History must ever possess an undying fascination for the minds of men,
for its subject is the story of their race, and its interest is ever
human to the core. Its burden is now a song of rejoicing at the
triumphs, or a wail of lamentation over the errors and sufferings, of
mankind. How history, in gifted hands, exults as it reaches those
blooming points in a nation’s career—those eras of Pericles, of
Augustus, of Haroun-Alraschid, or of our own Elizabeth,—or, piercing
back through the veil of time, discerns with joy the brilliant era of a
Vicramaditya in the old world of the Hindoos,—the grandeur of a Rameses,
or still remoter monarchs in Egypt—or a rule of then unequalled justice
and beneficence extending back for countless ages in the early history
of secluded China. And how it saddens to see these old empires pass
away,—to behold Rome, and Greece, and Nineveh, and Egypt, Susa and
Persepolis, and the grand old cities of India, withered, rolled up like
a scroll, and vanishing from the face of the earth. Yet with what quiet
hopefulness, with what assured resignation, does it contemplate all
those changes. “Passing away,” it knows, is written from the first upon
the brow of empires as well as of men; and even when the mighty fabrics
of human power are seen crumbling into dust beneath internal decay or
external assault,—when the stores of knowledge, the monuments of art—in
fact, a whole civilisation—seems rushing into oblivion before an
onslaught of barbarism, the philosophic historian, with an assuredness
of faith stronger than other men’s, knows that the human race is but on
the eve of some new and higher development—that all is ordered by One
without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and that from out of the
present chaos will emerge new kingdoms and communities of men, purged
from the dross of the old, yet inheriting the larger portion of their
wisdom.
“All changes, naught is lost. The forms are changed,
And that which has been, is not what it was,—
Yet that which has been, is.”
History has a grand work yet before it,—one which mankind is just
beginning to long for, and which will yet one day be accomplished.
History must grow wider in its scope and nobler in its aims as the
career of our race advances. It must rise above the colourings of
national bias, and the prejudices of particular eras. It must cease—and
some day it will cease—to reflect but one phase at a time of that
many-sided thing Truth, and will seize and set forth for the instruction
of mankind the priceless gem under whatever form it appear, however
attired in the strange costume of distant times or foreign countries. It
must tell to man a continuous story of his existence. It must recognise
the truth that in all those various nations that have flourished and
passed away, there has been enshrined the self-same human soul, which
the great Creator made in His own image, and which, however manifold in
its aberrations, will still be found, on the whole, to reflect more of
truth than of error.
Nothing is more elevating than the study of the human race through its
successive phases of existence. Therein is to be discovered the scheme
of God’s Providence among the nations, slowly raising the race from one
stage of progress to another and higher. The world advances slowly,—but
still “it moves!” Severed into distinct nations, and divinely placed or
led into climes congenial to the peculiar development of each,—secluded
behind mountain chains, deserts, or seas, each section of mankind has
been left to develop a civilisation of its own—forms of government,
religion, art, science, philosophy, more or less peculiar to itself.
Through long ages this birth of nations has been going on, each learning
for itself the lessons of life. And each of those nations, whether
ancient or modern, has attached itself in a peculiar manner to some one
of the many forms of truth, carrying it to greater perfection than the
other sections of the race. Every one knows that such was the case among
the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Hebrews,—but do not let it be
supposed that the wisdom of the ancient world ends here. Do not suppose
that nothing is to be learned from the old history and writings of
China—that land where social ethics and utilitarian science were first
carried to comparative perfection; or from the ancient Hindoos, who
first pre-eminently devoted themselves to the study of the spiritual
nature of man, and in whose lofty speculations may be found the germ of
almost every system of philosophy, whether true or false, to which the
European world has given birth. Hegel and Spinosa are but Hindoos
reviving in the eighteenth century. Auguste Comte, with his boasted new
science of Positivism, is but a systematiser of the doctrines of
Confucius and the old philosophers of China,—and what are magnetism,
clairvoyance, and suchlike researches at present making into the
spiritual powers of man, but unconscious repetitions of what has been
known or imagined in India for three thousand years?
Had the human race formed from the first but one nation—swayed by but
one great impulse, and enlightened but by its own single experience, how
comparatively stationary would have been the condition of the species!
But severed into separate communities, each seeking truth for itself,
and, as intercommunication became wider, comparing its experiences with
those of its neighbours, the march of mankind has been greatly
accelerated. There have been a hundred searchers after truth instead of
one. It is only now, however, in these latter days, that mankind are
beginning to perceive and reap the benefit of the beneficent scheme of
Providence which has so long kept them secluded in location and
antagonistic in feeling. It is in those days of running to and fro upon
the earth—when commerce, and railways, and steam-navigation are uniting
the most distant regions—that the varied stores of knowledge which have
been accumulating in private hoards through long centuries are now being
thrown into general circulation. The more advanced nations are teaching
the less enlightened. But the gain is not all on one side; and the
former will be unworthy of their high position, if they fail to perceive
in how very many things they may receive instruction from those whom
they regard as their inferiors. The whole tendency of the
rapidly-increasing communication between the various nations and
countries of the earth is to shake men loose from local prejudices, and,
by expanding the mind, to fit it for the reception of that pure and
entire truth, towards the attainment of which the human mind is
journeying, and to which the matchless plans of Divine Providence are
slowly but surely conducting the human race. To the eye of the
philosopher, the world is a prism through which Truth is shining—and the
nations are the various colours and hues of the spectrum into which that
light is broken. Hitherto mankind, split into sections, has only
exhibited those scattered and disunited, but brilliant, rays,—truth
refracted and coloured by the national mind through which it passed; but
now, in the fulness of time, the process is being reversed. The long
training of isolated nations is drawing to a close; the barriers of
space or feeling which shut them in are being thrown down; an
interchange of intellectual as well as material benefits is commencing;
and the dissevered rays of partial knowledge are beginning to be
reunited into the pure and perfect light of truth.
