fo that this province had Calachene to the north, the Tigris to the weft, Apolloniatis to the east, and Sittacene to the fouth. Stephanus and Tzetzes confound Adiabene with Mefopotamia. In this part of Affyria, and near, or upon the Tigris, ftood the famous city of Ninus, as the profane writers call it, or Nineveh, as it is called in Scripture. The extent and greatnefs of this city is fuificiently described by the prophet Jonah. Strabo allows it to have been much greater than Babylon *. Diodorus Siculus tells us, that it was four hundred and eighty ftadia in circumference, or forty-feven miles, and that it was furrounded with lofty walls and towers; the former being two hundred feet in height, and so very broad, that three chariots might drive on them abreast; and the latter two hundred feet in height and fifteen hundred in number'. That hiftorian was certainly miftaken, or rather his tranfcribers, in placing Nineveh on the Euphrates; fince all the other hiftorians, as well as geographers, who speak of that city, tell us, in exprefs terms, that it ftood on the Tigris. It was ruined by the Medes; for Strabo tells us exprefsly, that Ninus, upon the downfal of the Syrian, that is, the Affyrian empire, was utterly ruined". Salmafius finds fault with Ptolemy for reckoning it among the cities of Affyria that were still standing in his time. He might, in the like manner, have cenfured Tacitus and Ammianus; for they both speak of Ninus as still a city at the time they wrote. A new town was, no doubt, built out of the ruins of the ancient city, which bore the same name, as it happened to Troy, and other places without number. In Aturia, that is, in the part of Adiabene lying between the Tigris and the Lycus, was the town, or rather the village, of Gaugamela, as Arrian styles it, where Alexander gained a complete victory over Darius; but of this glory it was robbed by the neighbouring city of Arbela, the conqueror chufing that it should be rather named from a city of note than from an obfcure village. Arbela stood in the fame country, fix hundred ftadia east of Gaugamela. Ptolemy places it on the river Capros; but Strabo at an equal distance from that river and the Lycus, near Mount Nicatorius, fo called by Alexander from the above mentioned victory. It is called a village both by Diodorus Siculus and Curtius; but Arrian dignifies it

n Strab.

iTzetz. Lycoph. Alexandr. ad ver. 704 k Strabo, lib. xvi. Diod. Sic. lib. ii. cap. 3. m Ifid, Ptol. Strab. Plin. lib. vi. cap. 13. & Herodot. lib. i. cap. 193, & lib. ii. cap. 150. • Arrian, lib. vi. p. 399. p Id. ibid. Y 4

ibid.

with

with the name of a city 1. From this village, or city, the neighbouring country was called Arbelis and Arbelitis.

Apolloniatis lay east of Adiabene, and was fo called from its metropolis Apollonia, which is placed by Ptolemy between the rivers Gorgus and Silla. Both the country and the town are mentioned by Polybius', and Stephanus, who reckons Apollonia the twentieth town between Babylon and Sufa. Artemita, called by Strabo a city of great note, ftood in the fame province, five hundred ftadia eaft of Seleucia. It is mentioned by Tacitus, Ifidorus Characenus ", Stephanus, Pliny *, and Ptolemy. Ifidorus places it on the river Silla. Pliny was certainly miftaken in reckoning it among the towns of Mefopota mia. Both this city and Apollonia were, without all doubt, of Greek origin, as is manifest from their names. The other cities placed by Ptolemy in this tract were Charracharta, Thebura, and Arrapa; but we find no mention made of them by other writers.

Sittacene, or Sitacene, lay fouth of Apolloniatis, and had Sittace for its metropolis. Sittacene and Apolloniatis were, according to Strabo, but different names of one and the fame province; and Pliny extends the name of Sittacene to Arbelis and Palestine. There is some difagreement among authors concerning the fituation of the city of Sittacene. Ptolemy and Pliny place it at a great diftance from the Tigris; but Xenophon, who travelled all over that country, and had been himself at Sittacene, tells us in express terms, that the great and populous city Sittacene ftood only at the distance of fifteen ftadia from the Tigris. The other cities in this province are utterly unknown.

Chalonitis was the most foutherly province of all Affyria. In this diftrict ftood the cities of Chala and Ctefiphon. All we know of Chala is, that it gave name to the province. Ctefiphon ftood on the Tigris, a little below Seleucia, and on the oppofite bank. It became, in procefs of time, the metropolis of the Perfian empire, as we fhall fee in the fequel of this hiftory. Ptolemy mentions several other cities in this province, but none that deferve particular notice,

This country lay between the 33d and 39th degrees of north latitude, and must in its happy times have been a

land of plenty; but has, almost ever fince the fall of its empire, been decaying; a misfortune particularly incident to it, by the very nature of its fituation, which has, at all times, made it the feat of war between potent empires and nations. And it is now become a wilderness, a defert, excepting fome little spots that may be cultivated about the few and inconfiderable towns which ftand within its borders, so that there is but little to be faid of its productions and properties.

Among the rivers of Affyria, we may juftly reckon the Rivers. Tigris (A), not only because it bathed all the western skirts of this country, but also because all the other rivers of the kingdom fell into this; as alfo, because the great cities, fuch as Nineveh, Ctefiphon, and others, were fituated on its borders. The other rivers of lefs note were, the Lycus, the Caprus, and the Gorgus (B), at almost equal dif

× Rauwolf's Travels, part ii. chap. 9. Antiq. tom. ii. lib. iii. cap. 17.

