Guarding the portals of the palaces stood the winged bulls and lions, in pairs. They were thought to ward off demons and to inspire awe in those who beheld them. They were formed with five legs, in order that the spectator, whether he viewed them from the front or side, might still see the usual four. Speaking of these great stone creatures, Layard wrote: "I used to contemplate for hours these mysterious emblems, and muse over their intent and history. What more noble forms could have ushered the people into the temple of their gods? What more sublime images could have been borrowed from nature by men who sought, unaided by the light of revealed religion, to embody their conception of the wisdom, power and ubiquity of a Supreme Being? They could find no better type of intellect and knowledge than the head of a man; of strength, than the body of a lion; of rapidity of motion than the wings of a bird. These winged human-headed lions were not idle creations, the offspring of mere fancy; their meaning was written upon them. They had awed and instructed races which flourished three thousand years ago. Through the portals which they guarded, kings, priests, and warriors had borne sacrifices to their altars long before the wisdom of the East had penetrated to Greece, and furnished its mythology with symbols long recognized by the Assyrian votaries. "They may have been buried, and their existence may have been unknown before the foundation of the Eternal City. For twenty-five centuries they had been hidden from the eye of man, and they now stood forth once more in their ancient majesty. But how changed was the scene around them! The luxury and civilization of a mighty nation had given place to the wretchedness and ignorance of a few half-barbarous tribes. The wealth of temples and the riches of the great cities had been succeeded by ruins and shapeless heaps of earth. Above the spacious hall in which they stood the plow had passed and the corn now waved. Egypt has monuments no less ancient and no less wonderful, but they have stood forth for ages to testify her early power and renown, while these before me had but now appeared to bear witness, in the words of the prophet, that once 'the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches.... Now is Nineveh desolate and dry like a wilderness, and flocks lie down in the midst of her.'" Babylon was probably the most beautiful city of antiquity. Nebuchadnezzar II. surrounded the capital with walls of such solidity that it is supposed the city could never have been taken by assault. His father began the fortifications, and it was left for the greatest Babylonian king to complete them and make them even more secure. Between the outer and inner walls, wide distances were left. Here trees and gardens were planted. This space was provided for nearby villagers in times of siege, and it was also intended that here fields of grain might be grown to sustain the population under such trying conditions.