Let, then, some Newton or Humboldt of history—some one who grudges not a
lifetime of genius to the task, and to whom Providence may give length
of days,—let such an one take up the theme of those old nations. By the
might of his graphic pen let him evoke them and their crumbled empires
from the dust, and place them in their pristine glory before the eye of
the reader. Let him paint the people, the land in which they dwelt, the
temples in which they worshipped;—let him glance with graphic touch over
the leading points of their history, the master-spirits who influenced,
and the poets who adorned it;—let him depict the arts of life and the
arts of beauty which characterised them; and, hardest task of all, let
him dive into the depths of their religion and philosophy—not the
fantastic crust of superstition, but the more spiritual dogmas which lie
below; and, wasting but little time upon what was false, set himself to
eliminate the true, and place it once more before the world. In this way
let him paint the Chinese, stout, square-set, and supple,—ever labouring
contentedly in their rice-fields, and delighting in social intercourse;
but also, with a free and martial spirit, of which the world is now
incredulous, repelling with slaughter the nomade hordes of Central Asia
which subsequently overthrew the mighty empires of the West. Let him
depict the country covered with district-schools, and the people trained
in social morals by a Government system of education, centuries before
the birth of Christ. Let him set forth the practical good sense and
kindliness of spirit which characterised the inhabitants of that vast
empire, as well as their eminence in the social and industrial arts of
life; yet glance with brief but warning words at the materialistic
tendencies, alike in creed and practice, by which these good qualities
were in some degree counterbalanced. Or turn to the Hindoo, with his
slim and graceful figure, symbolising the fine and susceptible spirit
within. See him among the flowery woods, luxuriant vegetation, and
countless sparkling waters of the Indian land,—so spiritual and alive to
the impressions of the external world, that he feels bound in lively
sympathy with every living thing around him, whether it be beast or
bird, tree or flower,—and in the faith of the most imaginative pantheism
that the world ever saw, regarding himself and all created forms as
incarnations of the Deity, animated directly by the spirit of the great
Creator; and, a firm believer in the transmigration of souls, regarding
every object around him with plaintive tenderness, as possibly the
dwelling of the soul of some lost friend or relative. See him under his
master-sentiment of love. That passion, almost universally in the
ancient world, was a mere thirst of the senses; and the few instances in
which it figures in the literature of Greece and Rome, it is made to
strike its victims like a frenzy. But among the Hindoos we perceive it
often sweetened and refined by sentiment,—a spiritual as well as a
sensuous yearning,—purer, as ardent, more pervading than the
love-passion of contemporaneous nations. And the same spirituality of
nature which made the Hindoo thus, fitted him also for the subtlest and
loftiest flights of speculation,—savouring little of the utilitarian,
indeed, but tending to gratify the soul in many of its highest and
purest aspirations. Caste, unknown in China, was in India all-prevalent;
and there, also, we meet in its sternest form that spirit of devoted
asceticism by which the mystics of the East, and subordinately even in
the Christian Church, have striven to exalt themselves above the level
of humanity by extinguishing all earthly passion, and so drawing into
nearer communion with the Deity.
Or pass to Egypt, and behold the now desolate valley-land of the Nile
reinvested with its old splendour and fertility. Let a thousand
irrigating canals spread again over the surface, re-clothing the land
with verdure; while up from the sands spring miles of temples, pyramids,
and endless avenues of sphinxes, obelisks, and gigantic statues. And
Thebes with its “hundred gates,” its libraries, and stately palaces,—and
Memphis with its immense population, whose bones are still seen
whitening the desert sands whereon the city once bloomed amidst
verdure,—reappear with crowds of artisans and professional men, carrying
the division of labour almost as far as it is done in modern times;
while all around a rural population is tending herds or tilling the
thrice-fertile soil; and, wearily and worn, innumerable bands of
captives—Nubians from the south, Negroes from the desert, Arabs from
across the Red Sea, and Syrians and Assyrians from Euphrates to the foot
of Mount Taurus—are toiling in digging canals, in making bricks, or in
quarrying, transporting, or raising to their place, those huge blocks of
granite which fill with astonishment the engineers even of our own
times. Turn from all this pomp and bustle and busy hum of life, along
that silent mile-long avenue of double sphinxes; and, passing beneath
the stupendous ornamented portals of Karnac or Luxor, or some other
temple of the land, enter the vast halls and countless apartments
devoted to sacerdotal seclusion,—where the white-robed priests of the
Nile, bathing three times a day to maintain mental purity and calm,
engaged in the abstract sciences, or searched deep into the secrets of
nature for that magical power by which they fascinated and subjugated
the minds of the people, and which enabled them to contend on almost
equal terms with the divinely-commissioned champion of the Hebrews.
Or turn the eye northward, and see the Persian preparing to descend from
his mountains and conquer the world. Verdant valleys amidst sterile
hills and sandy plains are his home, blazed over by a sun to whose
bright orb he kneels in adoration as an emblem of the Deity. Hardy,
handsome, chivalrous, luxurious, despotic, and ambitious,—yet animated
by a spirit of justice, and by a religious belief so pure as at once to
sympathise with that of the Hebrews, and to win for the Persian monarch
the title of the “Servant of God;” they are the first in history to
exhibit a nation, few in numbers, but strong in arms and wisdom, lording
it over an immense tract of country, and over subjugated tribes—Syrians,
Assyrians, Asiatic Greeks, and Egyptians—of divers origin and customs
from themselves. The iron phalanx of Alexander at length caused this
empire of satrapies to crumble into the dust; but under a new dynasty it
revived again, so as to wage war successfully even with the
all-conquering legions of Rome.
Away, around the shores of the lovely Ægean—on the sunny slopes of Asia
Minor, among the sparkling vine-clad islets of the Cyclades, and on the
rocky, picturesque, bay-indented peninsula of Greece, the gay and
martial Hellenic race disported themselves. As a race, young,
imaginative, superstitious, and enamoured of the beautiful, they
ascribed every phenomenon in nature to the action of a god—peopled the
woods, the hills, the waters, with graceful imaginary beings
sympathising with and often visible to man, and filling even the highest
heaven with divinities who were gods but in power, and wholly men in
passion. Keenly alive to pleasure, and hearing little of the deeper
voices of the soul, their thoughts clung wholly to the beautiful world
around them; and, while acknowledging the soul’s immortality, they ever
looked upon Elysium, their world beyond the grave, as a shadowy land
where joy becomes so diluted as hardly to be worth the having. The
greatest poets the world ever saw, they embodied their conceptions,
alike in literature, in architecture, and the plastic arts, in forms of
such divine beauty, that after-ages have abandoned in despair even the
hope of rivalling them. The story of Greece is not easily told; it
excelled in so many departments of human effort—producing almost
simultaneously an Alexander, a Socrates, a Plato, a Demosthenes, an
Aristotle—not to speak of a Democritus, a Thales, an Anaxagoras, and
others, in whose daring but vaguely-framed systems of the universe are
to be found not a few brilliant anticipations of world-wide truth, which
modern science is now recovering, and placing on the firm and only
definite basis of experiment.
Add to the story of these nations that of the Roman—the great conquerors
and legislators,—the story of a city that came to throw its chains over
the world,—and thence pass over the dying ashes of Paganism into the new
world of Christianity, and to the congeries of kingdoms which arose
under its beneficent sway in mediæval Europe, at first small, and never
presenting those great contrasts so observable in the old empires of
Paganism, but each telling its lesson to those who study it, and some of
them already influencing the fortunes of the human race to an extent
never possible or dreamt of in prior times. The “meteor-flag” of England
is the great object which, in these latter days, arrests the eye of the
philosophic observer,—bridging over the seas, peopling continents and
islands with civilised man,—and carrying the science, the religion, and
the beneficent sway of Great Britain over an empire upon which the sun
never sets, and to climes “where Cæsar’s eagles never flew.”
