ut
mainly--almost entirely--by colored representations upon the
brickwork.

Among the adjuncts of the principal palace at Babylon was the remarkable
construction known to the Greeks and Romans as "the Hanging Garden." The
accounts which, Diodorus, Strabo, and Q. Curtius give of this structure
are not perhaps altogether trustworthy; still, it is probable that they
are in the main at least founded on fact. We may safely believe that a
lofty structure was raised at Babylon on several tiers of arches, which
supported at the top a mass of earth, wherein grew, not merely flowers
and shrubs, but trees of a considerable size. The Assyrians had been in
the habit of erecting structures of a somewhat similar kind, artificial
elevations to support a growth of trees and shrubs; but they were
content to place their garden at the summit of a single row of pillars
or arches, and thus to give it a very moderate height. At Babylon the
object was to produce an artificial imitation of a mountain. For this
purpose several tiers of arches were necessary; and these appear to have
been constructed in the manner of a Roman amphitheatre, one directly
over another so that the outer wall formed from summit to base a single
perpendicular line. Of the height of the structure various accounts are
given, while no writer reports the number of the tiers of arches. Hence
there are no sufficient data for a reconstruction of the edifice.

Of the walls and bridge of Babylon, and of the ordinary houses of the
people, little more is known than has been already reported in the
general description of the capital. It does not appear that they
possessed any very great architectural merit. Some skill was shown in
constructing the piers of the bridge, which presented an angle to the
current and then a curved line, along which the water slid gently.
[PLATE XV., Fig. 3.] The loftiness of the houses, which were of three or
four stories, is certainly surprising, since Oriental houses have very
rarely more than two stories. Their construction, however, seems to have
been rude; and the pillars especially--posts of palm, surrounded
with wisps of rushes, and then plastered and painted--indicate a low
condition of taste and a poor and coarse style of domestic architecture.

The material used by the Babylonians in their constructions seems
to have been almost entirely brick. Like the early Chaldaeans, they
employed bricks of two kinds, both the ruder sun-dried sort, and th