and fifty-eight pounds fix fhillings and eight-pence. It were to no purpofe to quote authors for farther inftances of this magnificence, which is known to a proverb, or to aim at a detail of the feveral products of their induftry; we would only add, that the Babylonians, as well as the Tyrians, had their purple, which they fent into the eaftern parts by way of traffic. This purple they had from a port called Apologus, near the Euphrates f; but as it is difputed whether the art of dying purple was their invention, or whether they had it from Tyre, we shall only obferve, that their country afforded the beft materials for dying, particularly alum, both natural and artificial ". This people was not only divided into two great tribes, Particular the Babylonians and Chaldæans, properly fo called, but tribes. into other fubordinate fects. Three of these are faid to have fed upon nothing but fifh, and thereby feem to have infringed a facred law among the Babylonians, who abftained from fish out of refpect to their great goddess. Thus we have feen that fome of the Egyptians worshipped the fish which others fed upon. However, as those tribes lived in the fens, where no corn grew, it may not have been upon a religious principle, but out of neceffity, that they departed from the practice of their countrymen. Their fifh they dried in the fun, and made them into paste, having no other means to fupply the want of bread. Something yet more extraordinary we are told of the inhabitants of Borfippa, where the bats being much larger than in other places, they ufed to falt them for food'; but whether this practice proceeded from fuperftition, or want, is uncertain; though we can hardly believe it was owing to the latter, in fo plentiful a country. We do not find the trade of this ancient people any Commerce. where profeffedly treated of; but that it must have been very confiderable, is not in the leaft to be doubted, efpecially when Babylon was in the meridian of her glory. Whofoever contemplates the fplendor of this monarchy, the commodious fituation of the country in general, and of its capital in particular, cannot doubt but commerce muft here have flourished to a very eminent degree. Babylon was fituated, as it were, in the very midst of the old world; and, by means of the two great rivers, the d Plin. Hift. Natur. lib. viii. cap. 48. See Arbuth. of Ant. Coins, Weights, and Measures, p. 142. e Arrian. Peripl. Mar. Eryth. in Minor. Hudfon. vol. ii. p. 20, 21. f Idem. ibid., Bochart Phaleg. cap. vii. coll. 28. rodot, lib. i, cap. 200. h Vide eund. ibid. lib. xvi. p. 739. 1 Strab. Dd 3 g Vide 1 He Euphrates Euphrates and Tigris, had very eafy communication with the western and northern parts, as alfo with the eastern, by means of the Perfian gulph. As it was not only the feat of a potent monarchy, but also afforded many productions and manufactures of its own, to exchange with its neighbours, and lay within the reach of them all, it is not to be doubted, but that trade was as extenfive here as any where else. That the Babylonians had shipping of their own, and were confiderable, as navigators, cannot well be difputed, fince their city is ftyled by the prophet a City of Waters, and their extenfive commerce is defcribed in the book of Revelations. SECT. III. The Chronology of the Babylonians, from the firft Rife of the Monarchy to its Diffolution. WE may refer the reader back to what we have faid in the chronology of the Affyrians, to fatisfy himfelf concerning the chronology of this people; for they probably took rife in the fame perfon, namely, Pul, king of Affyria, and nearly at the fame period. But, not to anticipate what may be more properly infifted on hereafter in the courfe of this fection, we fhall proceed to distinguish the kingdom of Babylon from the kingdom of Affyria, and to exhibit, pursuant to our custom, a feries of the kings of Babylon, according to several authors. A Table of the Succeffions of the Babylonian Kings, according to Ptolemy's Aftronomical Canon, and the Ecclefiaftical Account. This table contains, on the one fide, a genuine and correct copy of Ptolemy's Aftronomical Canon (Y), and, on the other, a corruption of it. We fhall not here enquire into the differences between these two lifts, or the liberty the author of this ecclefiaftical account has taken with his original, which we may occafionally confider under the reigns of these kings. Syncellus, whence we have taken this ecclefiaftical computation, has, under the fame head, another, the authors of them being Africanus and Eufebius. We fhall therefore have little to do here; few arguments can be wanting, and, indeed, none can be neceffary to