(A) Said to have borrowed this name from the number of tigers on its banks; and the rather, as there are two other rivers in this country, the Lycus and Caprus, which feem to borrow their names from a cause of the fame nature, the one being denominated from a wolf, the other from a goat: others derive it from a Perfian word, fignifying an arrow; by this, and the former, importing it to be rapid and violent in its course. But this is contradicted by Pietro de la Valle, who fays it is a flower ftream than the Euphrates; and Thevenot seems to affign a reason why the Tigris fhould not be fo very fwift, faying, it is not only very crooked, and full of meanders, but also choaked up with iflands and great banks of ftone (1). Bochart derives it

y Vide Cellar. Geogr.

from its old Hebrew name Hid-
dekel; and the Arabs, at this
day, call it Dijlat; though the
prefent inhabitants name it
Hiddekel.

(B) These two rivers are
now called, or supposed to be
fo, the Great Zab and Little
Zab. According to Bochart
this latter name is corrupted
from Diaba, or derived from
the Hebrew Zeeb, which dif-
fer but in dialect. Thevenot
calls thefe rivers Zarb, but
fpeaks of but one, which he
faw fall into the Tigris: he
calls it a large river, makes it
above half as broad as the Ti-
gris, and obferves that is very
rapid, that its water is whitish,
and very cold; which he would
feemingly account for by its
falling from the mountains of
Curdistan, and being merely
fnow water (2).

(1) Vide Cellar. ubi fubra. Gregor. pofthum. p. 189. De la Valle's Travels. Thev. in his Travels, part ii. chap. 13.

(2) Travels to the Levant, part ii. chap, 13.

tances

tances from each other; fuppofed to have been all between the two cities of Ninus, or Nineveh, and Seleucia.

Concerning the natural and artificial rarities of this once famous country, we find nothing worthy of notice.

SECT. II.

Of the Antiquity, Government, Laws, Religion, Cuf toms, Learning, and Trade of the Affyrians.

Antiquity. ASSYRIA, which ftands the foremost in profane accounts, is in Scripture the second most ancient kingdom after Babel, or Babylon. It was founded by Afhur, and not by Nimrod, as the Ctefian fyftem imports; and was in the beginning a kingdom diftinct from Babylon, though in procefs of time they coalefced, in confequence of mutual conquefts. Afhur departed from the land of Shinar upon Nimrod's ufurpation, and built Nineveh and other cities, as Rehoboth, Cala, and Refen; in Nineveh he refided, and thus erected a new kingdom, which, borrowing its name, was called Afhur, or Affyria. We have nothing, therefore, to object against the antiquity of the Affyrian kingdom, even as delivered by Ctefias. But we must make a wide distinction between this fimple kingdom, and the grand monarchy which many ages afterwards bore the fame appellation.

Government.

Laws.

Deftitute as we are of fufficient authorities, we can fay nothing in particular of the government of this people, except what may be gathered from the conduct and deportment of their princes, in the very little we have of their history. That they constituted a small kingdom, under hereditary chiefs, for many ages, is not to be doubted; no more than that their government was very fimple, in conformity to what has been obferved and related of their neighbours the Syrians and Mefopotamians. When, in after-times, they rofe to the fublimity of empire, their government feems to have been truly defpotic, and the empire to have been hereditary.

We have nothing to build upon, or to fay in particular of their laws. They were in all likelihood few, depending upon the arbitrary will of the prince: for thofe emperors, affecting even divine honours, and fetting themfelves above all the gods of the people they vanquished,

z Genef. x. 10; II,

a

2 Kings xviii, 33, &c. fometimes

fometimes requiring, that none other under heaven should be worshipped but themselves, and even prefuming to pafs sentence on the whole world, by the word of their own mouths; it cannot be imagined there could be any fettled form of law for the government of this people.

We are alfo much in the dark as to their religion: in Religion general we know they were idolaters, and that they had their idols and temples. Nifroch is likely to have been their principal god, at leaft at one time; but Selden declares he knows nothing at all of him. Nergal was not properly, it seems, an Affyrian deity: Adramelech may perhaps be termed a god of this country, and is said to have been reprefented as a mule, or a peacock: Anamelech, in like manner, is faid to have been represented as a horfe, or a pheafant, or a quail; but thefe are all rabinical dreams. These two last are also supposed to have been the fame with Moloch.

Derceto, as the Greeks call her, was plainly an Assyrian deity, of an inferior order. The Affyrians, and Syrians, paid particular devotion to fishes, in memory, as we are told, of the goddefs Derceto, of Afcalon, who was wholly, or partly, metamorphofed into a creature of that fort; and they honoured Semiramis in the form of a dove, or pigeon, either because he was nurfed by these when exposed after her birth, or because they attended her at her death, when it is fabled, the was changed into a bird d.

&c.

In customs, arts, learning, and trade, they must cer- Their cuf tainly have differed but little, if at all, from the Babylo- toms, arts, nians; fo that we shall suspend what can be collected in relation thereto, till we come to treat of the Babylonian affairs, only referring the reader back to our account of the language of Syria, and the alphabet of the Syrian Their lancharacter, for the language and character of this people, guage and which we have declared to be the fame.

SECT. III.

Of the Affyrian Chronology, to the Fall of the Empire.

THE Babylonians, or Chaldees, are allowed to have had a regular body of genuine hiftory from the origin of things; but this Babylonian account has been long Judith iii. 8. • Selden de Diis Syris.

Diod. Sic. lib. ii.

alphabet.