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So he took upon him the management of public affairs, and of the kingdom which had been kept for him by one that was the principal of the Chaldeans, and he received the entire dominions of his father, and appointed, that when the captives came, they should be placed as colonies, in the most proper places of Babylonia; but then he adorned the temple of Belus, and the rest of the temples, in a magnificent manner, with the spoils he had taken in the war.
King Merolchazzar ran over in his mind the muster-roll of the gods of Oom. There were sixty-seven of them, but Gowf was not of their number. "It is a strange religion," he murmured. "A strange religion, indeed. But, by Belus, distinctly attractive. I have an idea that Oom could do with a religion like that. It has a zip to it. A sort of fascination, if you know what I mean.
The cleaving of the woman Thalatth in twain, and the beheading of Belus, are embellishments of this latter character; they are plainly and evidently mythological; nor can we suppose them to have been at any time regarded as facts. The existence of the monsters, on the other hand, may well have been an actual belief.
In the case of the great temple of Belus at Babylon, the enclosure is said to have been a square of two stades each way, or, in other words, to have contained an area of thirty acres. The temple itself ordinarily consisted of two parts.
He knew that his safety was based on the confidence and friendship of his people, and he was determined, if by his former professions he had unwisely magnified the God of Daniel, and thereby lost the confidence of his Chaldean subjects, to give them unmistakable proof that he still was a worshiper at the shrine of Belus.
Hath a tale of the name of Palamedes, son of Belus, haply reached thine ears, and of his glorious rumour and renown; whom under false evidence the Pelasgians, because he forbade the war, sent innocent to death by wicked witness; now they bewail him when he hath left the light; in his company, being near of blood, my father, poor as he was, sent me hither to arms from mine earliest years.
The largest of these mounds of bricks and rubbish is 2,110 feet in circumference, and 141 feet in height. Babylon, as is known, was one of the greatest cities of the world. With respect to its founder there are various opinions. Some say Ninus, others Belus, others Semiramis, etc. The city walls are described as having been 150 feet high, and twenty feet thick.
"The tomb of Belus," says that accurate and well-informed geographer, "is now destroyed." Strabo, like Diodorus, attributes the destruction of these buildings partly to time, partly to the avenging violence of the Persians, who, irritated by the never-ending revolts of Babylon, ruined the proudest and most famous of her temples as a punishment.
It contained a number of bronze statues, which the Greeks believed to represent the god Belus, and the sovereigns Ninus and Semiramis, together with their officers. The walls were covered with battle scenes and hunting scenes, vividly represented by means of bricks painted and enamelled.
They however confessed that they derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and Egyptian priests, while the priests of Thebes claimed to be the originators of exact astronomical observations. Diodorus asserts that the Chaldaeans used the Temple of Belus, in the centre of Babylon, for their survey of the heavens.
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