The Ancient City of Babylon

This series has eight easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: The Largest and Most Magnificent City of the Ancient World.

Introduction
Before the Classical Era Babylon was the most famous of all of all of the ancient cities. Even after the rise of Athens and then Rome, Babylon remained as the home of the fabled Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the world. With roots going all the way back to 2200 BC it was also one of the oldest cities.

This selection is from The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World, Vol. 4 Babylon by George Rawlinson published in 1867. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

George Rawlinson (1812-1902) was an English scholar, historian, and Christian theologian.

Time: c 2200’s – 275 BC (when inhabitants transported to Seleucia)

Babylon, the capital of the Fourth Monarchy, was probably the largest and most magnificent city of the ancient world. A dim tradition current in the East gave, it is true, a greater extent, if not a greater splendor, to the metropolis of Assyria; but this tradition first appears in ages subsequent to the complete destruction of the more northern city; and it is contradicted by the testimony of facts. The walls of Nineveh have been completely traced, and indicate a city three miles in length, by less than a mile and a half in breadth, containing an area of about 1800 English acres. Of this area less than one tenth is occupied by ruins of any pretension. On the admitted site of Babylon striking masses of ruin cover a space considerably larger than that which at Nineveh constitutes the whole area of the town. Beyond this space in every direction, north, east, south and west, are detached mounds indicating the former existence of edifices of some size, while the intermediate ground between these mounds and the main ruins shows distinct traces of its having been built upon in former days.

Of the actual size of the town, modern research gives us no clear and definite notion. One explorer only has come away from the country with an idea that the general position of the detached mounds, by which the plain around Hillah is dotted, enables him to draw the lines of the ancient walls, and mark out the exact position of the city. But the very maps and plans which are put forward in support of this view show that it rests mainly on hypothesis; nor is complete confidence placed in the surveys on which the maps and plans have been constructed. The English surveys, which have been unfortunately lost, are said not to have placed the detached mounds in any such decided lines as M. Oppert believes them to occupy, and the general impression of the British officers who were employed on the service is that “no vestige of the walls of Babylon has been as yet discovered.”

For the size and plan of the city we are thus of necessity thrown back upon the reports of ancient authors. It is not pretended that such reports are in this, or in any other case, deserving of implicit credence. The ancient historians, even the more trustworthy of them, are in the habit of exaggerating in their numbers; and on such subjects as measurements they were apt to take on trust the declarations of their native guides, who would be sure to make over-statements. Still in this instance we have so many distinct authorities — eyewitnesses of the facts–and some of them belonging to times when scientific accuracy had begun to be appreciated, that we must be very in credulous if we do not accept their witness, so far as it is consentient, and not intrinsically very improbable.

According to Herodotus, an eye-witness, and the earliest authority on the subject the enceinte of Babylon was a square, 120 stades (about 14 miles) each way–the entire circuit of the wall being thus 56 miles, and the area enclosed within them falling little short of 200 square miles. Ctesias, also an eyewitness, and the next writer on the subject, reduced the circuit of the walls to 360 stades, or 41 miles, and made the area consequently little more than 100 square miles. These two estimates are respectively the greatest and the least that have come down to us. The historians of Alexander, while conforming nearly to the statements of Ctesias, a little enlarge his dimensions, making the circuit 365, 368, or 385 stades. The differences here are inconsiderable; and it seems to be established, on a weight of testimony which we rarely possess in such a matter, that the walls of this great town were about forty miles in circumference, and enclosed an area as large as that of the Landgraviat of Hesse-Homburg.

It is difficult to suppose that the real city — the streets and squares — can at any time have occupied one half of this enormous area, A clear space, we are told, was left for a considerable distance inside the wall — like the pomaerium of the Romans — upon which no houses were allowed to be built. When houses began, they were far from being continuous; gardens, orchards, even fields, were interspersed among the buildings; and it was supposed that the inhabitants, when besieged, could grow sufficient corn for their own consumption within the walls. Still the whole area was laid out with straight streets, or perhaps one should say with roads (for the houses cannot have been continuous along them), which cut one another everywhere at right angles, like the streets of some German towns. The wall of the town was pierced with a hundred gates, twenty-five (we may suppose) in each face, and the roads led straight to these portals, the whole area being thus cut up into square blocks. The houses were in general lofty, being three or even four stories high. They are said to have had vaulted roofs, which were not protected externally with any tiling, since the climate was so dry as to render such a protection unnecessary. The beams used in the houses were of palm-wood, all other timber being scarce in the country; and such pillars as the houses could boast were of the same material. The construction of these last was very rude. Around posts of palm-wood were twisted wisps of rushes, which were covered with plaster, and then colored according the taste of the owner.

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