The History of Antiquity Volume Iii Part 25

[690] Strabo, _loc. cit._ Diodorus, 14, 21, 81. Vol. II. p. 297.

[691] Movers, "Phoenizier," 2, 3, 306. This road certainly cannot be carried back to the Phenicians; the nearest way, from Nineveh to Syria, often traversed by the a.s.syrian kings on their campaigns, pa.s.sed by Karchemish on the lower Orontes.

[692] Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 26 (30).

[693] Eratosthenes in Strabo puts the length of the wall at 200 stades (25 miles) only, Xenophon at 20 parasangs (75 miles), "as it is said:"

in his time a part of the wall was still standing, "Anab." 2, 4; cp.

Joseph, "c. Apion." 1, 20. But it is at the same time clear from the whole narrative of Xenophon that the Median wall was not situated at the narrowest point, but far higher up, where the distance between the rivers is far wider, _i.e._ above Sittace. We have no definite evidence that this wall was built by Nebuchadnezzar. If Strabo ascribes it to Semiramis, that means no more than the fact that the modern inhabitants give the name Sidd Nimrud to the remains. A wall against attacks from the North, against attacks of the Medes, would have no meaning before the rise of the power of the Medes; its origin and importance are entirely due to anxiety in regard to the Medes, and that such anxiety did exist, was due to the experience which Babylonia had had of a.s.syria, and the relative power of the two kingdoms; and it is also shown in the statements of Herodotus about the object of the windings in the river and the lake. The successors of Nebuchadnezzar were hardly in a position to undertake such works. This could be done at most by Nabonetus; but as Josephus ("c. Apion." 1, 20) quotes from Berosus a comparatively unimportant building of this king, the Median wall would not have been forgotten if it had arisen from him. On the direction of the wall, cp.

Grote, "Hist. of Greece," 9, 89.

[694] Beros. fragm. 14, ed. Muller.

[695] Herod. 1, 186.

[696] Herod. 1, 178, 179.

[697] Herod. 3, 159.

[698] Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 2, 6. "Inst. Cyr." 7, 5, 7, 21.

[699] Diod. 2, 7. Cp. Arrian, "Anab." 7, 17, 6. Pseudo-Callisthenes ascribes to Babylon a diameter of no more than 12 stades and 220 or 206 feet: he ascribes to the city of Alexandria in Egypt a diameter of 16-1/2 stades; 1, 31.

[700] Diod. 2, 7.

[701] Eumenes in ael. "Var. Hist." 3, 23.

[702] So the Ephemerides in Arrian, "Anab." 7, 25, and in Plut. "Alex."

c. 75.

[703] "Pol." 3, 1, 12.

[704] Jerem. li. 53, 58.

[705] "Hist. Nat." 6, 26.

[706] Vol. I. p. 295.

[707] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 19.

[708] Oppert, "Exped." 1, 140 ff.

[709] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 19.

[710] Euseb. "Praep. Evang." 9, 41, 8.

[711] Diod. 2, 10.

[712] Strabo, p. 738.

[713] Oppert, "Exped." 1, 156 ff.

[714] It is the less doubtful that the bridge is the work of Nebuchadnezzar, since the basin of Sepharvaim is vouched for as his work by Berosus.

[715] Diod. 2, 8.

[716] Herod. 1, 186.

[717] "Inst. Cyri," 7, 6.

[718] Menant, "Babylone," p. 213.

[719] W. A. Inscript. 1, 52. No. 6 in Menant, "Babylone," p. 215.

[720] Menant, _loc. cit._, p. 214

[721] Menant, _loc. cit._, p. 213.

[722] Menant, _loc. cit._, p. 208.

[723] Colum. 6, 22; 8, 42.

[724] Menant, "Babylone," p. 200 ff. Rodwell, "Records of the Past," 5, 113 ff. Two private doc.u.ments of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar are in existence, one from the first part of his reign, 604 B.C.; the second from the twentieth, 584 B.C. Oppert et Menant, "Doc. Juridiq." p. 257 ff.

[725] Menant, _loc. cit._, p. 215.

[726] Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 19.

[727] Isaiah xiii. 19 ff.

[728] Arrian, "Anab." 7, 19, 4.

[729] Menant, _loc. cit._, p. 218.

[730] Berosi fragm. 14, ed. Muller.

[731] 2 Kings xxv. 27-30.

[732] Oppert, "Exped." 2, 324, cf. 1, 181.

[733] Menant, _loc. cit._, p. 249.

[734] Berosi fragm. 14, ed. Muller. That Evilmerodach ascended the throne in 561 B.C. is established, not only by the astronomical canon, but also by the statement of the Hebrews that Evilmerodach liberated Jechoniah in the thirty-seventh year of his imprisonment, 2 Kings xxv.

27. Jerem. lii. 31. Between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonetus the astronomical canon only mentions Evilmerodach and Neriglissar, with six years between them. Josephus supplements this by the dates of the years in Berosus ("c. Apion." 1, 20), which in the result agree with the canon. Cf. Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 50, ed. Schone. "Praep. Evang." 9, 40.

The accession of Nabonetus in the year 555 B.C. is also fixed by the doc.u.ment in Oppert et Menant "Doc. Jurid." p. 262. The statements of Josephus ("Antiq." 10, 11, 2) are entirely false and untenable. The name of the last king Nabonetus is established against the Labynetus of Herodotus (1, 77) by the inscriptions.

[735] Oppert, _loc. cit._, 1, 325, 326.

[736] Oppert, _loc. cit._, 1, 262, 269.