Such—­as far as they are known—­were the military exploits of this great king.  He defeated Neco, recovered Syria, crushed rebellion in Judaea, took Tyre, and humiliated Egypt.  According to some writers his successes did not stop here.  Megasthenes made him subdue most of Africa, and thence pass over into Spain and conquer the Iberians.  He even went further, and declared that, on his return from these regions, he settled his Iberian captives on the shores of the Euxine in the country between Armenia and the Caucasus!  Thus Nebuchadnezzar was made to reign over an empire extending from the Atlantic to the Caspian, and from the Caucasus to the Great Sahara.

The victories of Nebuchadnezzar were not without an effect on his home administration and on the construction of the vast works with which his name is inseparably associated.  It was through them that he obtained that enormous command of “naked human strength” which enabled him, without undue oppression of his own people, to carry out on the grandest scale his schemes for at once beautifying and benefiting his kingdom.  From the time when he first took the field at the head of an army he adopted the Assyrian system of forcibly removing almost the whole population of a conquered country, and planting it in a distant part of his dominions.  Crowds of captives—­the produce of his various wars—­Jews, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Syrians, Ammonites, Moabites, were settled in various parts of Mesopotamia, more especially about Babylon.  From these unfortunates forced labor was as a matter of course required; and it seems to have been chiefly, if not solely, by their exertions that the magnificent series of great works was accomplished, which formed the special glory of the Fourth Monarchy.

The chief works expressly ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar by the ancient writers are the following:  He built the great wall of Babylon, which, according to the lowest estimate, must have contained more than 500,000,000 square feet of solid masonry, and must have required three or four times that number of bricks.  He constructed a new and magnificent palace in the neighborhood of the ancient residence of the kings.  He made the celebrated “Hanging Garden” for the gratification of his wife, Amyitis.  He repaired and beautified the great temple of Belus at Babylon.  He dug the huge reservoir near Sippara, said to have been 140 miles in circumference, and 180 feet deep, furnishing it with flood-gates, through which its water could be drawn off for purposes of irrigation.  He constructed a number of canals, among them the Nahr Malcha or “Royal River,” a broad and deep channel which connected the Euphrates with the Tigris.  He built quays and breakwaters along the shores of the Persian Gulf, and he at the same time founded the city of Diridotis or Teredon in the vicinity of that sea.