The accounts of ancient Babylon given by Jewish and Grecian writers set before us a picture of wealth, magnificence, and pomp, though at the same time a less pleasing representation of luxury and licentiousness. Their banquets were carried to a disgusting excess, and the pleasures of the table degenerated into debauchery; nay, at the very time when the victorious Persians rushed into the city, the princes of Babylon were engaged in festivities; and Belshazzar was given up to intoxication in company with thousands of his lords when the hand which wrote on the wall of the royal banqueting house, and predicted his approaching fate, aroused him to the dreadful reality of his condition. But this total degeneracy of manners was above all conspicuous in the other sex, amongst whom were no traces of that reserve which usually prevails in an eastern harem. The prophet, therefore, when he denounces the fall of Babylon, describes it under the image of a luxurious and lascivious woman, who is cast headlong into slavery from the seat where she sits so effeminately. Moreover, at these orgies the women appeared, where they proceeded so far as to lay aside their garments, and with them every feeling of shame; nay, there was even a religious enactment, as we are informed by Herodotus, according to which every woman was obliged to prostitute herself to strangers in the temple of Mylitta once in her life, and was not allowed to reject any person who presented himself.
The principal cause of this profligacy of manners was the riches and luxury consequent upon extended commerce, which Babylon owed to its geographical position. Climate and religion effected the rest.
I have already had occasion to notice this advantageous situation of Babylonia, in which respect it was probably superior to every other country in Asia. While this afforded admirable facilities for traffic by land, it was equally convenient for maritime and river navigation. The two large rivers which flowed on each side of it seemed the natural channels of commercial intercourse with the interior of Asia, and the Persian Gulf by no means presented the same difficulties and dangers to the navigator as that of Arabia.
If we add to this the accounts which ancient authors have given us of the industry, manners, and civil institutions of Babylon, it will be evident that it owed its splendour and wealth to the same causes which in latter times have been the occasion of an extensive commerce to the cities of Baghdad and Bassorah. They unanimously describe the Babylonians as a people fond of magnificence, and accustomed to a multitude of artificial wants, which they could not have supplied except by commercial relations with many countries, some of them very remote. In their private life, especially in their dress, costliness appears to have been more their object than either convenience or utility. Their public festivals and sacrifices were attended with immense expense, particularly in precious perfumes, with which they could not have been provided but from foreign countries. The raw materials, too, required for their celebrated manufactures—flax, cotton, and wool, and perhaps silk—were either not the produce of their soil, or certainly not in sufficient quantities for their consumption. Lastly, many of their civil institutions were of such a nature as only to be calculated for a city into which there was a continual influx of strangers. On this principle alone can be explained, not only their custom of exposing sick persons in the market-place, that they might meet with some one competent to prescribe for them, but also, and more particularly, the above-mentioned law, which obliged their women to prostitute themselves in the temple of Mylitta, and the public auction of marriageable virgins. It has been already observed that the relations of the sexes are formed in a peculiar manner in large commercial cities, and this will serve to explain many remarkable institutions of several nations in Asia.
However certain may be the evidence drawn from these principles, and the accounts of antiquity in general, viz., that Babylon was the great centre where all nations assembled, and whence they departed to their several destinations, yet it is difficult to enter in detail on the commerce of the Babylonians, and to settle with any degree of accuracy its nature and its course. The obscure traces of it which yet remain must be laboriously sought for in the works of Greek and Hebrew writers alone; the labour, however, will not be without its recompense, and the general result of this investigation will be a picture, which, though not complete in its subordinate details, will yet present a generally faithful outline.
As a preliminary step, however, let us take a glance at the products of Babylonian skill and industry, amongst which weaving of various kinds deserves our first notice. The peculiar dress of the Babylonians consisted partly of woollen, and partly of linen, or probably cotton stuffs. “They wear,” says Herodotus, “a gown of linen (or cotton) flowing down to the feet, over this, an upper woollen garment, and a white (woollen) tunic covering the whole.” This garb, which must have been too much for so warm a climate, seems to have been assumed rather for ostentation, than to meet their actual wants, and probably some alteration was made in it as the weather became warmer. Their woven stuffs, however, were not confined to domestic use, but were exported into foreign countries. Carpets, one of the principal objects of luxury in the East, the floors of the rich being generally covered with them, were nowhere so finely woven, and in such splendid colours, as at Babylon. Particular representations were seen on them, of those wonderful Indian animals, the griffin and others, with which we have become acquainted by the ruins of Persepolis, whence the knowledge of them was brought to the West. Foreign nations made use of these carpets in the decoration of their harems and royal saloons; indeed, this species of luxury appears nowhere to have been carried farther than among the Persians. With them, not only the floors, but even beds and sofas in the houses of the nobles were covered with two or three of these carpets; nay, the oldest of their sacred edifices, the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargada, was ornamented with a purple one of Babylonian workmanship.
Babylonian garments were not less esteemed; those in particular called sindones were in very high repute. It appears that they were usually of cotton, and the most costly were so highly valued for their brilliancy of colour and fineness of texture, as to be compared to those of Media, and set apart for royal use; they were even to be found at the tomb of Cyrus, which was profusely decorated with every description of furniture in use amongst the Persian kings during their lives. The superiority of Babylonian robes and carpets will not be a matter of surprise, when we consider how near Babylon was to Carmania on the one side, and to Arabia and Syria on the other, and that in these countries the finest cotton was produced.
Large weaving establishments were not confined to the capital, but existed likewise in other cities and inferior towns of Babylonia, which Semiramis is said to have built on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, and which she appointed as marts for those who imported Median and Persian goods. These manufacturing towns also were, as will soon be shown in respect to Opis, staples for land traffic. The most famous of them was Borsippa, situated on the Euphrates, fifteen miles below Babylon, and mentioned in history before the time of Cyrus. These were the principal linen and cotton manufactories, and they still existed in the age of Strabo.
Besides these, the Babylonians appear to have made all kinds of apparel, and every article of luxury: such as sweet waters, which were in common use, and probably necessary, from the heat of the climate; walking-sticks delicately chased with figures of animals and other objects, and also elegantly engraved stones, were in general use amongst the Babylonians.