"What is that?" I said.
"Those are the remains of the great Tower of Babylon, or as we called it the zikoras of Mardoukos. It stood yonder." Beliddinos pointed ahead of us. "Three hundred cubits it rose above the plain. From its top one could see from Sippara in the north to Nippor in the south; from its lofty peak the will of the gods as revealed in the stars we studied."
"What happened to it?"
"In the years following our trouble with the first Xerxes, the tower was neglected. Unfilled were cracks; stolen from the casing were bricks. By the time Alexander came, into a vast heap of rubble it had crumbled. Orders to rebuild it he gave. So his men have hauled the bricks of the old tower over here and dumped them, but they have not yet begun work on the new."
As we went on along the Street of Mardoukos, as this avenue is called, traffic got thicker and thicker. At the crossing of two broad avenues, a packed mass of travelers halted us. Slowly we edged up to the crossing. I was about to lead the hipparchia across when a Babylonian civic watchman, with a bronzen helm on his head and a stone-headed club suspended from his belt, stepped into the center of the crossing. He blew a blast on the ram's horn. Then he flung out his arms with palms turned outwards, as if to halt us and those coming towards us from the opposite direction.
"What is this?" I said, starting to guide Golden across.
"Stop!" cried Beliddinos, catching my mantle. "He is a—how would you say it—a commander of traffic. Everybody below the rank of king, general, or governor must obey his commands."
I halted. Amazingly, all traffic east and west through the crossing halted too, obedient to the guard's gestures. Now he turned so as to face east and made beckoning motions with both arms. At once the traffic between north and south began to flow. I sat impatiently while horses, mules, asses, camels, oxcarts, wains, chariots, litters, a flock of goats, and hundreds of folk afoot, bearded men and veiled women, poured past in front of me.
"How long does this take?" I asked. "Must we stand here till nightfall?"
"Nay; the traffic man will soon beckon us. In a city of such size we cannot let traffic manage itself, lest the streets be hopelessly blocked and confusion reign."
The watchman stepped out again, halted the flow between north and south, and beckoned us onward. Seeing that I commanded the hipparchia, he gave me a salute with his club as I passed. I waved to him and rode on.
After a jog to the left, we reached the Street of Adados, a broad avenue leading westward to the Euphrates River. Before it reached the river it passed between two sacred places. On the left stood the temple of Mardoukos, which the Babylonians call Esagila, or the Lofty-headed Temple. On the right was a great temple compound where aforetime rose the Tower of Babylon, which was called Etemenanki, the Cornerstone of the Universe.
Beliddinos guided us to the left, into the grounds of the temple. Amidst the groves stood a small temple, very old-looking. Dragons in enameled relief paraded around its worn brick walls; gilded ornaments on its cornices gleamed in the setting sun. To one side were signs of construction, where a space had been cleared and the raising of walls begun. The new building, as planned, was larger than the old, and together they made a shape like a thick letter gamma.
"There," said Beliddinos, "the new temple of Mardoukos stood ere Xerxes razed it and raped away the great golden statue of the god. Since then we have used the old temple, but with your king's help and the favor of the gods we hope to restore the new. You understand, by 'new' I mean a mere two hundred and fifty years old."
Priests and temple servants came running to greet their master. Those of higher degree kissed his hands, while the lowlier ones bowed to the ground. There was much formal blessing and invocation of the gods, for the Babylonians are a ceremonious folk. A group whom I took to be Beliddinos' family swarmed out of a walled enclosure to greet him also, albeit less formally. At last Beliddinos said: "Come, Hipparch."
He led us across the avenue to the grounds of the tower. The site where once the tower rose is a broad bare dusty place, like a parade ground, surrounded by low buildings arranged in a hollow square. In these buildings the lesser priests and attendants dwell, and pilgrims from other parts of the country stay. Here room was found for us and our beasts. Scented soap fit for kings and high priests was given us to wash with.
Evening—which, as says the Poetess, brings together all that the light-giving dawn has scattered—fell softly. Priests and pilgrims clustered about us, showering us with questions about the elephant. What did he eat? Was it true that elephants lived a thousand years? Had he any joints in his legs?
Weary though we were, it was late at night when the sweet sound of hymns, wafting from Esagila, lulled us to sleep.
Thenceforth we saw little of Beliddinos, who was swallowed up by his duties, as a hero of Babylonian myth, named Ionas, was swallowed up by a whale. Though still cordial when he saw us, he was no longer intimate, but brisk, suave, and dignified, as one must be to put great designs into effect without revealing one's inner self. The morning after we arrived, Beliddinos presented to me a man whose name, he said, was Peithagoras of Amphipolis, a student of divinatory science at the temple of Mardoukos.
"He will show you about and guide you to the offices of the government," he said.
"Rejoice, Hipparch," said Peithagoras, a Hellene who had taken to Babylonian ways. He curled his beard, used perfume, wore a long robe with sleeves, and carried a walking stick with the top carven in the shape of an eagle. At the same time he affected the most extreme Attic dialect, as to remind his hearer that Amphipolis was an Athenian colony.
"My dear old thing," he said, "there's no use going to the offices today. All the chaps are at some beastly conference. Let me send my slave to make you an appointment with my brother's secretary."
"Your brother?"
"General Apollodoros. Perhaps the general himself could give you a moment, though he's frightfully busy, you know. Meanwhile let's look about the temple. Their divinatory methods are centuries ahead of ours. I'm a student of these things, you know. Who's that simply divine young Persian with you?"
"Vardanas of Sousa."
"Fetch him along; fetch him along. And any others who want to come."
I called out my officers and Nirouphar and Pyrron and made them known to Peithagoras, who led us about the temple compounds with his tongue wagging like a poplar leaf in the breeze.
"Now here, darlings," he said, "is the hepatoscopy room. They call that chap fiddling with the sheep's guts a machos." He spoke in hesitant Syrian to the blood-smeared diviner, who answered.
"The liver-gate is long on the right side and short on the left," said Peithagoras. "That means our arms will be successful. Now in here is the astrological library. All those stacks of bricks are reports on the aspects of the heavenly bodies. The astrologers claim their records go back to the Flood, thirty-four thousand years ago. Let's see—ah—here's one. Reign of—ah—Naboupalesar. I can't really read these ghastly little scratches yet, though I'm learning. Isn't it wonderful, darlings, that by taking a few sights on the planets and a little calculating, you can tell your state of health and wealth and welfare a month or a year or a decade from now? It never fails, if you remember to take every aspect into account."
He rattled on like that for hours. I recalled that Beliddinos, who ought to know about such matters if anyone did, was much more skeptical about the prophetic powers of astrology, but I forbore to contend the matter.
Peithagoras showed us other sights, like the golden statue of Mardoukos, glowing softly in the dim light of the old temple. This statue was not the one that Xerxes stole, but the one he left behind. It showed the god, long-bearded and stern, seated upon a golden throne. Coiled about his feet, also worked in glowing gold, was a lizardlike dragon, called a sirous by the Babylonians. This beast was also depicted on the outer walls of the temple and on the knob of Beliddinos' walking stick. The air was heavy-laden with incense, and somewhere out of sight a chorus was practicing a hymn with a wailing up-and-down tune. Peithagoras said: