esemble mountains, and built it so that
it might be planted with all sorts of trees. He also erected what was
called a pensile paradise, because his wife was desirous to have things
like her own country, she having been bred up in the palaces of Media."
Megasthenes also, in his fourth book of his Accounts of India, makes
mention of these things, and thereby endeavors to show that this king
[Nebuchadnezzar] exceeded Hercules in fortitude, and in the greatness
of his actions; for he saith that he conquered a great part of Libya
and Iberia. Diocles also, in the second book of his Accounts of Persia,
mentions this king; as does Philostrates in his Accounts both of India
and of Phoenicia, say, that this king besieged Tyre thirteen years,
while at the same time Ethbaal reigned at Tyre. These are all the
histories that I have met with concerning this king.

2. But now, after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-Merodach his son
succeeded in the kingdom, who immediately set Jeconiah at liberty, and
esteemed him among his most intimate friends. He also gave him many
presents, and made him honorable above the rest of the kings that were
in Babylon; for his father had not kept his faith with Jeconiah, when
he voluntarily delivered up himself to him, with his wives and children,
and his whole kindred, for the sake of his country, that it might not
be taken by siege, and utterly destroyed, as we said before. When
Evil-Mcrodach was dead, after a reign of eighteen years, Niglissar his
son took the government, and retained it forty years, and then ended
his life; and after him the succession in the kingdom came to his son
Labosordacus, who continued in it in all but nine months; and when he
was dead, it came to Baltasar, [23] who by the Babylonians was called
Naboandelus; against him did Cyrus, the king of Persia, and Darius,
the king of Media, make war; and when he was besieged in Babylon, there
happened a wonderful and prodigious vision. He was sat down at supper
in a large room, and there were a great many vessels of silver, such as
were made for royal entertainments, and he had with him his concubines
and his friends; whereupon he came to a resolution, and commanded
that those vessels of God which Nebuchadnezzar had plundered out of
Jerusalem, and had not made use of, but had put them into his own
temple, should be brought out of that temple. He also grew so haughty as
to proceed to use them in the midst of his cups, drinking out of th