[PLATE XIX., Fig.

4.] It is probable that the most elaborate and most artistic of the Babylonian works of art were of a kind which has almost wholly perished.
What bas-relief was to the Assyrian, what painting is to moderns, that enamelling upon brick appears to have been to the people of Babylon.

The mimetic power, which delights in representing to itself the forms and actions of men, found a vent in this curious byway of the graphic art; and the images of the Chaldaeans, portrayed upon the wall, with vermilion, and other hues, formed the favorite adornment of palaces and public buildings, at once employing the artist, gratifying the taste of the native connoisseur, and attracting the admiration of the foreigner.
The artistic merit of these works can only be conjectured.

The admiration of the Jews, or even that of Diodorus, who must be viewed here as the echo of Ctesias, is no sure test; for the Jews were a people very devoid of true artistic appreciation; and Ctesias was bent on exaggerating the wonders of foreign countries to the Greeks.

The fact of the excellence of Assyrian art at a somewhat earlier date lends however support to the view that the wall-painting of the Babylonians had some real artistic excellence.