of Assyria--a place to which the sovereign could retire for
country air and amusements from the bustle and heat of the metropolis.
It was: as we have said, a town, and a town of considerable size, being
very little lees than half as large as Nineveh itself. It is true that
it possessed the advantage of a nearer vicinity to the mountains than
Nineveh: and had Sargon been, like several of his predecessors, a mighty
hunter, we might have supposed that the greater facility of obtaining
sport in the woods and valleys of the Zagros chain formed the attraction
which led him to prefer the region where he built his town to the banks
of the Tigris. But all the evidence that we possess seems to show that
this monarch was destitute of any love for the chase; and seemingly we
must attribute his change of abode either to mere caprice, or to a
desire to be near the mountains for the sake of cooler water, purer air,
and more varied scenery. It is no doubt true, as M. Oppert observes,
that the royal palace at Nineveh was at this time in a ruinous state;
but it could not have been more difficult or more expensive to repair it
than to construct a new palace, a new mound, and a new town, on a fresh
site.

Previously to the construction of the Khorsabad palace, Sargon resided
at Caleb. He there repaired and renovated the great palace of
Asshur-izir-pal, which had been allowed to fall to decay. At Nineveh he
repaired the walls of the town, which were ruined in many places, and
built a temple to Nebo and Merodach; while in Babylonia he improved the
condition of the embankments, by which the distribution of the waters
was directed and controlled. He appears to have been to a certain extent
a patron of science, since a large number of the Assyrian scientific
tablets are proved by the dates upon then: to have been written in his
day.

The progress of mimetic art under Sargon is not striking but there are
indications of an advance in several branches of industry, and of an
improved taste in design and in ornamentation. Transparent glass seems
now to have been first brought into used and intaglios to have been
first cut upon hard stones. The furniture of the period is greatly
superior in design to any previously represented, and the modelling of
sword-hilts, maces, armlets, and other ornaments is peculiarly good. The
enamelling of bricks was carried under Sargon to its greatest
perfection: and the shape of vases, goblets, and boats shows a marke