with the usual barbarities in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The detection | head on a branch. But the way in which they usually diverge of the plot led to Mary's own destruction. There is no positive documentary proof in Mary's own hand that she had knowledge of the intended assassination of Elizabeth, but her circumstances, together with the tenour of her correspondence with Babington, place her complicity beyond all reasonable doubt.

to have gained popularity. The address to "a son of King | their children by the day, and since in many cases the children Alexander" has caused much speculation, with the result that were looked upon as a burden and a drain on their parents' dates varying between the 3rd century B.C. and the 3rd century resources, too particular inquiry was not always made as to the A.D. have been assigned to Babrius. The Alexander referred to mode in which the children were cared for. The form was gone may have been Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-235), who was fond through too of paying a ridiculously insufficient sum for the of having literary men of all kinds about his court. "The son of maintenance of the child. In 1871 the House of Commons Alexander" has further been identified with a certain Branchus found it necessary to appoint a select committee " to inquire as mentioned in the fables, and it is suggested that Babrius may to the best means of preventing the destruction of the lives of have been his tutor; probably, however, Branchus is a purely infants put out to nurse for hire by their parents." "Improper fictitious name. There is no mention of Babrius in ancient and insufficient food," said the committee, "opiates, drugs, writers before the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., and his crowded rooms, bad air, want of cleanliness, and wilful neglect language and style seem to show that he belonged to that period. are sure to be followed in a few months by diarrhoea, convulsions The first critic who made Babrius more than a mere name was and wasting away." These unfortunate children were nearly Richard Bentley, in his Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop. In all illegitimate, and the mere fact of their being hand-nursed, a careful examination of these prose Aesopian fables, which and not breast-nursed, goes some way (according to the experihad been handed down in various collections from the time of ence of the Foundling hospital and the Magdalene home) to Maximus Planudes, Bentley discovered traces of versification, explain the great mortality among them. Such children, when and was able to extract a number of verses which he assigned to nursed by their mothers in the workhouse, generally live. The Babrius. Tyrwhitt (De Babrio, 1776) followed up the researches practical result of the committee of 1871 was the act of 1872, of Bentley, and for some time the efforts of scholars were directed which provided for the compulsory registration of all houses towards reconstructing the metrical original of the prose fables. in which more than one child under the age of one year In 1842 M. Minas, a Greek, the discoverer of the Philosophoumena were received for a longer period than twenty-four hours. No of Hippolytus, came upon a MS. of Babrius in the convent of St licence was granted by the justices of the peace, unless the house Laura on Mount Athos, now in the British Museum. This MS. was suitable for the purpose, and its owner a person of good contained 123 fables out of the supposed original number, 160. character and able to maintain the children. Offences against They are arranged alphabetically, but break off at the letter O. the act, including wilful neglect of the children even in a suitable The fables are written in choliambic, i.e. limping or imperfect house, were punishable by a fine of £5 or six months' imprisoniambic verse, having a spondee as the last foot, a metre originally ment with or without hard labour. In 1896 a select committee appropriated to satire. The style is extremely good, the expres- of the House of Lords sat and reported on the working of this sion being terse and pointed, the versification correct and elegant, act. In consequence of this report the act of 1872 was repealed and the construction of the stories is fully equal to that in the and superseded by the Infant Life Protection Act 1897, which prose versions. The genuineness of this collection of the fables did away with the system of registration and substituted for it was generally admitted by scholars. In 1857 Minas professed to one of notice to a supervening authority. By the act all persons have discovered at Mount Athos another MS. containing 94 retaining or receiving for hire more than one infant under the fables and a preface. As the monks refused to sell this MS., he age of five had to give written notice of the fact to the local made a copy of it, which was sold to the British Museum, and authority. The local authorities were empowered to appoint was published in 1859 by Sir G. Cornewall Lewis. This, however, inspectors, and required to arrange for the periodical inspection was soon proved to be a forgery. Six more fables were brought of infants so taken in, while they could also fix the number of to light by P. Knöll from a Vatican MS. (edited by A. Eberhard, infants which might be retained. By a special clause any person Analecta Babriana, 1879). receiving an infant under the age of two years for a sum of money not exceeding twenty pounds had to give notice of the fact to the local authority. If any infants were improperly kept, the inspector might obtain an order for their removal to a workhouse or place of safety until restored to their parents or guardians, or otherwise legally disposed of. The act of 1897 was repealed and amended by the Children Act 1908, which codified the law relating to children, and added many new provisions. This act is dealt with in the article CHILDREN, LAW RELATING TO.