Paradoxical as it may seem, the further we recede from the era of those
old nations, the better able are we becoming to write their history and
understand their civilisation. Not only are mankind becoming tolerant of
truth in whatever attire it present itself, and thus learning to
sympathise with, and so comprehend, those old forms of civilisation, but
the recent study of the languages of India and China have opened up to
us the literature and life of those old countries. The discovery of a
clue to the hieroglyphics of Egypt, to the rock-inscriptions of Persia,
and to the arrow-headed chronicles of Assyria, constitutes a series of
unexpected triumphs, which promises to rend the veil of oblivion from
the face of those long-perished empires. Lastly, the earth herself has
been giving us back their skeletons. Two old Roman cities, Herculaneum
and Pompeii, accidentally discovered, have been cleared of their
superincumbent mass of lava and ashes, and given back to the light
precisely as they stood on the day when the eruption of Vesuvius
overwhelmed them eighteen hundred years ago. Into those long-buried
streets we have descended, and seen the domestic civilisation of
imperial Rome mirrored in those hastily-abandoned boudoirs and
dining-rooms, baths, temples, and public buildings. In the wastes of
Persia, Chardin stumbled upon the ruins of imperial Persepolis, whose
very site had for ages dropt out of the world’s memory. The thousand
monuments of Egypt have been studied, their historic sculptures and
mural paintings magnificently copied, and a portrait-gallery published
of its ancient dynasties. Finally, Layard and Botta have carried the
thirst of discovery to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, and have
exhumed from the mounds of long-lost Nineveh striking and instructive
vestiges of the first of the so-called “universal” empires.
The opportuneness of these revelations of the past cannot but strike one
as remarkable. Knowledge revealed too early is lost. Steam, the compass,
gunpowder, the principle of the electric telegraph, and a hundred other
discoveries made of old might be mentioned, which, in consequence of
mankind not being ready for them, wholly dropt out of mind again, or
languished on as mere toys or curiosities. And had those old cities been
unbared at some earlier period, would they not most lamentably have
shared the fate of the monuments which remained above ground—been
wantonly destroyed by a barbarous population, or been used as quarries,
from whence the degenerate successors of the elder race might indolently
draw their building materials? But the earth took them into her own safe
keeping, and covered them up until the world had grown older and wiser,
and knew how to prize such monuments of memorable but long-forgotten
times.
Of all the great empires which have enduringly impressed themselves upon
the world’s memory, no one has perished leaving so few visible marks of
its existence as that which first rose into greatness in the land of
Assyria. It was this memorable region which gave birth to the first of
the old “universal empires.” On the plains of Shinar, on the banks of
the Lower Euphrates, a community of civilised men was assembled more
than four thousand years ago. There, in course of time, arose Babylon,
with its impregnable walls, behind which the city might eat and drink
and be merry, though the mightiest of ancient hosts were encamped
outside. There were the fabled hanging-gardens, the wonder of the world,
erected by one of its monarchs to please his young Median bride, whose
heart yearned for the hills and groves of her native land. Towering
above all was the vast temple of Belus, unequalled for magnificence in
the ancient world,—crowned with its gigantic golden statue of the
sun-god, rising so high, and flashing so brightly in the upper air, that
to the crowds below it seemed invested with the splendours of the deity
whom it symbolised. But more than two thousand years have elapsed since
all this grandeur came to a sudden end; and so thoroughly has the city
mouldered into the dust, and so completely has it buried itself in its
own ruins, that during the recent excavations executed on its site,
scarcely a detached figure in stone, or a solitary tablet, says Mr
Layard, was dug out of the vast heaps of rubbish. “Babylon is fallen, is
fallen! and all the graven images of her gods He hath broken unto the
ground.”
To the north, near the head of the great Mesopotamian valley, on the
banks of the Tigris, stood the sister or rival city of Nineveh—Babylon
and it forming, as it were, the foci of the Assyrian realm, which spread
out like an ellipse around them. Nineveh, “that great city,” against
which Jonah of old uttered his prophetic warnings—from whose gates
Sennacherib, Sargon, and Holofernes successively set forth, with their
spearmen, and horses, and chariots against Damascus and Israel, and the
coasts of Tyre and Sidon,—and around whose walls the combined armies of
Persia and Babylonia encamped for three years in vain, fell at last by a
doom as sudden and overwhelming as that which overtook Babylon—perishing
so utterly, that when Xenophon and the Ten Thousand passed that way,
even its name was forgotten, and he notices its mounds of ruins simply
as having been those of “an ancient city,” which he calls Larissa.
As Xenophon left those ruins Layard found them. Riding, in company with
a friend as daring and enthusiastic as himself, down the right bank of
the Tigris, in April 1840, he rested for the night at a small Arab
village, around which are still the vestiges of an ancient town; and
here he got his first look of the buried city whose discovery was to
immortalise his name. “From the summit of an artificial eminence,” he
says, “I looked down upon a broad plain, separated from us by the river.
A line of lofty mounds bounded it on the east, and one of a pyramidal
form rose high above the rest. Beyond it could be faintly traced the
waters of the Zab. Its position rendered its identification easy. This
was the pyramid which Xenophon had described, and near which the Ten
Thousand had encamped; the ruins around it were those which the Greek
general saw twenty-two centuries before, and which were even then the
remains of an _ancient_ city.”
It must not be supposed, because Nineveh and Babylon are the only cities
made much mention of in Assyrian history, that none others of importance
existed in the country around. On the contrary, again and again, in the
course of his journeys, does Mr Layard speak of mounds of ruins, marking
the site of what must once have been “large cities.” In truth, the
valley-land of Mesopotamia, with its rich alluvial plains, intersected
by the Tigris and Euphrates and their numerous tributaries, presented a
vast surface, which at any moment the industry of man might convert into
a garden. In remotest times, if in imagination we can recur to the
period when first mankind began to settle on its plains, it must have
presented a spectacle very much like that which now meets the eye—wide
plains of fertile soil springing into verdure wherever it is touched by
water, but desert almost everywhere for a great portion of the year. The
latent fertility of the region was forthwith developed by the race who
there took up their abode. The waters of the rivers were led over the
flat plains in long canals, diffusing in all directions their irrigating
streams, and causing the teeming soil, under the rays of a glowing and
never-failing sun, to produce food in abundance for both man and beast.
“A system of navigable canals, that may excite the admiration of even
the modern engineer, connected together the Euphrates and Tigris. With a
skill showing no common knowledge of the art of surveying, and of the
principles of hydraulics, the Babylonians took advantage of the
different levels in the plains, and of the periodical rises in the
rivers, to complete the water-communication between all parts of the
province, and to fertilise, by artificial irrigation, an otherwise
barren and unproductive soil.”[146]
This system of irrigation, it is true, was not carried to perfection
until a late period in the history of the Assyrian empire; but it must,
at the same time, be recollected, that as far back as the light of
history penetrates, it is always civilised man that is discerned in the
valley of the Euphrates. The vague whisperings of tradition, even,
cannot speak of a time when savage tribes wandered over its plains. If
we investigate who were the settled inhabitants of the land when first
the light of history breaks upon it—the people among whom the old
Assyrian empire arose—we will come to the conclusion that the great mass
of the population belonged to that purely Syrian race whose settlements
have in all ages extended from the banks of the Euphrates to the shores
of the Levant. But mixed with this race, very much in the neighbourhood
of Babylon, and more faintly as we proceed northwards, were offshoots of
the Cushite race,—a people having its principal seats in southern
Arabia, along the coasts of the Indian and Red Seas, imperfectly
represented by the Himyarite Arabs of the present day, and forming a
connecting link between the old races of Syria and Egypt. Into the
population thus constituted descended the Chaldeans,—a tribe from the
highlands which border the Mesopotamian valley on the north-east, and
who, though Syrians in the main, probably approximated somewhat in
character to the Persian race. This tribe obtained the ascendant among
the population at Nineveh and in the upper portion of the Mesopotamian
valley,—imparting to that population, apparently, a sterner character
than prevailed in the lower part of the valley and around Babylon.
