stories is a gradual
stepped incline about seven feet in perpendicular height, which may
however, be accidental, and arise from the destruction of the upper part of
the lower story."

[461] See TAYLOR, _Journal_, &c., pp. 264-5.

[462] LOFTUS, _Travels_, p. 130. It was the same with the _Observatory_ at
Khorsabad.

[463] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 495.

[464] The authorities made use of by Strabo for his description of Babylon,
all lived in the time of Alexander and his successors; no one of them could
have seen the temple intact and measured its height. Founded upon tradition
or upon the inspection of the remains, the figure given by the geographer
can only be approximate. I should think it is probably an exaggeration.

[465] See PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii, plate 37.

[466] DIODORUS, ii, 9, 5.

[467] These courts must have been at certain times of the day the meeting
place of large numbers of the population, like the courtyards of a modern
mosque. Shops in which religious emblems and other _objets-de-piete_ were
sold would stand about them, just as in the present day the traveller finds
a regular fair in the courtyard of the mosque _Meshed-Ali_. Among the
commodities that change hands in such places, white doves are very common
(LOFTUS, _Travels_, p. 53). In this perhaps, we may recognize the survival
of a pagan rite, the sacrifice of a dove to the Babylonian Istar, the
Phoenician Astarte, and the Grecian Aphrodite. It was in the courtyards of
one of these temples that those sacred prostitutions of which HERODOTUS
speaks, took place (i. 199). The great extent of the inclosures is readily
explained by the crowds they were then required to accommodate.

[468] "I undertook in Bit-Saggatu," says the king, "the restoration of the
chamber of Merodach; I gave to its cupola the form of a lily, and I covered
it with chiselled gold, so that it shone like the day," London inscription,
translated by M. Fr. LENORMANT, in his _Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. pp.
228-229. See also a text of Philostratus in his life of _Apollonius of
Tyana_, (i. 25). The sophist who seems to have founded his description of
Babylon on good information, speaks of a "great brick edifice plated with
bronze, which had a dome representing the firmament and shining with gold
and sapphires."

[469] The idea has also occurred to M. OPPERT of restricting the ramp to
two sides of the tower, to the exclusion of the others (_Expedition
scientifique_, vol. i.