ituated between the two rivers, and thus forming
the lower portion of the "Mesopotamia" of the Greeks and Romans--the
other interposed between the Euphrates and Arabia, a long but narrow
strip along the right bank of that abounding river. The former of these
two districts is shaped like an ancient amphora, the mouth extending
from Hit to Samarah, the neck lying between Baghdad and Ctesiphon on the
Tigris, Mohammed and Mosaib on the Euphrates, the full expansion of
the body occurring between Serut and El Khithr, and the pointed base
reaching down to Kornah at the junction of the two streams. This tract,
the main region of the ancient Babylonia, is about 320 miles long, and
from 20 to 100 broad. It may be estimated to contain about 18,000 square
miles. The tract west of the Euphrates is smaller than this. Its length,
in the time of the Babylonian Empire, may be regarded as about 350
miles, its average width is from 25 to 30 miles, which would give an
area of about 9000 square miles. Thus the Babylonia of Nabopolassar
and Nebuchadnezzar may be regarded as covering a space of 27,000 square
miles--a space a little exceeding the area of the Low countries.

The small province included within these limits--smaller than Scotland
or Ireland, or Portugal or Bavaria--became suddenly, in the latter half
of the seventh century B.C., the mistress of an extensive empire. On the
fall of Assyria, about B.C. 625, or a little later, Media and Babylonia,
as already observed, divided between them her extensive territory. It
is with the acquisitions thus made that we have now to deal. We have to
inquire what portion exactly of the previous dominions of Assyria fell
to the lot of the adventurous Nabopolassar, when Nineveh ceased to
be--what was the extent of the territory which was ruled from Babylon in
the latter portion of the seventh and the earlier portion of the sixth
century before our era?

Now the evidence which we possess on this point is threefold. It
consists of certain notices in the Hebrew Scriptures, contemporary
records of first-rate historical value; of an account which strangely
mingles truth with fable in one of the books of the Apocrypha; and of a
passage of Berosus preserved by Josephus in his work against Apion.
The Scriptural notices are contained in Jeremiah, in Daniel, and in
the books of Kings and Chronicles. From these sources we learn that the
Babylonian Empire of this time embraced on the one hand the important
cou