Frequent wars occurred between these half-rival half-sister cities; the
general result of which was, that the people of Nineveh held the
Babylonians in a more or less perfect state of dependence. In the course
of time, too, the Cushite element in the Babylonian population (and
which probably gave to it its turn for commerce and maritime enterprise)
became extinct; while the Chaldean element, which differed but little
from the general mass of the population, seems to have greatly
increased. It was from Ur of the Chaldees, in the vicinity of Nineveh,
that Abraham, in obedience to the Divine voice, went forth, journeying
south-westwards, through the desert lying between the Euphrates and
Syria, and, reaching Palestine, became the father of the Hebrew nation.
From his loins also proceeded the Idumeans, who proved their superiority
to the rest of the Arabian tribes by founding the kingdom of Edom, and
excavating the wondrous rock-city of Petra.
Such, then, appears to have been the old population of Assyria. In
Genesis we are informed that Ashur went forth out of the land of Shinar,
and founded new habitations in the north,—“Nineveh and the city
Reheboth, and Calah, and Resen, which is a great city;” but according to
the Chaldean historians, the builders of the cities of Assyria came down
from the mountains of Armenia. These statements, so far from being
inconsistent, tend to corroborate the conjecture which, from other
considerations, we had arrived at,—namely, that the Chaldeans were not
the first comers into the plains around Nineveh, but found there a
lowland population in an advanced state of society, and closely allied
in blood and language to themselves. Moses of Chorene expressly records
that such was the case; but the real strength of the supposition we rest
upon general grounds, which it is needless here to enter upon. This
Chaldean tribe, then, which ultimately became the predominant one in the
valley of the Upper Tigris, were not the actual founders of the Assyrian
cities; but under their ascendancy these cities were strengthened,
extended, and embellished so much, as to become as it were the creations
of their hands.
The architecture of a nation is ever dependent to a great extent upon
the building materials at its command. The alluvial plains of Assyria,
unbroken by a single eminence, were singularly destitute of stone of any
kind, especially in the lower portion of the valley; so that the
inhabitants had to betake themselves to bricks, which they could
manufacture in endless abundance by mixing a little straw with the
alluvial soil. In Babylonia, where not a slab of stone could be got
within hundreds of miles, these bricks were carefully made,—being
kiln-dried, and often coloured, and, while the colours were still moist,
glazed in the fire. Around Nineveh they were, for the most part, merely
dried for a day or two in the hot sun,—and with bricks of this
description the houses of Mesopotamia are built to this day. But
Nineveh, being nearer the mountains, had a great advantage over Babylon.
The plains around it, and the lowlands lying between the Tigris and the
hill-country, abound in a kind of coarse alabaster or gypsum, large
masses of which protrude in low ridges from the alluvial soil, or are
exposed in the gullies formed by winter torrents. Ornamental from its
colour and transparency, and offering few difficulties to the sculptor,
this alabaster was used by the people of Nineveh in their public
buildings. Cut into large slabs, it was used as panels to cover the
inner surface of the brick walls,—each slab bearing on its back an
inscription recording the name, title, and descent of the king
undertaking the work, and being kept in its place by cramps and plugs of
metal or wood. After being thus fixed against the wall, the face of the
slabs was covered with sculptures and inscriptions,—in some edifices, as
at Kouyunjik, each chamber being reserved for some particular historical
incident, and each palace, it would appear, only recording in its
sculptures the exploits of the king who built it. No pillars are to be
found in Assyrian architecture; and the difficulty experienced by the
builders in the construction of expansive roofs is shown by the great
narrowness of the rooms compared with their length; the most elaborately
ornamented hall at Nimroud, although above 160 feet in length, being
only 35 feet broad. Forty-five feet appears to have been the greatest
width spanned over by a roof; for the great central hall in the
north-west palace at Nimroud (110 feet by 90) may have been entirely
open to the sky,—and, as it did not contain sculptures, it probably was
so. The rooms ranged from 16 to 20 feet in height; the side-walls being
covered to twice the height of a man by the sculptured slabs, and their
upper portion being built of baked bricks richly coloured, or of
sun-dried bricks covered by a thin coat of plaster, on which various
ornaments were painted. Of the mode of roofing these palaces we know
nothing. Probably the roof was formed of beams resting solely on the
side-walls; but as this method would not have sufficed for the larger
rooms, from 35 to 45 feet in width, we may conjecture that the beams in
some instances were made to meet and rest against each other at a slight
angle in the centre of the ceiling, or (more improbably) that wooden
pillars or posts were employed which have since entirely mouldered away.
No traces of windows are to be found, even in the chambers next the
outer walls; so that, as in the temples of Egypt, there must have been
square openings or skylights in the ceilings, which may have been closed
during the winter-rains by canvass or some such material. The pavement
of the chambers was formed either of alabaster slabs, or of kiln-burnt
bricks, covered with inscriptions relating to the king;—and beneath this
pavement, drains led from almost every room, showing that water might
occasionally have entered the rooms from above, by such apertures in the
ceiling as have been conjectured.
The interior of these Assyrian palaces must have been as magnificent as
imposing. Mr Layard thus graphically describes the spectacle which, in
days of old, met the eye of those who entered the abode of the Assyrian
kings:—
“He was ushered in through the portal guarded by the colossal lions or
bulls of white alabaster. In the first hall he found himself
surrounded by the sculptured records of the empire. Battles, sieges,
triumphs, the exploits of the chase, the ceremonies of religion, were
portrayed on the walls—sculptured in alabaster, and painted in
gorgeous colours. Under each picture were engraved, in characters
filled up with bright copper, inscriptions describing the scenes
represented. Above the sculptures were painted other events—the king,
attended by his eunuchs and warriors, receiving his prisoners,
entering into alliances with other monarchs, or performing some sacred
duty. These representations were enclosed in coloured borders of
elaborate and elegant design. The emblematic tree, winged bulls, and
monstrous animals were conspicuous amongst the ornaments. At the upper
end of the hall was the colossal figure of the king in adoration
before the supreme deity, or receiving from his eunuch the holy cup.
He was attended by warriors bearing his arms, and by the priests or
presiding divinities. His robes, and those of his followers, were
adorned with groups of figures, animals, and flowers, all painted with
brilliant colours.
“The stranger trod upon alabaster slabs, each bearing an inscription,
recording the titles, genealogy, and achievements of the great king.
Several doorways, formed by gigantic winged lions or bulls, or by the
figures of guardian deities, led into other apartments which again
opened into more distant halls. In each were new sculptures. On the
walls of some were processions of colossal figures—armed men and
eunuchs following the king, warriors laden with spoil, leading
prisoners, or bearing presents and offerings to the gods. On the walls
of others were portrayed the winged priests, or presiding divinities,
standing before the sacred trees.
