Round the new citadel of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar on the eastern bank, round the old, most sacred temple of the city, the temple of Merodach, rising on a broad basis in seven receding stories (I. 296), which Nebuchadnezzar was the first to complete, as we shall soon see, _i.e._ to raise it to its full height of about 600 feet--round these great buildings, on the same side of the river, the new city must have arisen, which, according to the statement of Berosus, Nebuchadnezzar added to the ancient Babylon. As this new city and its fortification date from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the permanent bridge over the Euphrates must also be the work of that king. This bridge Herodotus ascribes to Nitocris, queen of Babylon--by whom is meant Amyite, the consort of Nebuchadnezzar--while Ctesias represents it as being built by Semiramis, on the ground of the Medo-Persian songs which were inclined to ascribe everything to the founders of the extinct Assyria, but very little to the still existing Babylon.[714] Before there was a palace and city and city wall on the eastern bank, a permanent bridge was not merely not required and useless; it would have been a dangerous piece of folly for the city, which would simply have facilitated the approach to an enemy coming from the east. According to the description of the bridge which Diodorus has borrowed from Ctesias it crossed the Euphrates between the two citadels, "which lay on the river in order to overlook the whole city, and formed as it were the keys of the most important parts of it." It was of the length of five stades, and was supported by stone pillars, which stood at a distance of twelve feet from each other, and rested on an artificial foundation in the bed of the river. The stones of the pillars, in order to hold them together, were secured with clamps of iron, and the joints were filled up with lead. On the side which faced the stream the pillars formed sharp but rounded angles, which gradually extended to the width of the pillar, in order that the violence of the stream might be broken, and the rounded edge might moderate its force. The bed on the pillars was 30 feet in breadth and consisted of huge palm trunks and beams of cedar and cypress.[715] Herodotus says: "Any one who wished to cross from one side to the other had to go by ship. But as this was found to be troublesome, in my opinion, a remedy was discovered. The Euphrates was dried up by diverting all the water into the excavated basin; and nearly in the middle of the city a bridge was built of stones, which were clamped together with iron and lead, and at the same time the banks of the river so far as it flows through the city were cased with burnt bricks, and the descents from the small gates to the river were built up with similar bricks. In the day-time the beams of the bridge were let down so that the Babylonians could cross over; at night they were drawn up."[716]