the father of all, Juno, the queen of heaven," and Rhea, the univerfal mother. The ftatue

of Jupiter appeared erect, and in a walking attitude; it was forty feet in height, and weighed a thousand Babylonian talents. The ftatue of Rhea alfo weighed the fame number of talents, but was fculptured fitting on a throne of maffy gold, with two lions standing before her, as guardians of the ftatue, accompanied with two huge ferpents in filver, that weighed each thirty talents. The ftatue of Juno was in an erect posture, and weighed eight hundred talents: her right hand grasped a ferpent by the head, and her left a golden fceptre, incrufted with gems. Before these three coloffal figures flood an altar of beaten gold, forty feet in length, fifteen in breadth, and of the weight of five hundred talents. On this altar stood two vaft flagons weighing each thirty talents; two cenfers for incenfe, probably kept continually burning, each weighing five hundred talents; and, finally, three veffels for the confecrated wine, of which the largest, that affigned to Jupiter, weighed three hundred talents, and thofe to Juno and Rhea fix hundred talents.* Such is the relation given

* Vide Diod. Sic. lib. ii. p. 98.

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by

by Diodorus of the ornamental decorations of this fuperb fane, and, though borrowed from Ctefias, may probably be, for the most part, true. It certainly is in unifon with the magnificent taste of the times, and might easily have been accomplished by the immense sums that flowed, in a golden inundation, into that capital from Arabia and all the adjoining provinces fubject to the crown of Affyria.

If this relation, however, fhould appear wholly incredible, let us appeal to the authority of Holy Writ for an account of the exhibition of Affyrian wealth, scarcely lefs furprising; and this difplay we find in the coloffal image of gold which Nebuchadnezzar, after the plunder of Jerufalem, and probably from the superb fpoils of its temple and royal palace, erected to his god Belus, that is, the Sun, whose ray matures the growing ore, the SUN equally adored with similar rites and by the fame appellation, in ancient Britain and ancient Babylon, in the extenfive plain of Dura. This ftatue, to form which was fo bafely prostituted the enormous aggregate of wealth heaped up by David and Solomon for a nobler purpose, and a far more refulgent deity, was fixty cubits in height, which there

fore

fore vaftly exceeds that erected to Jupiter Belus by Semiramis, fixty cubits being nearly equal to ninety feet; it was alfo fix cubits in breadth; and the whole was of beaten gold. Now Dr. Prideaux computes the weight in gold of the former ftatue, viz. one thousand talents, to be equal to three millions and a half sterling, and the value of that of Nebuchadnezzar rifes confequently in proportion to its additional height.* That author, fearful of the apparent exaggeration, would allow only forty cubits to the statue, and twenty for the pedestal; but this is contrary to the exprefs words of Scripture, and the dimenfions will not appear incredible to those who confider that this coloffus was probably intended as an exhibition of the hoarded wealth of the treasury of Babylon, and confifted of the golden fpoils of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, recently fubdued by this powerful and oftentatious monarch. The whole, or, at least, far the greater part, of this wealth, afterwards, at the conqueft of Babylon by Cyrus, fell into the hands of the Perfian fovereigns, who, transferring the feat of empire and its

* Prideaux's Connections, vol. i. p. 100.

accumulated treasures to Sufa, invite our steps to the new metropolis.

Although, as has been before observed, there are at present no mines of gold or filver open in Perfia, there are, according to Charden, evident remains of those that have been wrought in ancient times, and were either exhaufted, or stopt for want of timber; an article in which that country is, in many parts, miferably deficient, especially in the defert Carmania, where thofe remains are moft vifible. From its being so mountainous a region, as well as fo productive of fulphur and copper, in the neighbourhood of which gold is generally found, there can be no doubt of its ftill containing fuch mines, were a spirit of active industry set in motion to make the proper fearch; or, rather, were not the finews of that industry palfied by the iron hand of defpotism.

For an abundant fupply, however, of gold and filver, during the period that elapsed from Cyrus to the death of the last Darius, no internal resources were neceffary to the Perfians, fince the whole wealth of Egypt and Afia continued to flow, by various channels, into that empire. In the firft place, all the

produce

produce of the mines of Lydia, that made Cræfus, next to the fovereigns of Perfia and India, (India, at that time but little known to the nations of Afia fituated to the west of the Seendhu,) the richest monarch of the East, at the conqueft of Sardis, fell into the hands of Cyrus: and, though we have no exact account of the particulars of that wealth, we are able to form fome idea of it, from the magnificent presents which Cræfus is affirmed, by Herodotus, to have repeatedly fent to Delphos, and the grand holocauft, confifting of beds of gold and filver, ornamental veffels of the fame precious metals, robes of purple, filken carpets, and other rich furniture, which he caused to be publicly burned in one enormous pile, in order to render that oracle propitious to his future undertakings;—a holocauft into which the wealthiest of the voluptuous citizens of Sardis threw alfo their most coftly furniture, and in the very afhes of which was found so much melted gold, that, according to the fame hiftorian, out of the fplendid metallic mafs were formed one hundred and feventeen golden tiles; those of the greatest magnitude, fix spans in length; those of the smallest, three fpans; but all one span