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While the soil from the excavation was being thus used for the defence
of the city, Nitocris engaged also in another undertaking, a mere
by-work compared with those we have already mentioned. The city, as
I said, was divided by the river into two distinct portions. Under
the former kings, if a man wanted to pass from one of these divisions
to the other, he had to cross in a boat; which must, it seems to me,
have been very troublesome. Accordingly, while she was digging the
lake, Nitocris be. thought herself of turning it to a use which
should at once remove this inconvenience, and enable her to leave
another monument of her reign over Babylon. She gave orders for the
hewing of immense blocks of stone, and when they were ready and the
basin was excavated, she turned the entire stream of the Euphrates
into the cutting, and thus for a time, while the basin was filling,
the natural channel of the river was left dry. Forthwith she set to
work, and in the first place lined the banks of the stream within the
city with quays of burnt brick, and also bricked the landing-places
opposite the river-gates, adopting throughout the same fashion of
brickwork which had been used in the town wall; after which, with the
materials which had been prepared, she built, as near the middle of
the town as possible, a stone bridge, the blocks whereof were bound
together with iron and lead. In the daytime square wooden platforms
were laid along from pier to pier, on which the inhabitants crossed the
stream; but at night they were withdrawn, to prevent people passing
from side to side in the dark to commit robberies. When the river had
filled the cutting, and the bridge was finished, the Euphrates was
turned back again into its ancient bed; and thus the basin,
transformed suddenly into a lake, was seen to answer the purpose for
which it was made, and the inhabitants, by help of the basin,
obtained the advantage of a bridge.
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