“The ceilings above him were divided into square compartments, painted
with flowers, or with the figures of animals. Some were inlaid with
ivory, each compartment being surrounded by elegant borders and
mouldings. The beams, as well as the sides of the chambers, may have
been gilded, or even plated with gold and silver; and the rarest
woods, in which the cedar was conspicuous, were used for the
wood-work. Square openings in the ceilings of the chambers admitted
the light of day. A pleasing shadow was thrown over the sculptured
walls, and gave a majestic expression to the human features of the
colossal forms which guarded the entrances. Through these apertures
was seen the bright blue of an eastern sky, enclosed in a frame on
which were painted, in vivid colours, the winged circle, in the midst
of elegant ornaments, and the graceful forms of ideal animals.
“These edifices, as it has been shown, were great national monuments,
upon the walls of which were represented in sculpture, or inscribed in
alphabetic characters, the chronicles of the empire. He who entered
them might thus read the history, and learn the glory and triumphs of
the nations. They served, at the same time, to bring continually to
the remembrance of those who assembled within them on festive
occasions, or for the celebration of religious ceremonies, the deeds
of their ancestors, and the power and majesty of their gods.”
This royal magnificence was well guarded. The external walls of the
Assyrian cities, as we learn from the united testimony of ancient
authors, were of extraordinary size and height. According to Diodorus
Siculus, the walls of Nineveh were one hundred feet high,—so broad that
three chariots might be driven abreast along their summit,—and fortified
with fifteen hundred towers, each of which was two hundred feet in
height. According to the same authority, the circumference of the city
was sixty miles,—a statement which exactly tallies with the dimensions
given in the Book of Jonah, where Nineveh is said to have been three
days’ journey round about. This is an immense circuit,—but it must be
recollected that the dimensions of an Eastern city do not bear the same
proportion to its population as those of an European city. The custom,
prevalent to some degree in Southern Asia, even in the earliest times,
of secluding the women in apartments removed from those of the men, as
well as the heat of the climate, renders a separate house for each
family almost indispensable, and is perfectly incompatible with that
economy of space, and close aggregation of dwellings, which we witness
in the cities of the West. Moreover, within the circuit of those old
cities there used to be a “paradise” or hunting-ground for the king, and
orchards, gardens, and an extensive tract of arable land; so that the
inhabitants, behind their impregnable walls, could bid defiance alike to
force and to famine. From the expression of Jonah, that there was much
cattle within the walls of Nineveh, it may be inferred that there was
also pasture for them. Many cities of the East—as, for instance,
Damascus and Ispahan—are still built in this manner; the amount of their
population being greatly disproportionate, according to our Western
notions, to the site which they occupy.
If we take the four great mounds of Nimroud, Kouyunjik, Khorsabad, and
Karamles, as the corners of an elongated quadrangle (eighteen miles by
twelve), it will be found that the form as well as the circumference of
the city correspond pretty accurately with the statements of ancient
writers. Each quarter of this vast city, says Mr Layard, may have had
its peculiar name; hence the palace of Evorita, where Saracus destroyed
himself—and the Mespila and Larissa of Xenophon, which names the Greek
general applies respectively to the mound-ruins at Kouyunjik and
Nimroud. It is certain that large fortified enclosures existed within
the outer walls, surrounding the principal buildings or palaces, and
capable of defence after the rest of the city was stormed. These four
great mounds, the scene of Mr Layard’s excavations, mark the site of the
principal public buildings of Nineveh,—apparently at once temples and
palaces,—built upon elevated platforms of masonry, like the temples of
the ancient Mexicans, and, from their great strength, always placed so
as to form part of the external defences of the city. But these were not
the only great buildings in Nineveh; for within the quadrangle described
by these ruins, many other large mounds are to be seen, and the face of
the country is strewed with the remains of pottery, bricks, and other
fragments. The space between the great public buildings was doubtless
occupied by private houses, standing in the midst of gardens, and built
at distances from each other; or forming streets which enclosed gardens
of considerable extent, and even arable land. The absence of the remains
of these houses, says Mr Layard, is easily accounted for. “They were
constructed almost entirely of sun-dried bricks, and, like the houses
now built in the country, soon disappeared altogether when once
abandoned, and allowed to fall into decay. The largest palaces would
probably have remained undiscovered, had not slabs of alabaster marked
the walls. There is, however, sufficient to indicate that buildings were
once spread over the space above described; for, besides the vast number
of small mounds everywhere visible, scarcely a husbandman drives his
plough over the soil without exposing the vestiges of former
habitations.”
From the numerous large mound-ruins visible on the Mesopotamian
plains, it is evident that the work of excavation is only commenced.
The long-sealed book of Assyrian history and antiquities has only
begun to be unrolled; and in the course of another generation the
labours of Layard will probably be as far exceeded as those of Belzoni
in Egypt have been by the recent investigations of Lepsius and
Champollion-le-Jeune. It is needless, then, at present to waste time
in the discussion of moot points in Assyrian history, which in a few
years fresh discoveries may at once set definitively at rest. As yet,
Assyrian chronology has been but little advanced by the recent
researches,—and this principally owing to the circumstance, already
mentioned, that the sculptures and inscriptions of each palace relate
only to the career of the particular king who erected or embellished
it. All we know is, that the palaces at Nimroud (if we except the
unfinished one) must have been built at least nine centuries B.C.; but
that the earliest of them may have been reared by the great Ninus
himself[147] (2000 B.C.),—a most unsatisfactory state of knowledge;
and that the palaces at the other angles of the city—namely,
Kouyunjik, Karamles, and Khorsabad—were erected, to all appearance,
between the ninth and sixth centuries B.C. We know, however, with all
certainty, that a great crisis and convulsion in the fortunes of the
State occurred between the erection of the earlier and later series of
palaces. This convulsion was probably occasioned by the successful
revolt of the Medes under Arbaces, and the capture of Nineveh, about
950 B.C., which brought to an end the ancient dynasty of Ninus and
Semiramis, after thirteen centuries of power, and established a new
family on the throne.
Ninus—whose character as a great hunter of the lion and panther tallies
with the scriptural accounts of Nimrod—is said, by the general consent
of many ancient writers, to have founded the Assyrian monarchy more than
two thousand years before Christ,—doing so in the midst of a people far
advanced in civilisation, whose works, says Moses of Chorene, the
new-comers endeavoured to destroy, and whose knowledge of the arts was
taken advantage of by the conquerors in the erection and embellishment
of their palaces. In corroboration of this it may be stated, that of all
the specimens of Assyrian art which have been discovered, the most
ancient are invariably the best,—a curious fact, agreeing with, but not
establishing, the hypothesis that the builders of the most ancient
edifices at Nineveh were assisted by a people of skill superior to their
own.
