THE BUILDING OF A CITY
The Assyrian host dragged westward till it wormed its way through
notches in the mountain range, descended the further slopes, then fared
upon its way. It split at last into lesser armies, each beneath the
leadership of a trusted chief, each charged with a separate mission of
its own. One force swung north, to harry the shores of the Black and
Caspian seas and to levy tribute for the building of the city. Another
force went south through the plains and valleys of Armenia, while still
another fared afar to the Sea of the Setting Sun. Here fleets of
Phoenician merchantmen were seized and pressed into the service of the
King, for in the eyes of Ninus a nation's traffic was but a paltry thing
till Nineveh should be. These ships sailed out toward the delta of the
Nile, presently to return with swarms of Egyptian workers, together with
their cutting-tools of bronze, their winches and their levers used in
the wielding of mighty weights. Ten score thousand riders spread forth
through every land and every tribe, summoning workers by pay or
promises; and where a tribe rebelled, Assyria's warriors herded them
like sheep toward one central hub of toil.
King Ninus himself sat down upon the river bank where the waters of the
Tigris and the Khusur join, and here he wrought his plans. A band of
men went northward to the forest lands, felled trees, and split them
into boards with which they fashioned a fleet of wide flat boats. These
boats, propelled by sweeps and pushing-poles, were manned by Phoenicia's
sons, for Assyria knew no more of ship-craft than hillsmen know the
camel's back; yet Ninus employed the skill of others in his self
appointed task. While the boats were being builded, he marked the line
of his city wall in the form of a mighty egg, full twenty leagues
around; then the King began to dig.
He caused two trenches to be sunk, the one within the other; the outer
trench being twenty cubits wide and ten in depth, while the inner trench
was shallower, but of greater width. These he flooded by means of the
river Khusur, forming two vast canals, with a ring of earth between
whereon should rest the walls of Nineveh. Then the whole wide world, it
seemed, was set a-making bricks.
On the Tigris river-flats, above and below the city site, a million
workers toiled by night and day--warrior, captive, slave, King Ninus
cared not, so he moulded bricks. These bricks were fashioned from river
mud brought down by inundation, the mud commingled with straw and the
fiberous parts of reeds to give it strength, and were set to bake in the
heat of the summer sun.
Later these river flats would be employed for the making of other
bricks--the kiln-baked bricks which were glazed and tinted with every
color known to men, designed for the facing of temples and of palaces;
but now the work went on for the city wall alone. And yet not quite
alone, for in the centre of the city's line, where the Khusur cut the
site in twain, the King erected a monster mound whereon his royal palace
would one day sit; then on the summit of the mound he builded a
watch-tower, and abode therein. Here, beneath a shading canopy, the
master-builder sat from dawn till dark, watching his work, for he had
sworn a sacred oath to indulge in neither hunt nor war till Nineveh was
Nineveh.
And now he saw the budding of his dream. From the Tigris banks and up
the Khusur came his flatboats, piled high with bricks; they floated on
his two canals, supplying the workers who builded the wall between. In
time this inner canal would disappear, being filled with earth, but the
outer trench would ever remain, to serve as a moat which girt the city
round about.
Like unto ants the workers swarmed beneath the eye of Ninus on his
tower, yet every little insect moved in lines marked out by patient
thought. The well-nigh countless throng was divided into ordered gangs,
each gang provided with an over-chief who urged his laborers by word of
mouth or the lash of whips. Beneath the tower sat a ring of mounted
men-at-arms who galloped forth with orders of the King, or brought
report from points too distant for his eye to scan; for the builder
willed his work to grow, not with gaps or breaks, but as one splendid
whole, each section of the wall arising in conformity with its brother
parts, until a straight, unvaried line should mount each day toward the
sky.
From dawn till dark the robe of Ninus fluttered on the tower's crest--a
banner of warning to those who shirked their toil. Where diligence grew
slack from weariness, or the work of a section fell behind, a
man-at-arms spurred out toward the offending gang, to strike off the
head of its over-chief and cast his body into an empty boat. Presently
this boat, on its outward journey for a load of bricks, would drop the
corpse into the Tigris, and another chief was set in the sleeper's
place.
Beyond the wall the army of Assyria lay encamped, yet active beneath the
rule of Menon and his chiefs. A kingdom in itself it was, whence
recruits were drilled and trained to combat with the veteran warriors;
whence engines of offense were builded against the day when Zariaspa
again would suffer siege; whence foraying bands went forth to gather
grain and fruits, likewise sheep and cattle, wherewith to feed the
multitudes of slaves and soldiery. It was here deserters from the wall
were caught and crucified in sight of those who harboured thoughts
displeasing to the King; for Ninus punished, not in impotent gusts of
rage, but rather with that cold precision of a master-mind. And because
of these things his work went on apace.
When the wall had risen twenty cubits above its base, the King contrived
from his inner trench a myriad of intersecting channels converging
toward his central mound. Through these he conveyed material for the
laying of his streets, for the erection of houses and the temples unto
Ishtar, the fire-god Gibil, and the temple of his great Lord Asshur upon
the hill. The royal palace would be modeled last of all, for the mind
of Ninus, released from other cares, might give its power to the
grandeur of his halls, to their splendour of adornment wherein the arts
of an hundred nations would be taxed to lend them glory.
And now the deep-tongued voice of labour swelled in volume, rolling
upward in incessant waves of melody to where the King sat smiling on his
tower. He listened to the roar of sharp command, commingled with the
answering cries of slaves and the groan of laden carts. Far out across
the plain he spied a train of sleds, each drawn by a thousand men, and
creeping inch by inch through tawny sands; from the quarries in the
south they bore huge blocks of basalt wherefrom strange effigies would
be carven in the likeness of gods, of lions and of winged bulls. Beyond
the wall King Ninus heard the humming din of Assyria's hosts encamped,
the clank of arms and the rumbling tread of horse and foot. Within, he
listened to the whine of ropes, to the creak of hoisting-cranes which
lifted a world of brick and swung like living tentacles above the
sweating pigmies down below. He heard the songs of boatmen on his black
canals, a droning air that rose and fell, stilling the harsher cries of
labour's pain, and seeming to chant the kingly builder's praise.
The heat of the summer sun poured down, a pitiless, parching blaze,
while a horde of delvers bowed beneath their lashes and their loads.
They staggered at their tasks, each praying to his gods for the shades
of night to fall, when he slept like a beaten dog till dawn awoke him to
another hell of toil.
And thus fair Nineveh grew, as if by magic, from the dust, the while a
master-devil watched it from his tower. And the heart of Ninus swelled
within him and was glad.