It is certain that dates formed the main food of the inhabitants, The dried fruit, being to them the staff of life, was regarded by the Greeks as their “bread.”  It was perhaps pressed into cakes, as is the common practice in the country at the present day.  On this and goat’s milk, which we know to have been in use, the poorer class, it is probable, almost entirely subsisted.  Palm-wine, the fermented sap of the tree, was an esteemed, but no doubt only an occasional beverage.  It was pleasant to the taste, but apt to leave a headache behind it.  Such vegetables as gourds, melons, and cucumbers, must have been cheap, and may have entered into the diet of the common people.  They were also probably the consumers of the “pickled bats,” which (according to Strabo) were eaten by the Babylonians.

In the marshy regions of the south there were certain tribes whose sole, or at any rate whose chief, food was fish.  Fish abound in these districts, and are readily taken either with the hook or in nets.  The mode of preparing this food was to dry it in the sun, to pound it fine, strain it through a sieve, and then make it up into cakes, or into a kind of bread.

The diet of the richer classes was no doubt varied and luxurious.  Wheaten bread, meats of various kinds, luscious fruits, fish, game, loaded the board; and wine, imported from abroad was the usual beverage.  The wealthy Babylonians were fond of drinking to excess; their banquets were magnificent, but generally ended in drunkenness; they were not, however, mere scenes of coarse indulgence, but had a certain refinement, which distinguishes them from the riotous drinking-bouts of the less civilized Modes.  Music was in Babylonia a recognized accompaniment of the feast; and bands of performers, entering with the wine, entertained the guests with concerted pieces.  A rich odor of perfume floated around, for the Babylonians were connoisseurs in unguents.  The eye was delighted with a display of gold and silver plate.  The splendid dresses of the guests, the exquisite carpets and hangings, the numerous attendants, gave an air of grandeur to the scene, and seemed half to excuse the excess of which too many were guilty.

A love of music appears to have characterized both the Babylonians and their near neighbors and kinsmen, the Susianians.  In the sculptured representations of Assyria, the Susianians are shown to have possessed numerous instruments, and to have organized large bands of performers.  The Prophet Daniel and the historian Ctesias similarly witness to the musical taste of the Babylonians, which had much the same character.  Ctesias said that Annarus (or Nannarus), a Babylonian noble, entertained his guests at a banquet with music performed by a company of 150 women.  Of these a part sang, while the rest played upon instruments, some using the pipe, others the harp, and a certain number the psaltery.  These same instruments are assigned to the Babylonians by the prophet Daniel,