Babylon is said, by some writers, to have owed its foundation to Queen Semiramis, a person whose history, as it is handed down by tradition, seems to consist rather of entertaining fictions than substantial realities. By other authors, the foundation of the city is ascribed to Belus, and Nebuchadnezzar is allowed to have completed the labor. It stood on the Euphrates, in the middle of a wide plain, and was built in the form of an exact square, each side being fifteen miles in extent. - Goodrich, 1844