The boundaries of the Assyrian monarchy, like that of every other
long-established empire, fluctuated from age to age. At the epoch of its
greatest power, it appears to have maintained an ascendancy over Persia
and Media, and from thence westwards to the shores of the Levant; while
it is indisputable that its rule was for long dominant in Asia Minor,
where towns were built and colonies founded by the Assyrian
monarchs,—Troy itself, according to Plato, having been one of their
dependencies. The prowess of the Assyrian armies in later times made
itself felt even in Egypt; but in the wars between these two great
antagonists, there is reason to believe that the balance of success lay
chiefly with the Egyptians. It would appear that for a considerable
period, between the 14th and 9th centuries B.C., a close connection,
either by conquest or friendly intercourse, existed between these two
empires,—which connection produced considerable changes in the arts and
customs of Assyria, as may be witnessed in the introduction of the
sitting sphinxes of Nimroud, and the lotus-shaped ornaments of Khorsabad
and Kouyunjik. On the earliest monuments of Nineveh we read of
expeditions undertaken against Babylon, which city was at first
unquestionably independent of the Assyrian princes, but which ere long
became subject to them—wearing their chains, however, unwillingly, and
occasionally in name rather than in fact. When the Medes revolted under
Arbaces, the governor of Babylon took part with the rebels, and in
alliance with them succeeded in capturing Nineveh, and destroying its
public buildings—if not depopulating it. Under the new or later dynasty,
however—which counts in its brief roll the great names of Sargon and
Sennacherib—Nineveh rose in renewed splendour and power: the palaces of
Kouyunjik, Karamles, and Khorsabad were built, the last of which
excelled all its predecessors in magnificence; and the city attained
those vast dimensions described by Diodorus and the prophet Jonah. But
the days of this great city and ancient empire were fast drawing to a
close. Headed by Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, the combined armies of the
Persians and Babylonians again approached its walls; and after a
protracted siege of nearly three years, they at length (606 B.C.)
captured the city at a time when the river had overflowed its bed and
carried away a portion of the wall. The city was then utterly
destroyed—the torch was put to its noble palaces, and its inhabitants
were compulsorily distributed among the adjoining towns and villages.
Nineveh was no more. Twelve centuries afterwards (A.D. 627), the great
battle between Heraclius and Rhazates was fought within the space once
compassed by its walls. “The city, and even the ruins of the city,” says
Gibbon, “had long ago disappeared: the vacant space afforded a spacious
field for the operations of the two armies.”
The primitive religion of the Assyrians appears to have been a form of
Sabæanism. It appears to have consisted in the worship of the sun—not as
the Deity, but as an emblem of the Deity—as the greatest, most glorious,
and most beneficent of His works in the eye of man, and the mystery of
whose unbeholdable splendours not unaptly symbolised the presence of Him
“who dwelleth in light that is inaccessible and full of glory.” But the
peculiar part of the Chaldean faith or philosophy was the influence
which it ascribed to the planets over the life and fortunes of men. The
belief in astrology is one of the oldest, if not absolutely the very
oldest, which one meets with in the history of postdiluvian mankind. It
was not confined to any one nation, or any one era of the world. It has
lived from the earliest times, down through several thousand years, to
the middle ages of Europe, and still lingers even at the present day. To
take the last spots in the world where one is likely to find old-world
notions lingering—“Raphaels” and “Zadkiels” are to be found even in the
capitals of England and France, where astrological almanacs are at this
moment yearly published, containing predictions of the future—one of
which modern Magi boasts that he correctly predicted the death of the
“hero of Waterloo,” and both of whom, we believe, prophesied two years
ago that 1854 is to be the death-year of Louis Napoleon! But the East is
the native land of astrology; and there, to this day, it is believed in
as firmly as if it belonged to the domain of the positive sciences. It
is curious to know that one of the causes of the disastrous issue of the
last battle (August 5) between the Turks and Russians in Asia, was the
obstinate adhesion of the Turkish general to an astrological crotchet.
The Russians had detached a division of their army to Bayazid, where
they surprised and defeated a Turkish corps; but no sooner did General
Guyon learn of this movement, than he counselled the Turkish commander,
Zarif Pasha, immediately to advance and attack the main body of the
Russians while thus weakened. The Pasha, however, while assenting to the
plan, would not move at the time required, alleging that neither that
day nor the morrow would do for the attack, “because the stars were
unpropitious.” Eight-and-forty hours were thus lost, big with the
fortunes of the campaign; and the consequence was, that when the Turks
did at last advance, they found not only that the Russian detachment had
rejoined the main body, but that the Russian general had been fully
apprised by his spies of the meditated night-march of his enemies.
We have not space here to undertake an investigation of the old Chaldean
faith, nor to point out the principles in human nature by a rash
reasoning upon which astrology seems to have arisen. We would remark,
however, that the convulsion which intervened between the fall of the
first Assyrian dynasty and the rise of the second, occasioned, or was at
least accompanied by, a change in the State-religion of the country. In
the palaces at Khorsabad and Kouyunjik, built by the second dynasty, we
find no traces of the religious emblems so frequent in the sculptures of
the earliest palaces at Nimroud. The emblem of the great Divinity—the
winged figure within the circle—has never been found in the later-built
palaces; and from the frequent representations of the fire-altar in the
bas-reliefs from those ruins, and on cylinders, evidently of the same
period, there is reason to believe that a fire-worship, like that
introduced by Zoroaster among the Persians, had succeeded to the purer
forms of Sabæanism. Although eagle-headed figures, and other mythic
forms, exist in the earliest sculptures at Nineveh, in no case do they
appear to have been objects of worship. The king is only seen in
adoration before one symbol of the Deity—the figure of which we have
already spoken, with the wings and tail of a bird enclosed in a circle,
resembling the Ormuzd of the Persian monuments. He is generally standing
or kneeling beneath this circled figure with his hand raised in sign of
prayer or adoration. This symbol of the Deity is never represented above
any person of inferior rank, but appears to watch specially over the
king—who among the Assyrians, as among all the old nations, was regarded
as the type and representative of the nation. It is seen above him on
all occasions, in the sculptures, sympathising with and assisting him,
like a good Providence. If it presides over a triumph, its action
resembles that of the king; and when represented over the king in war,
it is seen, like a god of battles, shooting its arrows against the
enemies of the Assyrians. The most superficial examination of the
sculptures suffices to prove the sacred character of the king. Not only
is the symbol of the great Deity above him, as well as the sun, moon,
and planets; but the priests, or lesser divinities (whichever the winged
human figures so frequently found on the Assyrian monuments may be), are
represented as waiting upon or ministering to him. This is just a
development of the old patriarchal principle, by which a father used to
worship on behalf of his family. At this day the principle is carried
out to the fullest extent in China, where the “higher sacrifices” can
only be offered by the Emperor in person, who actually regards himself
as the father of the nation, and who, on occasion of national
calamities, fasts and makes public confession of his sins and
shortcomings, looking upon them as the reason why the Divine wrath is
poured out upon his people.
A marked difference is likewise observable in the style of ornamental
art under the earlier and later dynasties. What principally
distinguishes Assyrian from Egyptian sculpture is, that the former is
entirely free from the angular mode of treatment so conspicuous in the
latter. It is more florid, and altogether more advanced; but at the same
time it must be said, that in regard to accuracy we incline to place
greater estimation upon the portrait-sculpture of Egypt than upon that
of Assyria. In the later monuments of Nineveh we find direct, although
not very extensive, traces of Egyptian influence; but the principal
distinction between the earlier and later sculptures is, the greater
knowledge of design and composition displayed in the former. The
bas-relief representing the Lion-hunt, now in the British Museum, is a
good illustration of the earliest school of Assyrian art yet discovered.
