within itself, could not only move at a confiderable rate, but also wind and turn itself into various forms; that it lived to a great age, and, as it were, renewed its life with its coat every year; and that the acuteness of its fight might aptly enough qualify it to reprefent divine Providence, or God k. The Babylonians agreed with the Egyptians in most articles of religion, especially in the worfhip they paid to fishes, to the goat, and to the onion, which, as mean an object as it may feem, was adored by both nations'. Of their god Thurras, Thourias, or Mars, we have fpoken already; and refer the reader, for the other religious rites and ceremonies of this people, to what we have faid of the religion of the Moabites, Ammonites, Midianites, Canaanites, Syrians, Phoenicians, and Affyrians. We have a general view given us of their temples, idols, Their tem and priests, in the epiftle of Jeremiah. Their idols ples, idols, were of gold, of filver, and of wood; and carried about and priests. in proceffion. They were crowned, and cloathed in purple, and black with the fmoke of incenfe. Their temples were full of smoke and duft, raised by the numerous refort of votaries. The priests made fometimes free with the gold and filver prefented to their gods, and either kept it for themselves, or beftowed it upon lewd prostitutes, who were accounted facred. Whatever was offered a facrifice to their gods, they were wont to embezzle, and appropriate to themfelves; and clothe their wives and children with the garments that had been given to adorn their idols. In return for these spoils, they were fure to light up numbers of tapers and candles to their images, and to fit in the temples with their beards and heads close fhaven, uncovered, and with.garments rent and torn, crying out before their gods as for the lamenta tion of fome perfon deceased. The Babylonians having given rife to all the idolatries Human and fuperftitions that prevailed among the neighbouring victims. nations, we muft charge them with the horrible custom of facrificing human victims to appease or conciliate their deities. That this custom prevailed among most of those nations, is manifeft from the accounts we have given of them; and it is no lefs manifeft, that it took birth among the Babylonians, who communicated the reft of their fu * Vide Voff. de Idololatr. lib. ix. p. 233. Alexand. lib. vi. 1 Alexand. ab. perftitions perflitions to all their neighbours. This practice, however, grew fo fhocking to human nature, that it seems, in the later days, at the leaft, of the Babylonians, to have been confined to a particular fect or tribe. For the Sepharvites are faid, by way of diftinction from the other Babylonians, to "have burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sephar-. vaim"." That thefe Sepharvites were Babylonians, properly fo called, would be past all doubt, fhould we agree, with the most learned geographers, that their city was that of Sippara in Ptolemy. Be that as it will, there are traces of this ancient cruelty to be difcerned in the worship and rites of the Syrian, or rather Affyrian goddess at Hierapolis, to whom parents, without remorfe, facrificed their children, by throwing them down a precipice in her temple. We have already declared in the history of Egypt, what we know concerning the intent and meaning of this idolatry; and therefore fhall only add here, that, if the Babylonians, and others after them, in making gods of the fun, moon, or any other luminary, extended their view to the whole fyftem of nature in the worship they paid to their great deities, or, by them, meant the earth itself, the air, or any other element, or created being, the whole must be attributed to a kind of mistaken gratitude at first for benefits received, which at length degenerated into the moft ftupid idolatry. Thus much of idolatry; and lefs we could not have faid in this place, where the whole feems to centre, and where the whole, or at least great part of it, may be fixed to a chronological æra, which Their cuf may be of use to us hereafter, in speaking of thofe deities, or fome borrowed from them in climes far remote. toms. Sale of virgins. It is now time to speak of the customs of the Affyrians and Babylonians; and, of thefe, one of the chief feems to have been their method of difpofing of their young women in marriage. No man feems to have had a right to difpofe of his own daughters; but, as foon as they were fit to marry, they, with others, were exposed in fome public place appointed for the purpose, where, in the midst of a crowd of men, who attended upon these occafions, they were fold one by one. The most beautiful were firft put up, and delivered to the highest bidder. When all who were valuable for their charms were thus difpofed of, the money, that was raised by this fale, was applied in behalf of fome of them, to whom nature had น 2 Kings xvii. 31. not not been fo lavish of her exterior gifts. These were then offered to fuch as would take the leaft money with them; and the poorer fort, who valued money more than beauty, were as eager in underbidding, as the wealthy men had before been in overbidding each other for the fair. The confequence of this practice was, that their young women were all disposed of in marriage; the poorer fort of the men were obliged to give fecurity, that they would take those they had chofen, before they were in poffeffion of the money they had agreed to take with them. The Babylonians thought themselves polluted even by Purifica the use of matrimony; and therefore were not allowed to tion. touch any thing after it, till they had purified themselves by perfuming and washing their bodies a. Every Babylonian woman was once in her life-time Profitution bound to proffitute herself to a ftrange man at the temple to Venus. of Venus. They were crowned with knots and garlands, and ranged in long ranks before the temple, each rank being parted from the other by a line, that the men might conveniently pafs between them, and choose those they liked beft. They declared their choice by throwing money into the lap of the woman they most admired, and faying as they threw it, " I implore the goddess Mylitta för thee." The money, how little foever, was by no means to be refused, being