What’s Your Favorite Wonder of the World (PART 2)?

Previously in Cliopolitan,

I discussed the magnificent and all-too-short-lived Colossus of Rhodes, the bronze Helios who overlooked the harbor in the city of Rhodes but was brought down by the vagaries of Poseidon, Γαιήοχος Gaiēochos, the Earth-Shaker.  As a child this was my favorite Wonder, along with the golden statue of Zeus who laughed at Caligula.  (Suetonius was a terrible gossip but he definitely comes up with the juicy tidbits! His biography on Julius Caesar is hilarious).  But now as an adult I can better appreciate what a marvel of ingenuity were the...

The ancient city of Babylon was located in the Fertile Crescent, a section in the middle East covering roughly modern-day Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, parts of Iran, Israel, and Turkey.  The Tigris and Euphrates rivers dominated most of the crescent, forming part of a flood plain that ultimately fed into the Persian Gulf.  Periodic flooding would deposit rich silt onto the soil, resulting in an area unusually fertile for the region.  Agriculture, of course, is tied to civilization—once man stopped hunter-gathering and started settling down and growing crops about ten thousand years ago, sedentary culture could form.  (This is also what led to the elevation of cats as revered figures in Egypt--cats kept down the mice population, and thereby protected the grain storehouses.)  And so the Fertile Crescent was known as the birthplace of civilization, spawning such ancient peoples as the Sumerians and the Assyrians, and giving us one of the first deluge tales, the Flood of Gilgamesh (shout out to Noah and his peeps, yo!).  Babylon was right in the middle of the action.

The Cradle of Western Civilization

Nebuchadnezzar II is well-known through the famous Biblical tale of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, memorialized in a terrific song.

♫ And he told everybody when you hear the music of the trumpet,
And he told everybody when you hear the music of the flute,
And he told everybody when you hear the music of the horn,
You must fall down and worship the idol!
     Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego! ♫

But there was more to Nebuchadnezzar than serving as a pagan foil for Judean teenagers—he appears quite a lot in the Book of Daniel and in other texts.  His most endearing act was to help alleviate his wife’s homesickness--which led to his construction of the Gardens circa 600 BC [so, some 300 years before the Colossus went up].  Amytis of Media married ol’ Neb to formalize an alliance between their two empires, and we are told that, like the Biblical Ruth

… sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn

Amytis found the transition from her verdant, mountainous homeland difficult.   And so her husband brought the mountains to Amytis, and wrought The Hanging Gardens of Babylon—like the Taj Mahal and the Mausoleum, a monument to love for the ages.

Another gorgeous picture by our man Maarten van Heemskerck.
And check out the Tower of Babel in the background!

Look at the colors in this, all those various hues of green, olive and jade and chartreuse, emerald, forest.  Allow those greens to surround you, sweep you away, wash you ashore onto a distant land and time.  A young girl, married to a strange king—he wants to see her smile so he promises her anything.  And she says—“Please, bring me a bit of my homeland.  I miss it so.”

She must have been so, so happy, so transported, every time she walked through her gardens.

And on a mechanical note, the ingenuity required to keep all those plants watered is impressive to imagine.  The Hanging Gardens did not actually hang as such, they were suspended, raised up.  Greek historian Strabo tells us

There was also a passage which had pipes leading up to the highest level and machinery for raising water through which great quantities of water were drawn from the river, with none of the process being visible from the outside.

This was 600 BC, and they were able to do this!  Anticipating irrigation and the Archimedes screw—just incredible. 

Unlike the Colossus of Rhodes, there is some doubt as to whether or not the gardens actually existed as they’re described—there are no contemporary Babylonian sources , and most descriptions come from secondary sources, writers like Strabo, who heard about them from others.  I wouldn’t write them off too quickly though—archeological evidence has a way of surfacing even after the millennia, and the ruins of Babylon may yet have a secret or two for us.  I also think modern scholars are way too quick to write off seemingly impossible events as pure myth—I watched a fascinating documentary once, explaining how the Ten Plagues of Egypt could really have happened, including the plague upon the first born!