It far exceeds the later sculptures in the vigour of treatment, the
elegance of the forms, and in what the French aptly term _mouvement_,—as
well as by the evident attempt at composition, the artistical
arrangement of the groups. The sculptors who worked at Khorsabad and
Kouyunjik perhaps possessed more skill in handling their tools, and
their work is frequently superior to that of the earlier artists in
delicacy of execution—as, for instance, in the details of the
features—and in boldness of relief; but they are decidedly inferior to
their ancestors in the higher branches of art—in the treatment of a
subject, and in beauty and variety of form.
The domestic furniture, arms, utensils, and personal ornaments of the
Assyrians show a very refined and cultivated taste. In their arms they
rivalled even the Greeks in elegance of design. Their drinking-cups and
vessels used on festive occasions were apparently of gold, like those of
Solomon, or of silver; and they were frequently wrought into the shape
of the head and neck of an animal—such as a lion or bull—and resembled
those afterwards in use among the Greeks, and found in the tombs of
Etruria. Their thrones, tables, and couches were made both of metal and
wood; and the tables and chairs were frequently shaped like our
camp-stools, and may have been made to close. On the earliest monuments,
the chair is represented richly cushioned, with the seat and legs
tastefully carved, but without a back,—in the later monuments the back
is added, but the chairs exhibit less elegance. Indeed, in domestic and
personal ornament, as in the higher branches of art, the most ancient
Assyrian monuments greatly exceed the later. “Many forms had been
preserved,” says Mr Layard, “as in the swords, bracelets, and armlets;
but they had evidently degenerated, and are more coarsely designed in
the sculptures. This is also evident in the embroideries of the robes,
and in the details of the chariots. We see the same love of elaborate
and profuse decoration, but not that elegance and variety so conspicuous
in the ornaments of the first period. The kneeling bull or wild-goat,
the graceful flower, and the groups of men and animals skilfully
combined, are succeeded by a profusion of rosettes, circles, and
squares, covering the whole surface of the dress, or the sides of the
chariots. Although there is a certain richness of appearance, yet the
classic forms, if the term may be used, of the earlier artists, are
wanting.”
The materials at our command are as yet too scanty to enable us to
arrive at definite conclusions as to the manners and private life of the
Assyrians; but we do not doubt that future discoveries will yet supply
the desideratum. Mr Layard says:—
“From casual notices in the Bible and in ancient history, we learn
that the Assyrians, as well as those who succeeded them in the empire
of Asia, were fond of public entertainments and festivities, and that
they displayed on such occasions the greatest luxury and magnificence.
The Assyrian king, called Nabuchodonosor in the book of Judith, on
returning from his victorious expedition against Arphaxad, feasted
with his whole army for one hundred and twenty days. The same is
related by the Greek authors of Sardanapalus, after his great victory
over the combined armies of the Medes. The Book of Esther describes
the splendour of the festivals given by the Babylonian king. The
princes and nobles of his vast dominions were feasted for one hundred
and eighty days; and for one week all the people of Susa assembled in
the gardens of his palace, and were served in vessels of gold. The
richest tapestries adorned the halls and tents, and the most costly
couches were prepared for the guests. Wine was served in abundance,
and women, including even the wives and concubines of the monarch,
were frequently present to add to the magnificence of the scene.
According to Quintus Curtius, not only did hired female performers
exhibit on these occasions, but the wives and daughters of the nobles,
forgetting their modesty, danced before the guests, divesting
themselves even of their garments. Wine was drunk immoderately. When
Babylon was taken by the Persians, the inhabitants were celebrating
one of their great festivals, and even the guards were intoxicated.
The Babylonian king, ignorant of the approaching fate of his capital,
and surrounded by one thousand of his princes and nobles, and by his
wives and concubines, drank out of the golden vessels that had been
carried away from the Jewish temple. On the walls of the palace at
Khorsabad was a bas-relief representing a public feast, probably in
celebration of a victory. Men were seen seated on high chairs with
drinking-cups in their hands; whilst attendants were bringing in
bowls, goblets, and various fruits and viands, for the banquet. At
Nimroud part of a similar bas-relief was discovered. Music was not
wanting on these occasions.”
The arts and civilisation of Nineveh represent those of Babylon also.
Babylon, though it was long of attaining to the political greatness of
her rival, was evidently an older city. It can hardly be doubted that it
arose from the first gathering of mankind upon the plains of Shinar.
From notices of it on Egyptian monuments of the time of Thothmes III.,
it is evident that it was a place of considerable note at least in the
fifteenth century before Christ. Although for long politically
overshadowed by her neighbour Nineveh, Babylon at an early period became
famous for the extent and importance of her commerce. No position could
then have been more favourable than hers for carrying on a trade with
all the regions of the known world. She stood upon a navigable stream
that brought to her quays the produce of the temperate highlands of
Armenia—running westward in one part of its course to within a hundred
miles of the Mediterranean, and emptying its waters into a gulf of the
Indian Ocean. Parallel to this great river, and scarcely inferior to it
in size, was the Tigris, flowing through the fertile plains of Assyria,
and carrying their produce to the Babylonian cities. The inhabitants
turned these natural advantages to the best account; and their industry
and enterprise, cooperating with that of civilised people in the
adjoining countries, greatly increased the means of locomotion.
Highroads and causeways across the Desert connected Babylonia with Syria
and Palestine. Fortified stations protected the merchant from the
wandering tribes of Arabia,—walled cities served as resting-places and
storehouses,—and wells at regular intervals gave an abundant supply of
water during the hottest season of the year. One of those highways was
carried through the centre of Mesopotamia, and, crossing the Euphrates
near the town of Anthemusia, led into Central Asia;—a second appears to
have left Babylon by the western quarter of the city, and entered
Idumea, after passing through the country of the Nabathæans;—while
others branched off to Tadmor, and to other cities built in the Desert
almost solely for purposes of trade. To the east of Babylon was the
celebrated military and commercial road described by Herodotus, leading
from Sardis to Susa in ninety days’ journey, and furnished at intervals
of about fifteen miles with stations and public hostelries, probably
resembling the modern caravanserais of Persia. A very considerable trade
was likewise carried on with India, through Media, Hyrcania, and the
centre of Asia,—by which route it was, probably, that the greater part
of the precious stones and gold were supplied to Babylon. A coasting
trade existed along the shores of the Persian Gulf eastwards. The
prophet Isaiah alludes to the ships of the Chaldeans; and we learn from
the Kouyunjik inscriptions that the inhabitants of the country at the
mouth of the Euphrates possessed vessels in which, when defeated by the
Assyrians, they took refuge on the sea. It is difficult to determine to
how far the Babylonians may have navigated the Indian Ocean; but of the
merchandise in which they traded, the pearls, cotton, spices, precious
stones, ivory, ebony, silks, and dyes, a large portion, if not the
whole, must have been obtained from the southern coasts of Arabia, and
from the Indian peninsula. Their exports consisted both of manufactures
and of the natural produce of the country. Corn was cultivated to a
great extent, and sent to distant provinces; and the Babylonian carpets,
silks, and woollen fabrics, woven or embroidered with figures of mythic
animals, and with exquisite designs, were not less famous for the beauty
of their texture and workmanship, than for the richness and variety of
their colours.
