BABYLON AND PERSIA

BABYLON THE GREAT. 22$ments, was Nebuchadrezzar's brother-in-law andnot formidable in himself, being as inferior to Kyax¬ares, as great men's sons usually are to their fathers ;yet the Babylonian never relaxed in his vigilance.Ever alive to the danger from the north, he soughtto avert it by works of fortification on a giganticscale, and skilfully combined them with works ofpublic utility and adornment.3. He first of all undertook to fortify Sippar, themost northern of Babylonian cities, exposed to be¬come a dangerous centre of operation in an invader'shand, and did so in a way which at the same timefurthered commerce and agriculture.With this viewhe not only had the half-choked-up canals of ancientkings cleaned out and their sluices and dams repairedand put into working order, but created a new sys¬tem of canals :four he cut across land, to unite theTigris and Euphrates, each wide and deep enoughto carry merchant ships, and branching into a net¬work of smaller canals and ditches for irrigating thefields.In order fully to control the increased massof waters which he thus obtained, he had a hugebasin or reservoir dug out near Sippar, on the leftbank of the Euphrates, some thirty-five miles in cir¬cumference and as many feet deep,* provided, ofcourse, with an elaborate and complete set ofhydraulic works, to fill or empty it as needed.Tocomplete the subjection of the mighty river, thecourse of its bed was slightly altered, being made towind in a sinuous line by means of excavations made* These are the figures given by Herodotus ; they are more mod¬erate and seem more probable than some given by later writers.Q