The history of the Babylonish monarchy not having been handed down to
us, except incidentally as it is touched upon by the historians of
other countries, we know little of those anecdotes respecting it which
are best calculated to illustrate the habits and manners of a people.
We know that they in probability preceded all other nations in the
accuracy of their observations on the phenomena of the heavenly
bodies. We know that the Magi were highly respected among them as an
order in the state; and that, when questions occurred exciting great
alarm in the rulers, "the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers,
and the Chaldeans," were called together, to see whether by their arts
they could throw light upon questions so mysterious and perplexing,
and we find sufficient reason, both from analogy, and from the very
circumstance that sorcerers are specifically named among the classes
of which their Wise Men consisted, to believe that the Babylonian Magi
advanced no dubious pretensions to the exercise of magical power.