'Narrative of a journey to the site of Babylon in 1811, now first published: memoir on the ruins; with engravings from the original sketches by the author: remarks on the topography of ancient Babylon, by Major Rennell; in reference to the memoir: second memoir on the ruins; in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon. East India Company at Bagdad. Edited by his widow.' [‎27] (54/474)

INTRODUCTION.
xxvii
tion ; and those who escaped being massacred were
unable to support the cruel exactions to which they
were subjected, and fled from Babylon to Seleucia.
Six years after tranquillity had been restored the
plague ravaged Babylon, which, together with fresh
emigrations of the people, thoroughly drained her of
her inhabitants.
From the time of these events, which took place
in the reign of Caligula, Babylon seems almost to
have been forgotten, and is hardly mentioned in the
expeditions of Trajan and Severus into Mesopo
tamia.
Pliny, who composed his work under Vespasian,
seems to have heard of the emigrations, but not to
have known the true cause.
The writers of the succeeding century, who were
natives of the East, differ but little from each other
in their accounts of the fate of Babylon.
Lucian of Samosata, which was a town not far
from the Euphrates, who flourished under Marcus
Aurelius, speaks of Babylon as a city that had once
been remarkable for its numerous towers and vast
circumference, but which would soon disappear as
Nineveh had done.
From the 4th to the 10th century of the Christian
era, Babylon is only occasionally and slightly men
tioned by different authors, and is even sometimes
confounded with Seleucia. In the 10th century the
abridger of Strabo says positively that Babylon was