170) While Nineveh was rising to greatness, Babylon was under an
eclipse, and thus lasted six hundred and fifty years. It was in the year
1273 that this eclipse began. But a great change took place in the era of
Narbonassar, B.C. 747, when Babylon threatened to secure its independence,
and which subsequently compelled Esar-Haddon, the Assyrian monarch, to
assume, in his own person, the government of Babylon, B.C. 680.

(M171) In 625 B.C. the old Chaldeans recovered their political importance,
probably by an alliance with the Medes, and Nabopolassar obtained
undisputed possession of Babylon, and founded a short but brilliant
dynasty. He obtained a share of the captives of Nineveh, and increased the
population of his capital. His son, Nebuchadnezzar, was sent as general
against the Egyptians, and defeated their king, Neko, reconquered all the
lands bordering on Egypt, and received the submission of Jehoiakim, of
Jerusalem. The death of Nabopolassar recalled his son to Babylon, and his
great reign began B.C. 604.

(M172) It was he who enlarged the capital to so great an extent that he
may almost be said to have built it. It was in the form of a square, on
both banks of the Euphrates, forty-eight miles in circuit, according to
Herodotus, with an area of two hundred square miles--large enough to
support a considerable population by agriculture alone. The walls of