EDITIONS.-Boissonade (1844); Lachmann (1845); Schneider (1853); Eberhard (1876); Gitlbauer (1882); Rutherford (1883): Knoll, Fabularum Babrianarum Paraphrasis Bodleiana (1877); Feuillet (1890); Desrousseaux (1890); Passerat (1892); Croiset (1892); Crusius (1897). See also Mantels, Über die Fabeln des B. (1840); Crusius, De Babrii Aetate (1879); Ficus, De Babrii Vita (1889); J. Weiner, Quaestiones Babrianae (1891): Conington, Miscellaneous Writings, ii. 460-491; Marchiano, Babrio (1899); Fusci, Babrio (1901); Christoffersson, Studia de Fabulis Babrianis (1901) There are translations in English by Davies (1860) and in French by Levèque (1890), and in many other languages.

BABU, a native Indian clerk. The word is really a term of respect attached to a proper name, like "master or Mr," and Babu-ji is still used in many parts of India, meaning "sir "; but without the suffix the word itself is now generally used contemptuously as signifying a semi-literate native, with a mere veneer of modern education.

BABY-FARMING,' a term meaning generally the taking in of infants to nurse for payment, but usually with an implication of improper treatment. Previous to the year 1871 the abuse of the practice of baby-farming in England had grown to an alarming extent, while the trials of Margaret Waters and Mary Hall called attention to the infamous relations between the lying-in houses and the baby-farming houses of London. The evil was, no doubt, largely connected with the question of illegitimacy, for there was a wide-spread existence of babyfarms where children were received without question on payment of a lump sum. Such children were nearly all illegitimate, and in these cases it was to the pecuniary advantage of the babyfarmer to hasten the death of the child. It had become also the practice for factory operatives and mill-hands to place out Baby is a diminutive or pet form of "babe," now chiefly used in poetry or scriptural language. Babe" is probably a form of the earlier baban, a reduplicated form of the infant sound ba,

In the United States the law is noticeably strict in most states. In Massachusetts, a law of 1891 directs that "every person who receives for board, or for the purpose of procuring adoption, an infant under the age of three years shall use diligence to ascertain whether or not such infant is illegitimate, and if he knows or has reason to believe it to be illegitimate shall forthwith notify the State Board of Charity of the fact of such reception; and said board and its officers or agents may enter and inspect any building where they may have reason to believe that any such illegitimate infant is boarded, and remove such infant when, in their judgment, such removal is necessary by reason of neglect, abuse or other causes, in order to preserve the infant's life, and such infant so removed shall be in the custody of said Board of Charity, which shall make provision therefor according to law." The penal code of the state of New York requires a licence for baby-farming to be issued by the board of health of the city or town where such children are boarded or kept, and "every person so licensed must keep a register wherein he shall enter the names and ages of all such children, and of all children born on such premises, and the names and residences of their parents, as far as known, the time of reception and the discharge of such children, and the reasons therefor, and also a correct register of every child under five years of age who is given out, adopted, taken away, or indentured from such place

to or by any one, together with the name and residence of the | son and the inheritor of the old Babylonian empire. It was this person so adopting " (Pen. Code, § 288, subsec. 4).

Persons neglecting children may be prosecuted under § 289 of the N.Y. penal code, which provides that any person who "wilfully causes or permits the life or limb of any child, actually or apparently under the age of sixteen years, to be endangered, or its health to be injured, or its morals to become depraved .. is guilty of a misdemeanour."

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In Australia particular care has been taken by most of the states to prevent the evils of baby-farming. In South Australia there is a State Children's Council, which, under the State Children Act of 1895, has large powers with respect to the oversight of infants under two years boarded out by their mother. Foster-mothers," as the women who take in infants as boarders are called, must be licensed, while the number of children authorized to be kept by the foster-mother is fixed by licence; every licensed foster-mother must keep a register containing the name, age and place of birth of every child received by her, the names, addresses and description of the parents, or of any person other than the parents from or to whom the child was received or delivered over, the date of receipt or delivery over, particulars of any accident to or illness of the child, and the name of the medical practitioner (if any) by whom attended. In New South Wales the Children's Protection Act of 1892, with the amendments of 1902, requires the same state supervision over the homes in which children are boarded out, with licensing of foster-mothers. In Victoria an act was passed in 1890 for "making better provision for the protection of infant life." In New Zealand, there is legislation to the same effect by the "Adoption of Children Act 1895" and the "Infant Life Protection Act 1896."