accounted facred; nor had the woman the power of rejecting any man that accofted her in the form prefcribed; but he was abfolutely to retire with him without delay. Having thus fulfilled the law, and performed fome ceremonies in honour of the goddess, fhe returned home; and nothing could tempt her to grant the fame favours again to her new lover. Women of rank (for none were difpenfed with) might be conveyed to the appointed place in a covered vehicle, and remain in it, while their fervants waited their return at fome diftance. For five days together, every year, they celebrated a fef- Feftival of tival they called Sacca, or Sacea, during which the fer- Sacca. vants commanded their mafters, one of them being, for the time, conftituted chief over the house, and wearing a kind of royal garment which they called zogana o. Their manner of treating their fick was very extraor- Manner of dinary. Having no phyficians among them, it was their treating custom to expose them publicly in the moft frequented the fick, z Herodot. lib. i. cap. 196. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 745. a Herodot, ibid. cap. 198. Strabo ibid. b Herodot, cap. 199. Strabo, ibid, Berof, apud Athen. Deipnofoph. lib, xiv. p. 639. places, and buri als. Babylonians, their character. Their habit. places, that all passengers might fee them, and offer their advice, if they had any knowlege of the cafe, either from their own experience, or from the experience of others; nor was it lawful for any that paffed by to omit this office. Their dead they embalmed with honey and wax, and mourned for them much after the manner of the Egyptians P. The Babylonians were exceffively credulous, fuperftitious, and as lewd and debauched as a nation could be. Their credulity must appear from the high veneration they had for their Chaldæans, priefts, or jugglers; and their fuperftition appears from what we have faid of their religion. They were fo prone to idolatry, that we even find an inftance of their great Nebuchadnezzar's falling down before Daniel to worship him . Debauchery reigned among them without controul; their princes, on whom it was incumbent to restrain it, tranfgreffing all the bounds of decency and moderation. Their religion, as inculcated by their priests, together with the reverence paid to prostitutes, prove them to have been the moft fenfual and abandoned race that can be imagined. Parents and hufbands did not fcruple to expose for money their wives and children to the embraces of their guefts. Drunkards they are particularly faid to have been; and their women were admitted to their debaucheries, who upon these occafions, first appeared modeft and referved, till, putting off their cloaths by degrees, they at length appeared quite naked; and this indecency was practifed both by the married women and the maids, who thought it good breeding thus to display all their charms without reserve '. They feem to have affected pride and effeminacy in their drefs; their under garment was a linen veft, hanging down to their heels, over which they had another of woollen, and, over all, a white mantle or cloke. They wore their own hair; their heads were adorned with a tiara or mitre, and their bodies anointed all over with oil of fefame. Every individual wore a feal-ring on the finger, and in the hand a wrought staff, or fceptre, adorned at the head with fome particular enfign or figure, as an apple, or rofe, or lily, or eagle, or fome fuch emblem. On their feet they wore a kind of flippers. Of their attire fome traces are ftill to be found in the figures remaining at Perfepolis, as we fhall obferve hereafter. Dan. ii. P Herodot. lib. i. cap. 198. Strabo, lib. xvi. ibid. 46. Quint. Curt. lib. v. cap. 1. • Herodot, ubi supra, cap. 195. Strabo, ubi fupra, p. 745 The The Babylonians were famed for learning, particularly Learning the Chaldæans, who constituted their priests, philofophers, of the Chalaftronomers, aftrologers, and foothfayers; and, in refpect dees. of this pretended claim to learning and fupernatural knowlege, the Chaldees are diftinguished from the Babylonians, and are faid to have inhabited a region peculiar to themfelves, next to the Arabians, and the Perfian gulf. They were divided into feveral fects, as the Orcheni, the Borfipenni; and known by other names of diftinction, borrowed either from particular places, where different doctrines, on the fame points, were taught, or from particular perfons, who held doctrines peculiar to themselves. Many of their learned men were famous, and known by name among the Greeks, as Adena, Naburian, Sudin, and many others ". their learning We have already related their strange fable concerning Whether their first inftructor Oannes; and fhall now add, that by they had what is faid of his inventions, and useful communications to men, he may have been the Egyptian Ifis, or Ofiris, or both. Be that as it will, the report of Oannes's appear- Egyptians. ance in Chaldæa, and his coming out of the fea, has given birth to an opinion, that Ofiris and Oannes were at least contemporaries; and that the Babylonians had all their learning from the Egyptians, not much earlier than the days of Ammon, and Sefac, or Shifhak, whom Sir Ifaac Newton fuppofes to have been the fame with Sesoftris, or not long before the days of David and Solomon. To fupport this opinion, he exhibits the teftimony of feveral ancient authors, one of whom relates P, that the Egyptian Belus, the fon of Neptune and Libya, carried colonies from Egypt into Babylonia; and that, fettling upon the banks of the Euphrates, he inftituted priests with the fame privileges as they had in Egypt; and that these were called Chaldæans, and were to observe the stars after the manner of Egypt. Another fays, the Babylonian Belus was fo called from the Egyptian of that name, the son of Libya. In a word, he concludes, that when Sabacco, the Ethiopian invaded Egypt, multitudes of that country fled from him into Chaldæa, and carried with them their aftronomy, aftrology, architecture, and the form of their year, which they preferved in the æra of Nabonaffar; and, as a n Strab. Geograph. lib. xvi. p. 739. Kingd. amended, p. 210, 211, & feq. 1 Paufan, lib. iv. cap. 23. • Chron. of Anc. P Diod. Sic. lib. i. p. 17. farther |