Babylon reached her zenith of power and magnificence immediately after
the final destruction of Nineveh. Under Nebuchadnezzar she succeeded to
the proud position so long held by her rival. The bounds of the city
were extended; buildings of extraordinary size and magnificence were
erected, and her victorious armies conquered Syria and Palestine, and
penetrated into Egypt. But her greatness as an independent State was
short-lived. The Medians and Persians, who had been the principal agents
in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire, now united under one king,
turned their warlike strength against their former ally Babylon; and
scarcely half a century had elapsed from the fall of Nineveh, when
“Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Median
took the kingdom.”
From that time Babylonia sank into a province of Persia—still retaining,
however, much of its former power and trade; and, as we learn from the
rock-inscriptions of Bisutun, as well as from ancient authors,
struggling more than once to regain its independence. When Alexander the
Great overthrew the Persian empire, Babylon opened its gates to him, and
he deemed the city worthy to become the capital of his mighty empire.
The early death of the conqueror, however, without leaving a successor,
prevented his splendid projects being carried into execution; and the
last blow to the prosperity of Babylon was given by Seleucus, when he
laid the foundations of his new capital (Seleucia) on the banks of the
Tigris (B.C. 322). Nevertheless, a considerable population seems to have
lingered in the fast-decaying city; for, five centuries afterwards, we
find the Parthian king Evemerus sending numerous families from Babylon
into Media, to be sold as slaves, and burning many great and beautiful
edifices which still remained standing. At the time of the Arab
invasion, in the beginning of the seventh century, the ancient cities of
Babylon were “a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.” Amidst the
heaps that marked the site of Babylon herself, there rose the small town
of Hillah, which, with its falling gateway, mean bazaar, and a few
half-ruined mosques, still exists, as if in mockery of the power and
splendour which in long-departed ages had there its abode.
Moral corruption was the ruin of Babylon, as of all the great empires of
the old world. Her vast trade, which rendered Babylon the
gathering-place of men from all parts of the known world, which poured
wealth into her coffers, and furnished her with luxuries of all kinds,
had the effect of producing an effeminacy and general profligacy, which
mainly contributed to her fall. There is no necessary connection between
prosperity and corruption; nevertheless, in nations as in individuals,
it is generally found that a long lease of prosperity—especially if
conjoined with much wealth, which at once allows of indolence and
invites to self-indulgence—dwarfs the generous and lofty feelings of our
nature, and renders both men and nations selfish in feeling, and
absorbed in the material comforts and pleasures of life. In Babylon this
tendency was aggravated, at least in later times, by the corruptions of
its religion, promoted by a hierarchy which, in course of time, became
at once too rich and too powerful for its own purity, and too profligate
not to insure the corruption of the people. The description given by
Herodotus of the manners of the people, when under the dominion of the
Persian kings, is sufficient to explain the cause of Babylon’s speedy
fall and ultimate ruin; and his account tallies perfectly with the
denunciations of the city’s wickedness by the prophets of Israel. Her
inhabitants, as generally happens, along with their moral integrity lost
their warlike character. When the Persians broke into the city, they
were revelling in debauchery and lust; and when the Macedonian conqueror
appeared at their gates, they received with indifference the yoke of a
new master.
“It is not difficult,” says Mr Layard, “to account for the rapid decay
of the country around Babylon. As the inhabitants deserted the city,”
and a foreign yoke pressed heavily upon them, “the canals were
neglected; and when once those great sources of fertility were choked
up, the plains became a wilderness. Upon the waters conveyed by their
channels to the innermost parts of Mesopotamia, depended not only the
harvests, the gardens, and the palm-groves, but the very existence of
the numerous towns and villages far removed from the river-banks.” Built
of unbaked bricks, “they soon turned to mere heaps of earth and rubbish.
Vegetation ceased; and the plains, parched by the burning heat of the
sun, were ere long once more a vast arid waste.”
So flourished and so fell Nineveh and Babylon. For fourteen centuries
the Assyrian empire, of which they formed the pillars, was the leading
Power in Western Asia,—overlapping to the south with that of Egypt, with
which it was sometimes at peace, sometimes at war, at first a dependent
and latterly victorious. We think the character of these two old empires
may be symbolised by their different styles of architecture,—Egypt built
with granite, and Assyria with alabaster and painted brick. It was not
to geographical position that the difference was owing. The valley of
the Nile and that of the Euphrates are much alike. Both are alluvial in
their character, and possess but little stone; and with both nations,
accordingly, brick was the ordinary material employed in building. In
both countries quarries of granite and other stone existed in the
mountains which bordered the valley-land, with rivers upon which the
stone might be floated down on rafts. But the one nation used this
material, and the other did not. The Egyptians, indomitable in science,
and animated by grander views than their Asiatic rivals, sent several
hundred miles for intractable but everlasting granite, whereon to design
their sculptures and inscriptions, and with which to rear those vast and
countless edifices which seem destined to perpetuate the fame and
history of their founders to the end of time. The Assyrians, fonder of
luxury than of fame, more desirous of display than of enduring strength,
contented themselves with materials which they could get without
trouble, but ornamenting the brick with colours, or coating it with
slabs of soft alabaster, which they found protruding from the ground
beneath their feet. The architecture of Egypt was grand and strong—that
of Assyria was vast and showy. Egyptian sculpture was angular, and
strove to be correct,—that of Assyria was round and florid. Although we
know as yet but little of the arts and customs of life among the
Assyrians, we may confidently conjecture that they were left
comparatively unshackled by rule, and at the sway of individual impulse;
whereas in Egypt rule and system pervaded everything, alike in art and
in society.
Of all the empires of the first period of the world, the Assyrian is the
one whose history and civilisation most closely connect themselves with
the subsequent destinies of mankind. India and China were isolated
empires, each developing a civilisation for itself, independent of and
wholly uninfluencing the rest of the world. Egypt was less so; but it
also, secluded in position and unproselytising in spirit, stands apart
from the community of nations, and may be studied like an isolated
statue placed in a niche. With Assyria, however, the case is far
otherwise. Its influence, extending for centuries over Western and
Southern Asia—from the frontiers of Affghanistan to the Levant, from the
Persian Gulf to the shores of the Ægean Sea—was potent in modifying a
vast population, destined to give birth to many civilised States. From
its loins proceeded the empire of Persia,—which was, in fact, in all
respects only a modification of the empire which it supplanted; while
these two, by their great influence over all western Asia, including the
Greek settlements of Ionia, must have affected in no slight degree the
Hellenic mind—especially from the period when Alexander by his conquests
drew Greece bodily into Asia. As yet, as we have said, the book of
Assyrian history and civilisation is only beginning to be unrolled; but
there are already in the possession of the literati of Europe written
cylinders and inscriptions which, when deciphered, will cast important
light upon matters as yet in the dark. Doubtless many more will be found
even in the ruins already opened,—only one of which, let it be noted,
has been thoroughly searched. Above all, ruins upon ruins are to be seen
scattered over the plains of Mesopotamia, which Mr Layard himself
describes as the evident remains of ancient cities, and which offer
ample scope for the labours of more than one generation of
investigators. We shall get at the truth at last. Years may roll by, and
still see but little progress made in the search;—but there, underneath,
lie the records of the past for which we seek, and earth will keep them
safe until we are ready to dig for them in earnest.