which made Tiglath-pileser III. and other Assyrian kings so anxious to possess themselves of Babylon and so to legitimize their power. Sennacherib alone seems to have failed in securing the support of the Babylonian priesthood; at all events he never underwent the ceremony, and Babylonia throughout his reign was in a constant state of revolt which was finally suppressed only by the complete destruction of the capital. In 689 B.C. its walls, temples and palaces were razed to the ground and the rubbish thrown into the Arakhtu, the canal which bordered the earlier Babylon on the south. The act shocked the religious conscience of western Asia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib was held to be an expiation of it, and his successor Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death Babylonia was left to his elder son Samas-sum-yukin, who eventually headed a revolt against his brother Assur-bani-pal of Assyria. Once more Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians and starved into surrender. Assur-bani-pal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation," but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian empire the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance.

With the recovery of Babylonian independence under Nabopolassar a new era of architectural activity set in, and his son Nebuchadrezzar made Babylon one of the wonders of the ancient world. It surrendered without a struggle to Cyrus, but two sieges in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, and one in the reign of Xerxes, brought about the destruction of the defences, while the monotheistic rule of Persia allowed the temples to fall into decay. Indeed part of the temple of E-Saggila, which like other ancient temples served as a fortress, was intentionally pulled down by Xerxes after his capture of the city. Alexander was murdered in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar, which must therefore have been still standing, and cuneiform texts show that, even under the Seleucids, E-Saggila was not wholly a ruin. The foundation of Seleucia in its neighbourhood, however, drew away the popula tion of the old city and hastened its material decay. A tablet dated 275 B.C. states that on the 12th of Nisan the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to the new town, where a palace was built as well as a temple to which the ancient name of E-Saggila was given. With this event the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later we find sacrifices being still performed in its old sanctuary.

BABYLON (mod. Hillah), an ancient city on the left bank of the Euphrates, about 70 m. S. of Bagdad. "Babylon" is the Greek form of Babel or Bab-ili, "the gate of the god" (sometimes incorrectly written "of the gods "), which again is the Semitic translation of the original Sumerian name Ka-dimirra. The god was probably Merodach or Marduk (q.v.), the divine patron of the city. In an inscription of the Kassite conqueror Gaddas the name appears as Ba-ba-lam, as if from the Assyrian babālu, "to bring."; another foreign Volksetymologie is found in Genesis xi. 9, from balbal," to confound." A second name of the city, which perhaps originally denoted a separate village or quarter, was Su-anna, and in later inscriptions it is often represented ideographically by E-ki, the pronunciation and meaning of which are uncertain. One of its oldest names, however, was Our knowledge of its topography is derived from the classical Din-tir, of which the poets were especially fond; Din-tir signifies writers, the inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar, and the excavations in Sumerian" the life of the forest," though a native lexicon of the Deutsche Orientgesellschaft, which were begun in 1899. translates it "seat of life." Uru-azagga, "the holy city," was The topography is necessarily that of the Babylon of Nebuchadalso a title sometimes applied to Babylon as to other cities in rezzar; the older Babylon which was destroyed by Sennacherib Babylonia. Ka-dimirra, the Semitic Bab-ili, probably denoted having left few, if any, traces behind. Most of the existing at first E-Saggila, "the house of the lofty head," the temple remains lie on the E. bank of the Euphrates, the principal being dedicated to Bel-Merodach, along with its immediate surround- three vast mounds, the Babil to the north, the Qasr or "Palace" ings. Like the other great sanctuaries of Babylonia the temple (also known as the Mujelliba) in the centre, and the Ishan had been founded in pre-Semitic times, and the future Babylon 'Amran ibn 'Ali, with the outlying spur of the Jumjuma, to grew up around it. Since Merodach was the son of Ea, the the south. Eastward of these come the Ishan el-Aswad or culture god of Eridu near Ur on the Persian Gulf, it is possible"Black Mound" and three lines of rampart, one of which enthat Babylon was a colony of Eridu. Adjoining Babylon was a town called Borsippa (q.v.).

