splendor. It would perhaps require too long a narration, if any
one were to describe it. However, as prodigiously large and as
magnificent as it was, it was finished in fifteen days. Now in
this palace he erected very high walks, supported by stone
pillars, and by planting what was called a pensile paradise, and
replenishing it with all sorts of trees, he rendered the prospect
an exact resemblance of a mountainous country. This he did to
please his queen, because she had been brought up in Media, and
was fond of a mountainous situation."

20. This is what Berosus relates concerning the forementioned
king, as he relates many other things about him also in the third
book of his Chaldean History; wherein he complains of the Grecian
writers for supposing, without any foundation, that Babylon was
built by Semiramis, (14) queen of Assyria, and for her false
pretense to those wonderful edifices thereto buildings at
Babylon, do no way contradict those ancient and relating, as if
they were her own workmanship; as indeed in these affairs the
Chaldean History cannot but be the most credible. Moreover, we
meet with a confirmation of what Berosus says in the archives of
the Phoenicians, concerning this king Nabuchodonosor, that he
conquered all Syria and Phoenicia; in which case Philostratus
agrees with the others in that history which he composed, where
he mentions the siege of Tyre; as does Megasthenes also, in the
fourth book of his Indian History, wherein he pretends to prove
that the forementioned king of the Babylonians was superior to
Hercules in strength and the greatness of his exploits; for he
says that he conquered a great part of Libya, and conquered
Iberia also. Now as to what I have said before about the temple
at Jerusalem, that it was fought against by the Babylonians, and