ad taken from the Jews, and Phoenicians, and Syrians,
and of the nations belonging to Egypt, to some of his friends, that they
might conduct that part of the forces that had on heavy armor, with the
rest of his baggage, to Babylonia; while he went in haste, having but a
few with him, over the desert to Babylon; whither, when he was come, he
found the public affairs had been managed by the Chaldeans, and that
the principal person among them had preserved the kingdom for him.
Accordingly, he now entirely obtained all his father's dominions. He
then came, and ordered the captives to be placed as colonies in the most
proper places of Babylonia; but for himself, he adorned the temple of
Belus, and the other temples, after an elegant manner, out of the
spoils he had taken in this war. He also rebuilt the old city, and added
another to it on the outside, and so far restored Babylon, that none who
should besiege it afterwards might have it in their power to divert
the river, so as to facilitate an entrance into it; and this he did by
building three walls about the inner city, and three about the outer.
Some of these walls he built of burnt brick and bitumen, and some of
brick only. So when he had thus fortified the city with walls, after an
excellent manner, and had adorned the gates magnificently, he added a
new palace to that which his father had dwelt in, and this close by it
also, and that more eminent in its height, and in its great splendor. It
would perhaps require too long a narration, if any one were to describe
it. However, as prodigiously large and as magnificent as it was, it was
finished in fifteen days. Now in this palace he erected very high walks,
supported by stone pillars, and by planting what was called a pensile
paradise, and replenishing it with all sorts of trees, he rendered the
prospect an exact resemblance of a mountainous country. This he did to
please his queen, because she had been brought up in Media, and was fond
of a mountainous situation."

20. This is what Berosus relates concerning the forementioned king, as
he relates many other things about him also in the third book of his
Chaldean History; wherein he complains of the Grecian writers for
supposing, without any foundation, that Babylon was built by Semiramis,
[14] queen of Assyria, and for her false pretense to those wonderful
edifices thereto buildings at Babylon, do no way contradict those
ancient and relating, as if they were her own workma