Babylon

Babylon, home of one of the ancient wonders of the world and center to many great empires. A chief portion of the Greek and Roman perception of Asia. It rightly occupied the imagination of ancient authors with its marvels and customs. Our main source is Herodotus who devoted a large portion of Book 1 of the Histories in discussion of the city of Babylon and the Babylonian people.

Architecture
Herodotus has a long passage detailing Babylon and the architecture of the city. Babylon lies on a great plain, the walls of 50 royal feet thick and 200 royal feet high. The wall has 100 gates, made all of bronze. The city is divided into two by the river Euphrates and as such, the wall reaches down to the river’s edge. This is the outer wall. There is a second wall inside that is narrower. In one section is the enclosed royal palace, in another there is the precinct of Zeus Belus that stretches 1,200 feet on all sides. There is a solid tower of about 600 feet in both length and breadth. There is a large temple that is on top of the eight towers stacked together in which there is a well-decked couch and a golden table.

Religion
Religious practices of the Babylonians. The God is said to reside in the temple mentioned above and a Babylonian woman placed in the temple refrains from sex with all men. The prophetess in Lycia does the same thing at the same time. There is also a great statue of seated Zeus inside, the throne and footstool made of gold. The altar outside is made of gold with another large altar below. There mature cattle are sacrificed whilst new-borns are sacrificed on the golden altar. The Chaldean dedicate 1,000 talents worth of frankincense each year to the god.

Every local woman is to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and has to have sex with a strange man once during her lifetime. Most sit in the sacred precinct with a corded crown on their heads. She cannot return home until a stranger tossed his money into her lap. The stranger must say “I summon you in the name of Mylitta.” She cannot refuse him once he has put money in her lap and done that.

Famous Babylonian Leaders
Mention of two female leaders of Babylon and their deeds. The first is Semiramis who built the levees along the river. Nitocritis was the second. She built many monuments, defended Babylon from the Median Empire. To do this, she dug trenches above the Euphrates River so that it became extremely winding and built up the embankments on each of the river. She diverted the river again in the city from an old trench to a new one to allow easier movement in the city and with stone left over from the excavation built bridges by having stone logs placed across the bricks and they are removed at night to stop thievery. Once work was done, the river was allowed to return to the old trench. Her tomb was built over the most heavily trafficked gate of the city. She had inscribed on her tomb “If any future king of Babylon should be in dire need of funds, let him open my tomb and take whatever funds he needs. But if he opens when not in need, he will be the worse for it.” Darius grew infuriated that he decided to open it, in which there was no money and just her corpse.

Language
Themistocles is said to use Median language when he comes to Babylon, following the Battle of Salamis. This speech is not his native tongue, but he is "as bold as if he was standing on a speaker's platform in Athens".

Customs
Herodotus also accounts the many social and marital customs of the Babylonians alongside the architectural description. The King is fed by Babylon for four months, the other eight months are fed off the rest of his empire. A Babylonian satrap has access to 800 breeding studs and 16,000 mares, many Indian dogs it takes four large villages on the plain to feed them. Babylonia is cut by canals. It bears a lot of grain, 200 times the normal yield. They make oil from sesame. Boats in Babylon are round and made entirely of skins by Armenians by willow ribs and waterproof hides. The most common cargo is jars filled wine. Donkeys also ride the boats.

Once a year, all the girls of marriageable age are gathered and sold off in an auction. The most attractive go first, and as such can pay for the least attractive to be married off. No man can give his daughter to whomever he wanted or a girl to leave without first guaranteeing a marriage contract. Girls are set up as prostitute for those who lack a livelihood. Sick are brought to the marketplace so that those who suffered from the illness and know something who did tells them the remedies that worked for them.

Clothing
Babylonians wear a full-length linen tunic, a second wool tunic, and then a white mantel with shoes that resemble the felt shoes in Boeotia. Hair is worn long and bound in a turban.

In the imaginary picture, the Medes’ (centre of which is Babylon) royal insignia is a golden eagle on a shield. The king is on a golden throne decked out like a spotted peacock. Themistocles is shown in the court of the Median king.

Food
There are three tribes in Babylon that eat nothing but fish. They dry it, throw it into the mortar and grind it up before they either knead it into cakes or bake it into a bread.