APPENDIX. No. 1. (Referred to in p. 55 of Mr. Rich's first "Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon.") 66 THE siege of this important place was no easy enterprise. The walls of it were of a prodigious height, and appeared to be inaccessible, without mentioning the immense number of people within them for their defence. Besides, the city was stored with all sorts of provisions for twenty years. However, these difficulties did not discourage Cyrus from pursuing his design. But, despairing to take the place by storm or assault, he made them believe his design was to reduce it by famine. To which end he caused a line of circumvallation to be drawn quite round the city with a large and deep ditch; and, that his troops might not be over-fatigued, he divided his army into twelve bodies, and assigned each of them its month for guarding the trenches. The besieged, thinking themselves out of all danger, by reason of their ramparts and magazines, insulted Cyrus from the top of their walls, and laughed at all his attempts, and all the trouble he gave himself, as so much unprofitable labour. "As soon as Cyrus saw the ditch, which they had long worked upon, was finished, he began to think seriously upon the execution of his vast design, which as yet he had communicated to nobody. Providence soon furnished him with as fit an opportunity for this purpose as he could desire. He was informed that in the city, on such a day, a great festival was to be celebrated; and that the Babylonians, on occasion of that solemnity, were accustomed to pass the whole night in drinking and debauchery. 66 Cyrus, in the mean time, well informed of the confusion that was generally occasioned by this festival, both in the palace and the city, had posted a part of his troops on that side where the river entered the city, and another part on that side where it went out; and had commanded them to enter the city that very night, by marching along the channel of the river as soon as ever they found it fordable. Having given all necessary orders, and exhorted his officers to follow him, by representing to them that he marched under the conduct of the gods, in the evening he made them open the great receptacles, or ditches, on both sides the city, above and below, that the water might run into them. By this means the Euphrates was quickly emptied, and its channel became dry. Then the two forementioned bodies of troops, according to their orders, went into the channel, the one commanded by Gobryas, and the other by Gadatias, and advanced towards each other without meeting with any obstacle. The invisible guide, who had promised to open all the gates to Cyrus, made the general negligence and disorder of that riotous night subservient to his design, by leaving open the gates of brass, which were made to shut up the descents from the quays to the river, and which alone, if they had not been left open, were sufficient to have defeated the whole enterprise. Thus did these two bodies of troops penetrate into the very heart of the city without any opposition, and, meeting together at the royal palace, according to their agreement, surprised the guards and cut them to pieces. Some of the company that were within the palace, opening the doors to hear what noise it was they heard without, the soldiers rushed in, and quickly made themselves masters of it; and, meeting the king, who came up to them, sword-in-hand, at the head of those that were in the way to succour him, they killed him, and put all those that attended him to the sword. The first thing the conquerors did afterwards was to thank the gods for having at last punished that impious king. These words are Xenophon's, and are very worthy of attention, as they so perfectly agree with what the Scriptures have recorded of the impious Belshazzar. "In the time of Alexander the Great the river had quitted its ordinary channel, by reason of the outlets and canals which Cyrus had made, and of which we have already given an account. These outlets, being badly stopped up, had occasioned a great inundation in the country. Alexander, designing to fix the seat of his empire at Babylon, projected the bringing back of the Euphrates into its natural and former channel, and had actually set his men to work. But the Almighty, who watched over the fulfilling of His prophecy, and who had declared he would destroy even to the very remains and footsteps of Babylon (I will cut off from Babylon the name and remnant' * ), defeated this enterprise by the death of Alexander, which happened soon after.” ROLLIN'S Ancient History, vol. ii. No. 2. (Referred to in p. 55 of the first Memoir.) "HE (Alexander) had, moreover, a navy of ships at Babylon, as Aristobulus tells us, which were partly brought from the Persian Sea by the river Euphrates, and partly *Isaiah xiv. 22. from Phoenicia. Those which arrived from Phoenicia were two quinqueremes, three quadriremes, twelve triremes, and thirty galleys of thirty oars apiece. These were taken to pieces in Phoenicia, and thence conveyed overland to Thapsacus, upon the river Euphrates, where, being again joined, they were carried down the river to Babylon. The same author also tells us that Alexander had ordered cypress-trees to be cut in that province for building several other ships, they growing there in great plenty:* but forasmuch as other naval stores were wanting, which these parts afforded not, he was supplied with them by the purplefishers, and other sea-faring men, belonging to Phoenicia and the coast thereabouts. He then dug a deep and capacious basin for a haven at Babylon, capable of containing a thousand sail of long galleys, and built houses for all manner of naval stores adjoining thereto." ARRIAN'S Hist. of Alexander's Expedition, (ROOKE's Trans.) p. 164. "In the mean time, while they were busied in preparing triremes and digging the basin at Babylon, Alexander sailed down the Euphrates to the canal called Pallacopas, which is distant from Babylon about eight hundred furlongs. Now Pallacopas is no river arising from fountains, but a canal drawn from the Euphrates. For that river, having its rise among the mountains of Armenia, during the whole winter season is easily confined in its own channel, its waters being then low because the rains turn to snow; but in the spring, and especially about the summer solstice, the snows melt, and it swells to a prodigious height, and, overflowing all its banks, waters the Assyrian fields on * None are found there in the present day.-ED. each side; and would certainly drown the whole country unless it discharged a vast quantity of its waters through Pallacopas into the lakes and marshes, and thence along the confines of Arabia into a fenny country; whence, through sundry secret and subterraneous passages, it finds a way to the sea. When the snows are melted and the stock of water thence arising exhausted, which usually happens about the setting of the Pleiades, the Euphrates begins to contract itself; yet, nevertheless, still the greatest part of the stream runs through Pallacopas into the marshy countries, and thence into the sea. Unless, therefore, the mouth of this canal called Pallacopas were dammed up, and the stream of the river diverted into its proper channel, Euphrates would be so exhausted of its waters as not to afford enough to overflow the Assyrian fields on each side. Wherefore the governor of Babylon had at a vast expense, and with immense labour, obstructed that outlet of the river; which was the more difficult to perform, because the ground thereabouts was light and oozy, and afforded the water an easy passage through, insomuch that ten thousand men were employed there whole months before they could finish the work. Alexander, coming to the knowledge of this, was resolved to do something for the benefit of the Assyrians; whereupon he determined to dam up that huge flux of water, out of Euphrates into Pallacopas, in a much more effectual manner than they had already done; and when he had gone about thirty furlongs from the mouth of the canal, he found the earth rocky, which, if he proceeded to cut through, and continued it to the ancient channel of Pallacopas, the firmness of the earth would not only hinder the water from soaking through and wasting, but also its outlet at the time of the overflow would be rendered much more easy and commodious. On this accoun. Alexander sailed down the river Euphrates to the mouth |