Steven Saylor - The Seven Wonders

“Think of it, Gordianus,” Antipater whispered. “Alexander himself rode though this very gate when he entered the city in triumph.”

“No wonder he wanted to make his capital here,” I said, gazing straight up as we passed under the lofty archway. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s truly magnificent.”

“Imagine many such gates, connected by a wall no less magnificent that extended for miles and miles,” said Antipater. He shook his head. “And now, all vanished, except for this.”

As we rode on, the man followed after us.

“I show you everything,” he offered. “I show you Hanging Gardens, yes?”

Antipater brightened. Was there some chance that the fabled gardens still existed, so many centuries after the time of Nebuchadnezzar and his Median queen?

“Not far, not far!” the man promised, leading the way. I asked his name. “Darius,” he said, “like the great Persian king.” He smiled, showing off his remaining teeth.

We passed through a shabby little square where merchants offered cheap trinkets-miniature aurochs and lions and dragons-to the tourists, of whom there were a great many, for we were not the only travelers who had come to Babylon that day in search of the fabled Wonders. Beyond a maze of dusty, winding alleys-surely this was not the grid city laid out by Nebuchadnezzar-we at last came to the foot of a great pile of ruins. Arguably, this structure reached to the sky, or once had done so, before time or man demolished it, so in a way it resembled a mountain, if only a small one.

Darius urged us to dismount and follow him. Before we could go farther, another fellow insisted that we each pay for the privilege; this man also promised to look after our asses. Antipater handed the gatekeeper the requested coinage, and Darius led us to a stairway with rubble on either side that ascended to a series of small landings. Along the way, someone had placed numerous potted plants, and on some of the landings spindly trees and thirsty-looking shrubs were actually growing from the debris. The dilapidated effect was more sad than spectacular. At last we came to an open area near the summit, where broken columns and ruptured paving bricks gave evidence of what once had been a magnificent terrace, now shaded by date palms and scented by small lemon and orange trees. The leaves of a knotty-limbed olive tree shimmered silver and green in the breeze.

“Hardly the mountain forest that Nebuchadnezzar built,” muttered Antipater, catching his breath after the steady climb. I felt a bit winded myself.

“How do they water all these plants?” I said.

“Ah, you are wise, my young friend!” declared our guide. “You perceive the secret of the Hanging Gardens. Come, see!”

Darius led us to a brick-framed doorway nearby, which opened onto a shaft that ran downward at a sloping angle. Coming up the dimly lit passage toward us was a man with a yoke across his shoulders, with a bucket of water connected to each end. Huffing and puffing and covered with sweat, the water-bearer nonetheless flashed a weary grin as he emerged into the light and shambled past us.

“A good thing we’re near the river, if men have to carry water up this shaft all day,” I said.

Antipater raised his eyebrows. “Ah, but once upon a time, Gordianus, this shaft must have contained the mechanism that delivered a continuous flow of water for the gardens.” He pointed to various mysterious bits of metal affixed to the surface of the shaft. “Onesicritus, who saw these gardens in the days of Alexander, speaks of a device like a gigantic screw that lifted great volumes of water as it turned. It seems that nothing of that remarkable mechanism remains, but the shaft is still here, leading down, we may presume, to a cistern fed by the river. Without the irrigation screw, the industrious citizens of Babylon have resorted to the labor of their own bodies to keep some semblance of the garden alive, from civic pride perhaps, and for the benefit of paying visitors like ourselves.”

I nodded dubiously. The Hanging Gardens might once have been magnificent, but the decrepit remains could hardly compare to the other World Wonders we had seen on our journey.

Then I walked a few steps beyond the opening of the shaft, to a spot that afforded an unobstructed view of the ziggurat.

The walls of Babylon had been pulled down. The Hanging Gardens were in ruins. But the great ziggurat remained, rising mountainlike from the midst of the dun-colored city. Each of the seven stepped-back tiers had once been a different color. Almost all of the decorative work had been stripped away (by Xerxes when he sacked the city, and by subsequent looters), and the brick walls had begun to crumble, but enough of the original facade remained to indicate how the ziggurat must once have appeared. The first and largest tier was brick red, but the next had been dazzling white (faced with imported limestone and bitumen, I later learned), the next decorated with iridescent blue tiles, the next a riot of patterns in yellow and green, and so on. In the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the effect must have been unearthly. Amid the ziggurat’s marred perfection I noticed tiny specks here and there on its surface. It was only when I saw that these specks moved-that they were, in fact, men-that I realized the true scale of the ziggurat. The thing was even larger than I had thought.

The sun was beginning to sink, casting its lowering rays across the dusty city and bathing the ziggurat in orange light. Etemenanki, the Babylonians called it, the Foundation of Heaven and Earth. Truly, it seemed to me that so huge and strange a thing could scarcely have been created by human hands.

Antipater had similar thoughts. Standing next to me, he broke into verse:

Travel-weary and light-headed though I was, I caught Antipater’s mistake. “You told me Nebuchadnezzar built the ziggurat, not Semiramis,” I said.

“Poetic license, Gordianus! Semiramis scans better, and the name is far more euphonious. Who could compose a poem around a name as cumbersome as ‘Nebuchadnezzar’?”

* * *

As darkness fell, Darius helped us find lodgings for the night. The little inn to which he guided us was near the river, he assured us, and though we could smell the river while we ate a frugal meal of flatbread and dates in the common room, our room upstairs had no view of it. Indeed, when I tried to open the shutters, they banged against an unsightly section of the city wall that stretched along the waterfront.

“Tomorrow you see Etemenanki,” insisted Darius, who had shared our meal and followed us to the room. “What time do I meet you?”

“Tomorrow, we rest,” said Antipater, collapsing on the narrow bed. “You don’t mind sleeping on that mat on the floor, do you, Gordianus?”

“Actually, I was thinking of taking a walk,” I said.

Antipater made no reply; he was already snoring. But Darius vigorously shook his head. “Not safe after dark,” he said. “You stay inside.”

I frowned. “You assured Antipater this was a good neighborhood, with no thieves or pickpockets.”

“I tell the truth-no worry about robbers.”

“What’s the danger, then?”

Darius’s expression was grave. “After dark, she comes out.”

“She? Who are you talking about? Speak clearly!”

“I say too much already. But don’t go out until daylight. I meet you then!” Without another word, he disappeared.

I dropped to the floor and reclined on the mat, thinking I would never get to sleep with Antipater snoring so loudly. The next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming in the open window.