At first sight it is strange that a city which was ancient in the days of Abraham should have no monuments older than those of a man who came very late in her history, and was in fact a sort of Louis XIV of Chaldaea; but there is an historical explanation of the fact. Babylon was utterly destroyed by Sennacherib of Assyria at about the time Rome was in building, it being the intention of that ruler that no man should dwell there more. This was his punishment for the series of rebellions against his authority, stirred up by that Merodach Baladan of Chaldaea, whose ambassadors make one transitory appearance in the Book of Kings. The awe which the whole world felt at this destruction of the most ancient and venerable of cities is reflected in the words of Isaiah: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods He hath broken unto the ground." [Illustration: CHAL. The home of the chartered brigand mentioned on p. 317. A deep gorge is interposed immediately beyond the village; and beyond the further hills lie the valleys of Lower Tkhuma and Salabekan.] Of course the king could not attain his end. Men simply would not abandon the "Gate of the Gods," the Mother of civilization and culture for four thousand years; and Esarhaddon, the successor of Sennacherib, had to give permission for the rebuilding. Still, nothing very magnificent was attempted, and thus, when Chaldaea rose to empire under Nebuchadnezzar, there was nothing ancient and venerable in her capital. The King had a _tabula rasa_ for his great building schemes. And what schemes these were! Really one cannot refuse sympathy to the words of pride recorded by the Prophet, when one sees even the ruins in their present state. "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?" Scarce a brick is found that does not bear his name. Rome's _Via Sacra_ at its grandest can hardly have rivalled Babylon's Processional Way--a road eighty feet wide from kerb to kerb, exclusive of the twenty foot pathways on either side; and this paved throughout with slabs of alabaster, a yard square and half a yard in thickness, bedded on layer after layer of brick laid in bitumen. And the setting of the road was in keeping. It was lined from end to end with sculptured bulls and griffins, and the great gate of Ishtar spans it midway in its length. It runs from the grand temple of Merodach in the south, out to the mount of Babil in the north; forming, as it were, the spinal cord of the whole city, and passing just under the walls of the royal Palace.