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foreigner or cohabit with a concubine, the children are infamous.

174. Now the Carians were subdued by Harpagus, without having done any memorable action in their own defence: and not only the Carians, but all the Grecians that inhabit those parts, behaved themselves with as little courage. And among others settled there, are the Cnidians, colonists from the Lacedæmonians, whose territory juts on the sea, and is called the Triopean: but the region of Bybassus commenced from the peninsula, for all Cnidia, except a small space, is surrounded by water; (for the Ceramic gulf bounds it on the north, and on the south the sea by Syme and Rhodes: now this small space, which is about five stades in breadth, the Cnidians, wishing to make their territory insular, designed to dig through, while Harpagus was subduing Ionia. For the whole of their dominions were within the isthmus ; and where the Cnidian territory terminates towards the continent, there is the isthmus that they designed to dig through. But as they were carrying on the work with great diligence, the workmen appeared to be wounded to a greater extent and in a more strange manner than usual, both in other parts of the body, and particularly in the eyes, by the chipping of the rock; they therefore sent deputies to Delphi to inquire what was the cause of the obstruction; and, as the Cnidians say, the Pythia answered as follows in trimeter verse: "Build not a tower on the isthmus, nor dig it through, for Jove would have made it an island had he so willed." When the Pythia had given this answer, the Cnidians desisted from their work, and surrendered without resistance to Harpagus, as soon as he approached with his army. 175. The Pedasians were situate inland above Halicarnassus; when any mischief is about to befal them or their neighbours, the priestess of Minerva has a long beard: this has three times occurred. Now these were the only people about Caria who opposed Harpagus for any time, and gave him much trouble, by fortifying a mountain called Lyda. 176. After some time, however, the Pedasians were subdued. The Lycians, when Harpagus marched his army towards the Xanthian plain, went out to meet him, and engaging with very inferior numbers, displayed great feats of valour. But being defeated and shut up within their city,

they collected their wives, children, property, and servants within the citadel, and then set fire to it and burnt it to the ground. When they had done this, and engaged themselves by the strongest oaths, all the Xanthians went out and died fighting. Of the modern Lycians, who are said to be Xanthians, all, except eighty families, are strangers; but these eighty families happened at the time to be away from home, and so survived. Thus Harpagus got possession of Xanthus and Caunia almost in the same manner; for the Caunians generally followed the example of the Lycians.

177. Harpagus therefore reduced the lower parts of Asia, but Cyrus conquered the upper parts, subduing every nation without exception. The greatest part of these I shall pass by without notice; but I will make mention of those which gave him most trouble, and are most worthy of being re

corded.

178. When Cyrus had reduced all the other parts of the continent, he attacked the Assyrians. Now Assyria contains many large cities, but the most renowned and the strongest, and where the seat of government was established after the destruction of Nineveh, was Babylon, which is of the following description. The city stands in a spacious plain, and is quadrangular, and shows a front on every side of one hundred and twenty stades; these stades make up the sum of four hundred and eighty in the whole circumference. Such is the size of the city of Babylon. It was adorned in a manner surpassing any city we are acquainted with. In the first place, a moat deep, wide, and full of water, runs entirely round it ; next, there is a wall fifty royal cubits in breadth, and in height two hundred, but the royal cubit is larger than the common one by three fingers' breadth. 179. And here I think I ought to explain how the earth, taken out of the moat, was consumed, and in what manner the wall was built. As they dug the moat they made bricks of the earth that was taken out; and when they had moulded a sufficient number they baked them in kilns. Then making use of hot asphalt for cement, and laying wattled reeds between the thirty bottom courses of bricks, they first built up the sides of the moat, and afterwards the wall itself in the same manner; and on the top of the wall, at the edges, they built dwellings of one story, fronting each other, and they left a space between these dwellings

