NACIIER113.) Expressions that are employed tend to give a high idea of the size and splendor of the place; it had many strongholds, and many gates with bars, probably of brass; its inhabitants were 'many as the locusts ;' it had multiplied its merchants above the stars of heaven ; its crowned (princes) were as the locusts. and its captains as the grcat grasshoppers (ch. iii :12-i7). So her wealth was prodigious : 'There is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture.' Thc rea son assigned for thc destruction of the city shows how great was its wickedness: 'Out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image ; I will make thy grave; for thou art vile' (ch. i :14). 'Woe to the bloody city I It is all full of lies and robbery' (ch. iii :1). Shortly after (B. C. 713) the delivery of this prophecy Sennacherib, king of Assyria, having invaded Jud2ea, suffered a signal defeat by the special act of God : 'So Sennacherib departed, and went and returned and dwelt at Nineveh' (2 Kings xix :36). Very brief, however, was his dwelling there, for as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his god, Adrammelech and Sha rezer, his sons, srnote him with the sword ; and Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead (2 Kings xix :37). The predicted punishment of the city was now approaching. Zephaniah gave his authority that it would come (ch. ii :13). (See also Is. xiv :24, sq.): 'The Lord will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.' The language which immediately ensues goes to confirm the view which has been given of the commercial greatness (it was the entrepot for the trade of Eastern and Western Asia), the surpassing opulence, the high culture, the immense population. and the deep criminality of the city of Nineveh.
we should be justified in asserting that the people were in an advanced stage of civilization, seeing that their social statistics wcrc well attended to and carefully preserved. Civilization, however, had brought luxury, and luxury corruption of morals, for 'their wickedness had gone up before God' (ch. i :2). Yet was not their iniquity of the lowest kind. for the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah.
(4) Prophecies Against Nineveh. A few years later we find the prophet Nahum (B. C.
From Strabo (xvi. p. 737), the place appears to have been much greater than even Babylon ; and from Diodorus Sic. (ii :3), that it measured 48o stadia in circumference, having very high and broad walls, which, aided by the river, rendered it impregnable.
This safety was, however, merely imaginary. Sardanapalus, who had a full share of the vices of his subjects, endured in the eighth century before Christ a siege of three years'duration at the hands of the Medes, under Arbaces, which led to the overthrow of the city (Diod. Sic. ii :26). But so large and so powerful a capital was not easily de stroyed. Nineveh was the seat of an Assyrian kingdom till the year B. C. 625, when it was taken
by Nahopolassar of Babylon and Cyaxares, king of the Medes, which led to the destruction of the Assyrian kingdom (Herod. i:io6). Nineveh flourished no morc. Strabo (xvi p. 737) repre sents it as lying waste; though in the times of the Roman emperors some remains of it seem to have survived, as a Nineveh on the Tigris is mentioned in Tacitus (Annal. xii:13), and is characterized as a castellum, or fort, probably some small forti fication raised out of the ruins of the city for pre datory purposes. Something of the kind was found there at a later period, for in the thirteenth cen tury Abulfaragius makes mention of a castellum there.
(5) Ruins. The present remains comprise a rampart and foss, four miles in circuit, with a moss-covered wall about twenty feet in height.
Mosul. with which Nineveh is commonly idep tified, stands on the opposite, or western bank ot the Tigris, and lies so near the river that its streets are often flooded—a circumstance which calls to mind some of the terms employed by the prophetic writers before referred to. This place, like its great prototype, carries on a trade (though to a small extent) between the East and the West. The climate is stated to be very healthy; the av erage temperature of summer not exceeding 66° Fahr.; but in spring, during the floods, epidemics are cominon, though not fatal.
See Niebuhr, Reiseb ii. 353, 368; Ives, Voyatre, pp. 327, sq.; Rosenmuller, Alterth. i:2,116; Bruns, Erdbeschreibung, t, tog, sq.; Mannert, v, 44o, The ruins at first sight present a range of hills. From these hills large stones are constantly dug out, from which probably a bridge over the Tigris has been built. Vast libraries have been found, and records of a ciyilization extending far back into the dawn of history.
Jonah's connection with the city is still pre served in a tomb which bears his name; but how far back in antiquity this building runs, it is now impossible to say. The tomb stands on a hill, and is covered by a mosque which is held in great ven eration. Bricks, partly whole, partly in frag ments, and pieces of gypsum with inscriptions in the arraw-head character, are found from time to time. Landseer, in his Sabcran Researches, gives an engraving of cylinders dug up at Nineveh, which he states to be numerous in the East, and supposes to have been employed as signets; they are of jasper, chalcedony and jade, and bear astro nomical emblems, the graving of which, espec ially considering the hardness of the materials. shows a high state of art.
sq.; Kinneir's Persia, 256-9, Olivier, Vogaye en Turquie, iv:265; Ainsworth's Assyria, p. 256, (Newman, Thrones and Palaces of Babylon and Nineveh; Smith, Hist. of Assur-bani-pal; As syria from the Earliest Times, and Recent As syrian Discoveries (in British Museum) ; Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments, A. H. Sayce; The Monuments and the Old Test., Price. (See ASSYRIA.) J. R. B. NINEVITE (nin'e-vite), (Gr. Noevt-rns, nin-yoo ee'tace, Ninevite), an inhabitant of Nineveh (Luke xi :3o),