*N.B. On a side note, the Fertile Crescent is almost gone: damming of the rivers has led to the marshes drying and and unbelievably, most of this process has taken place in the last few decades.

What's *Your* Favorite Wonder of the Ancient World? (Part I)

I had an encyclopedia series as a child, the Golden Book series.  I used to curl up with one of these in my Mom's papasan chair and read from beginning to end, which is how I first learned about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  I loved the idea of a complete, neat little set and the simple, somewhat stilted illustrations fired my imagination.

(Someone on the Golden Book editorial staff must've had a classical background--there were tons of articles on various Greek and Roman figures, including one of Diogenes with his lamp.  I clearly remember the entry on Damocles, looking up to see the sword hanging above his head.)


(From memory--I promise!)

• The Statue of Zeus
• The Colossus of Rhodes
• The Alexandria Lighthouse
• The Mausoleum
• The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• The Temple at Ephesus
• The Pyramids at Giza

When I was a child, my favorite Wonders were the statue of Zeus and the Colossus--I think I probably thought of them as huge dolls and then their glamour, what with all that gold and precious gems, fascinated me as well.  Just imagine sailing across the Aegean Sea and seeing that flash in the distance, the light shining off that enormous golden figure, standing against the sun.  Helios, incarnate, towering over the people of Rhodes.  The sad thing is, the Colossus only lasted 56 years before an earthquake destroyed it.  Not quite three generations grew up in its shadow, basking in its protective glory--and then an earthquake toppled their patron and its fragments were scattered about the harbor.

Two vast and trunkless legs…
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies...

The earthquake happened in the 3rd century BC--and for the next 800 years, people from all over the Mediterranean, including Pliny the Elder and Strabo,  came to marvel at the remains.  The Rhodesians wouldn't rebuild; they were afraid the earthquake* was a sign they'd offended their sun god.  And so he lay there in the harbor for 800 years.   The Colossus was the shortest-lived of the Wonders--but perhaps no other has so seized the popular imagination... albeit in error!  Though typically pictured standing, as Emma Lazarus put it,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land          

The Colossus was NOT in fact built standing astride the entrance; the statue was either standing  beside or overlooking the harbor.  For one thing Rhodes would've had to have closed down the > harbor during construction (which was obviously economically unfeasible) but more importantly, engineering technology at that point was not advanced enough to build such a statue.  And so Maarten van  Heemskerck's lovely, detailed, hand-painted 16th century illustration          

is imaginative rather than accurate.  An image of genius indeed--Shakespeare references this Colossus at least three times, most notably in Julius Caesar who is described as a man who




...doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about...


Three different eras are telescoped into one in this passage--Shakespeare's time toward the end of Elizabeth I's reign (ca. 1599), the last year of Julius Caesar's life (44 BC), and finally some two hundred years before, when the Colossus was still standing.  Each with their particular set of attitudes, expectations, connotations, unspoken associations...and the picture of that bronze statue burning gloriously through them all, still evocative.


And as Lazarus's poem title ("The New Colossus") indicates, the Statue of Liberty was an homage to the Rhodes Helios.  Both pedestalled metal statues, both facing east (like cathedrals, in fact, now that I think of it!), both invoking light, both as monuments to Liberty and Freedom (the Helios was built in thanksgiving for Rhodes having resisted invasion during the chaotic period after the death of Alexander the Great).  Lady Liberty is wearing considerably more clothing than the Colossus is usually portrayed, however!  Well, I suppose Rhodes is hotter than New York City.


Here in our sea-washed sunset** gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning and her name
Mother of Exiles...


*The Rhodesians needn't have felt singled out--this being the Mediterranean, most of the seven Wonders were done in by earthquakes eventually


**Since Liberty faces east, this is an odd note.


Next, Part II: Nebuchadnezzar landscapes his city within an inch of its life, all to get some sugar.