The earliest mention of Babylon is in a dated tablet of the reign of Sargon of Akkad (3800 B.C.), who is stated to have built sanctuaries there to Anunit and Aë (or Ea), and H. Winckler may be right in restoring a mutilated passage in the annals of this king so as to make it mean that Babylon owed its name to Sargon, who made it the capital of his empire. If so, it fell back afterwards into the position of a mere provincial town and remained so for centuries, until it became the capital of “the first | dynasty of Babylon" and then of Khammurabi's empire (2250 B.C.) From this time onward it continued to be the capital of | Babylonia and the holy city of western Asia. The claim to supremacy in Asia, however real in fact, was not admitted de jure until the claimant had "taken the hands" of BelMerodach at Babylon, and thereby been accepted as his adopted

closes the Babil mound on the N. and E. sides, while a third forms a triangle with the S.E. angle of the other two. W. of the Euphrates are other ramparts and the remains of the ancient Borsippa.

We learn from Herodotus and Ctesias that the city was built on both sides of the river in the form of a square, and enclosed within a double row of lofty walls to which Ctesias adds a third. Ctesias makes the outermost wall 360 stades (42 m.) in circum. ference, while according to Herodotus it measured 480 stades (56 m.), which would include an area of about 200 sq. m. The estimate of Ctesias is essentially the same as that of Q. Curtius (v. 1. 26), 368 stades, and Clitarchus (ap. Diod. Sic. ii. 7), 365 stades; Strabo (xvi. 1. 5) makes it 385 stades. But even the estimate of Ctesias, assuming the stade to be its usual length, would imply an area of about roo sq. m. According to Herodotus the height of the walls was about 335 ft. and their width 85 ft.;

There are numerous gates in the walls both of E-Saggila and of the city, the names of many of which are now known. | Nebuchadrezzar says that he covered the walls of some of them with blue enamelled tiles "on which bulls and dragons were pourtrayed," and that he set up large bulls and serpents of bronze on their thresholds.

The Babil mound probably represents the site of a palace built by Nebuchadrezzar at the northern extremity of the city walls and attached to a defensive outwork 60 cubits in length. Since H. Rassam found remains of irrigation works here it might well be the site of the Hanging Gardens. These consisted, we are told, of a garden of trees and flowers, built on the topmost of a series of arches some 75 ft. high, and in the form of a square, each side of which measured 400 Greek ft. Water was raised from the Euphrates by means of a screw (Strabo xvi. 1. 5; Diod. ii. 1o. 6). In the Jumjuma mound at the southern extremity of the old city the contract and other business tablets of the Egibi firm were found.

according to Ctesias the height was about 300 ft. The measure- | altogether in Babylon, but some of them stood independently ments seem exaggerated, but we must remember that even in in other parts of the city. Xenophon's time (Anab. iii. 4. 10) the ruined wall of Nineveh was still 150 ft high, and that the spaces between the 250 towers of the wall of Babylon (Ctes. 417, ap. Diod. ii. 7) were broad enough to let a four-horse chariot turn (Herod. i. 179). The clay dug from the moat served to make the bricks of the wall, which had 100 gates, all of bronze, with bronze lintels and posts. The two inner enclosures were faced with enamelled tiles and represented hunting-scenes. Two other walls ran along the banks of the Euphrates and the quays with which it was lined, each containing 25 gates which answered to the number of streets they led into. Ferry-boats plied between the landingplaces of the gates, and a movable drawbridge (30 ft. broad), supported on stone piers, joined the two parts of the city together. The account thus given of the walls must be grossly exaggerated and cannot have been that of an eye-witness. Moreover, the two-walls-Imgur-Bel, the inner wall, and Nimitti-Bel, the outer -which enclosed the city proper on the site of the older Babylon have been confused with the outer ramparts (enclosing the whole of Nebuchadrezzar's city), the remains of which can still be traced to the east According to Nebuchadrezzar, Imgur-Bel was built in the form of a square, each side of which measured "30 aslu by the great cubit"; this would be equivalent, if Professor F. Hommel is right, to 2400 metres. Four thousand cubits to the east the great rampart was built "mountain high," which surrounded both the old and the new town; it was provided with a moat, and a reservoir was excavated in the triangle on the inner side of its south-east corner, the western wall of which is still visible. The Imgur-Bel of Sargon's time has been discovered by the German excavators running south of the Qasr from the Euphrates to the Gate of Ishtar.