prove the firft rife and duration of the Babylonian empire, which is fo happily ascertained to our hands by Ptolemy. This canon takes date from the first day of the Egyptian month Thoth, at noon, of the year Nabonaf of the world 3257, of the flood 1602, before Chrift 747 far. The firft of the month Thoth answers the 26th of our February, which in that year fell on a Thursday. The kingdom of Babylon then took rife in the 24th year of Pul's appearance on this fide the Euphrates, which plainly fhews it to have been immediately of Affyrian origin. m Vide Can. Chron. Sæcul. xvii. (Y) This Canon was particularly rectified from a manufcript in the Bodleian library at Oxford, and fent by Dr. Overal, dean of St. Paul's, to Seth Calvifius, and first pub. D d 4 Babylon The ara of Babylon being then of Affyrian extraction, and confidered as a fifter kingdom with Affyria, we have nothing here to add to what we have already urged, except that we can fix the date of it with fomewhat more certainty than that of the Affyrian empire; which we could have no notice of till the first appearance of Pul in the west. It may begin then with us in the twenty-fourth year of Pul's appearance to the weftward of Euphrates, 1601 years after the flood, and 747 before Chrift; it ends 1810 years after the flood, and 538 before Chrift: fo that its whole duration was no more than 209 years; to which, if we add the 23 years of Pul before the date of this canon, we fhall have a number not exceeding 232, for the years of the duration of the great Affyrian family, whether at Nineveh or at Babylon, with refpect to what we know of the rife of these kingdoms. SECT. IV. The Hiftory of the Babylonians. EFORE we enter upon the hiftory of this people, when their monarchy became extenfive, and their fovereigns famous for their conquefts, we fhall take a retrofpect of their first establishment as a kingdom, which is faid to have exifted before the Deluge. Having in a former part of the work exhibited the Antediluvian princes of this country, and mentioned Nimrod as the founder of the monarchy; we fhall lay before the reader a list of his immediate fucceffors, as we find them recorded by Eufebius and Syncellus. Table of the Kings of Babylon, the immediate Succeffors of By the perfect agreement of thefe lifts it is manifeft that Syncellus has faithfully copied Eufebius. To this dynafty, which continued only two hundred and twentyfour years, we are told, fucceeded a race of fix Arabian kings, who governed Babylon two hundred and fixteen, making together four hundred and forty years; and this Arabian dynafty was followed by the Affyrian, commencing with the reign of Belus, and ending with that of Sardanapalus. The Affyrians must then have erected. their monarchy long before the call of Abraham, and have continued at least a thousand years after him; an opinion we cannot subscribe to. The Arabian princes were, according to Scripture, of the country of Elam, or Perfia; for under Chederlaomer, king of Elam, we find Amraphel, king of Shinar (the undoubted Babylonia), making war upon the Canaanites; and probably at the time when Abraham refcued Lot, who had been carried away captive. There being no certain accounts of any tranfactions relating to the first kingdom of Babylon, except that, about the year 1921 before the Chriftian æra, it was governed by a king called Amraphel; we fhall proceed to the hiftory of the Babylonian monarchs; after relating what is fabulously reported of that king, who, according to fome prophane authors, must be accounted the firft prince who fat on the Babylonian throne; and whom we find the inftigator of the rebellion in Affyria, which ended with the death of Sardanapalus, and the diffolution of that monarchy. He is by fome called Belefis, and by others Nanybyrus"; and both affect to give us an extraordinary account of him, which will be almost all we fhall be able, in thefe authors, to find concerning the Babylonian empire, till it was brought to an end. Under the name of Belefis, the first prince is reprefented as a crafty and mean-fpirited knave, and, at the fame time, as nothing less than a hero. It is faid he was base enough to circumvent Arbaces, his colleague and friend, in the most shameful manner, by pretending a vow he had, in the midst of the war, made to his god Belus, "That, if the fuccefs was the event of it, and the palace of Sardanapalus was confumed, he would be at the charge and trouble of removing the afhes, that were left, to Babylon, and there heap them up into a mount near the temple of his god, to ftand as a monument to all who fhould navigate Nicol, Damafc. in Excerpt. Valef. p. 424. the The flory of Belefus or |