SPECIAL AUTHORITIES. I. BIBLICAL AUTHORITIES : (1) 2 Kings xxv. 27-30. (2) Isaiah xiii.; xiv. 1-23; xxi. 1-10; xl.-lxvi. (3) Jeremiah xxix.; xxxiv.; xxxix. 11-14; 1.; li.; lii. (4) Lamentations v. (5) Ezekiel xxiv.-xlviii. (6) Psalms xlii.; xliii. ; xliv. (?); lxxiv. (?); lxxxix. (?) ; lxxix. (?); lxxxviii. (?); cii.; cxxxvii. (In part) li. 18, 19; xiv. 6; liii. 6: lxix. 35, 36. (7) Daniel i.-xii., and (from the LXX.) the History of Susanna in c. i.; the Song of the Three Children in c. iii.; and the History of Bel and the Dragon in c. xii. (See Note to Lecture XLII.) (8) Tobit, Baruch, and the Epistle of Jeremiah. (B.c. 360 ?) II. JEWISH TRADITIONS: Josephus, Ant. x. 8-9, 7; 10, 11; Chronicon Paschale, p. 159 (Fabricius; Codex Pseudep., p. 1124); Seder Olam, c. 28, 29. III. CONTEMPORARY MONUMENTS: Inscriptions (given in Rawlinson's Herodotus, ii. p. 585; and in IV. HEATHEN TRADITIONS : (1) Herodotus, B.C. 450; i. 108-130, 200. (3) Xenophon (Cyropædia) B.C. 370. (4) Megasthenes, B.C. 300; Jos. Ant. x. 11, c. Ap. i. 20. (5) Berosus, B.c. 260, in Jos. Ant. x. 11, c. Ap. i. 19. (6) Abydenus (?) Eus. Præp. Ev. ix. 41. (7) Strabo, (xvi.) B.C. 60-A.D. 18. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. LECTURE XLI. THE EXILES. WHEN the race of Israel found itself in Chaldæa, it entered once more on the great theatre of the world, which it had quitted on its Exodus out of the valley of the Nile, and from which for a thousand years, with the exception of the reign of Solomon, it had been secluded among the hills of Palestine. 3 I. Unlike Egypt,2 which still preserves to us the likeness of Babylon. the scenes and sights which met the eye of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, Babylon has more totally disappeared than any other of the great Powers which once ruled the earth. Not a single architectural monument-only one single sculpture —remains of the glory of the Chaldees' excellency.' Even the natural features are so transformed as to be hardly recognisable. But by a singular compensation its appearance has been recorded more exactly than any of the contemporary capitals with which it might have been compared. Of Thebes, 'Lecture XXVI. ? Lecture IV. For the description of Babylon I refer to the obvious sources of Herodotus and Ctesias (in Diodorus Siculus, ii. 8), Rich's Memoir on Babylon, Ainsworth's Researches in Assyria, Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, Raw- Its situation. Memphis, Nineveh, Susa, no eyewitness has left us a plan or picture. But Babylon was seen and described, not indeed in its full splendour, but still in its entirety, by the most inquisitive traveller of antiquity within one century from the time when the Israelites were within its walls, and his accounts are corrected or confirmed by visitors who saw it yet again fifty years later, when the huge skeleton, though gradually falling to pieces, was distinctly visible. Of all the seats of Empire-of all the cities that the pride or power of man has built on the surface of the globe -Babylon was the greatest. Its greatness, as it was originated, so in large measure it was secured, by its natural position. Its founders took advantage of the huge spur of tertiary rock which projects itself from the long inclined plane of the Syrian desert into the alluvial basin of Mesopotamia, thus furnishing a dry and solid platform on which a flourishing city might rest, whilst it was defended on the south by the vast morass or lake, if not estuary, extending in that remote period from the Persian Gulf. On this vantageground it stood, exactly crossing the line of traffic between the Mediterranean coasts and the Iranian mountains; just also on that point where the Euphrates, sinking into a deeper bed, changes from a vast expanse into a manageable river, not wider than the Thames of our own metropolis; where, also, out of the deep rich alluvial clay 1 it was easy to dig the bricks which from its earliest date supplied the material for its immense buildings, cemented by the bitumen which from that same early date came floating down the river from the springs in its upper course. Babylon was the most majestic of that class of cities which belong almost exclusively to the primeval history of mankind; the cities,' as they are called Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, 526, 529. 2 Gen. xi. 3. Chemar: the word translated slime' in the A. V.; |