The German excavations have shown that the Qasr mound represents both the old palace of Nabopolassar, and the new palace adjoining it built by Nebuchadrezzar, the wall of which he boasts of having completed in 15 days. They have also laid bare the site of the " Gate of Ishtar "on the east side of the mound and the little temple of Nin-Makh (Beltis) beyond it, as well as the raised road for solemn processions (A-ibur-sabu) which led from the Gate of Ishtar to E-Saggila and skirted the east side of the palace. The road was paved with stone and its walls on either side lined with enamelled tiles, on which a procession of lions is represented. North of the mound was a canal, which seems to have been the Libilkhegal of the inscriptions, while on the south side was the Arakhtu, "the river of Babylon," the brick quays of which were built by Nabopolassar.

The site of E-Saggila is still uncertain. The German excavators assign it to the 'Amran mound, its tower having stood in a depression immediately to the north of this, and so place it south of the Qasr; but E. Lindl and F. Hommel have put forward strong reasons for considering it to have been north of the latter, on a part of the site which has not yet been explored. A tablet copied by George Smith gives us interesting details as to the plan and dimensions of this famous temple of Bel; a plan based on these will be found in Hommel's Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients, p. 321. There were three courts, the outer or great court, the middle court of Ishtar and Zamama, and the inner court on the east side of which was the tower of seven stages (known as the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth), 90 metres high according to Hommel's calculation of the measurements in the tablet; while on the west side was the temple proper of Merodach and his wife Sarpanit or Zarpanit, as well as chapels of Anu, Ea and Bel on either side of it. A winding ascent led to the summit of the tower, where there was a chapel, containing, according to Herodotus, a couch and golden table (for the showbread), but no image. The golden image of Merodach 40 ft. high, stood in the temple below, in the sanctuary called E-Kua or "House of the Oracle," together with a table, a mercyseat and an altar-all of gold. The deities whose chapels were erected within the precincts of the temple enclosure were regarded as forming his court. Fifty-five of these chapels existed

See C. J. Rich, Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon (1816), and Collected Memoirs (1839); A. H. Layard, Nineveh and Babylon (1853): C. P. Tiele, De Hoofdtempel van Babel (1886); A. H. Sayce, Records of the Past (new ser. iii. 1890): Mittheilungen der deutschen Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, App. ii. (1887); C. J. Ball in Orientgesellschaft (1899-1906); F. Delitzsch, Im Lande des einstigen Paradieses (1903); F. H. Weissbach, Das Stadtbild von Babylon (1904): F. Hommel, Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des allen Orients (1904). (A. H. S.)

BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. I. Geography.-Geographically as well as ethnologically and historically, the whole district enclosed between the two great rivers of western Asia, the Tigris and Euphrates, forms but one country. The writers of antiquity clearly recognized this fact, speaking of the whole under the general name of Assyria, though Babylonia, as will be seen, would have been a more accurate designation. It naturally falls into two divisions, the northern being more or less mountainous, while the southern is flat and marshy; the near approach of the two rivers to one another, at a spot where the undulating plateau of the north sinks suddenly into the Babylonian alluvium, tends to separate them still more completely. In the earliest times of which we have any record, the northern portion was included in Mesopotamia; it was definitely marked off as Assyria only after the rise of the Assyrian monarchy. With the exception of Assur, the original capital, the chief cities of the country, Nineveh, Calah and Arbela, were all on the left bank of the Tigris. The reason of this preference for the eastern bank of the Tigris was due to its abundant supply of water, whereas the great Mesopotamian plain on the western side had to depend upon the streams which flowed into the Euphrates. This vast flat, the modern El-Jezireh, is about 250 miles in length, interrupted only by a single limestone range, rising abruptly out of the plain, and branching off from the Zagros mountains under the names of Sarazûr, Hamrin and Sinjar. The numerous remains of old habitations show how thickly this level tract must once have been peopled, though now for the most part a wilderness. North of the plateau rises a well-watered and undulating belt of country, into which run low ranges of limestone hills, sometimes arid, sometimes covered with dwarf-oak, and often shutting in, between their northern and north-eastern flank and the main mountain-line from which they detach themselves, rich plains and fertile valleys. Behind them tower the massive ridges of the Niphates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off Assyria from Armenia and Kurdistan.

The name Assyria itself was derived from that of the city of Assur (q.v.) or Asur, now Qal'at Sherqat (Kaleh Shergat), which stood on the right bank of the Tigris, midway between the Greater and the Lesser Zab. It remained the capital long after the Assyrians had become the dominant power in western Asia, but was finally supplanted by Calah (Nimrüd), Nineveh (Nebi Yunus and Kuyunjik), and Dur-Sargina (Khorsabad), some 60 m. farther north (see NINEVER).

In contrast with the arid plateau of Mesopotamia, stretched the