sufficient for turning a chariot with four horses. In the circumference of the wall there were a hundred gates, all of brass, as also are the posts and lintels. Eight days' journey from Babylon stands another city, called Is, on a small river of the same name, which discharges its stream into the Euphrates; now, this river brings down with its water many lumps of bitumen, from whence the bitumen used in the wall of Babylon was brought. 180. In this manner Babylon was encompassed with a wall. And the city consists of two divisions, for a river, called the Euphrates, separates it in the middle: this river, which is broad, deep, and rapid, flows from Armenia, and falls into the Red Sea. The wall therefore on either bank has an elbow carried down to the river; from thence along the curvatures of each bank of the river runs a wall of baked bricks. The city itself, which is full of houses three and four stories high, is cut up into straight streets, as well all the other as the transverse ones that lead to the river. At the end of each street a little gate is formed in the wall along the river-side, in number equal to the streets; and they are all made of brass, and lead down to the edge of the river. 181. This outer wall then is the chief defence, but another wall runs round within, not much inferior to the other in strength, though narrower. In the middle of each division of the city fortified buildings were erected; in one, the royal palace, with a spacious and strong enclosure, brazengated; and in the other, the precinct of Jupiter Belus, which in my time was still in existence, a square building of two stades on every side. In the midst of this precinct is built a solid tower of one stade both in length and breadth, and on this tower rose another, and another upon that, to the number of eight. And an ascent to these is outside, running spirally round all the towers. About the middle of the ascent there is a landing-place and seats to rest on, on which those who go up sit down and rest themselves; and in the uppermost tower stands a spacious temple, and in this temple is placed, handsomely furnished, a large couch, and by its side a table of gold. No statue has been erected within it, nor does any mortal pass the night there, except only a native woman, chosen by the god out of the whole nation, as the Chaldeans, who are priests of this deity, say. 182. These same priests assert, though I cannot credit what they say, that the god himself

comes to the temple and reclines on the bed, in the same manner as the Egyptians say happens at Thebes in Egypt, for there also a woman lies in the temple of Theban Jupiter, and both are said to have no intercourse with men; in the same manner also the priestess, who utters the oracles at Pataræ in Lycia, when the god is there, for there is not an oracle there at all times, but when there she is shut up during the night in the temple with the god. 183. There is also another temple below, within the precinct at Babylon; in it is a large golden statue of Jupiter seated, and near it is placed a large table of gold, the throne also and the step are of gold, which together weigh eight hundred talents, as the Chaldæans affirm. Outside the temple is a golden altar; and another large altar, where full-grown sheep are sacrificed; for on the golden altar only sucklings may be offered. On the great altar the Chaldæans consume yearly a thousand talents of frankincense when they celebrate the festival of this god. There was also at that time within the precincts of this temple a statue of solid gold, twelve cubits high: I indeed did not see it, I only relate what is said by the Chaldæans. Da rius, son of Hystaspes, formed a design to take away this statue, but dared not do so; but Xerxes, son of Darius, took it, and killed the priest who forbade him to remove it. Thus, then, this temple was adorned; and besides there are many private offerings.

184. There were many others who reigned over Babylon, whom I shall mention in my Assyrian history, who beautified the walls and temples, and amongst them were two women. The first of these, named Semiramis, lived five generations before the other; she raised mounds along the plain, which are worthy of admiration; for before, the river used to overflow the whole plain like a sea. 185. But the other, who was queen next after her, and whose name was Nitocris, (she was much more sagacious than the queen before her,) in the first place left monuments of herself, which I shall presently describe; and in the next place, when she saw the power of the Medes growing formidable and restless, and that, among other cities, Nineveh was captured by them, she took every possible precaution for her own defence. First of all, with respect to the river Euphrates, which before ran in a straight line, and which flows through the middle of the city, this. by

having channels dug above, she made so winding, that in its course it touches three times at one and the same village in Assyria: the name of this village at which the Euphrates touches, is Arderica: and to this day, those who go from our sea to Babylon, if they travel by the Euphrates, come three times to this village on three successive days. She also raised on either bank of the river a mound, astonishing for its magnitude and height. At a considerable distance above Babylon, she had a reservoir for a lake dug, carrying it out some distance from the river, and in depth digging down to water, and in width making its circumference of four hundred and twenty stades: she consumed the soil from this excavation by heaping it up on the banks of the river, and when it was completely dug, she had stones brought and built a casing to it all round. She had both these works done, the river made winding, and the whole excavation a lake, in order that the current, being broken by frequent turnings, might be more slow, and the navigation to Babylon tedious, and that after the voyage, a long march round the lake might follow. All this was done in that part of the country where the approach to Babylon is nearest, and where is the shortest way for the Medes; in order that the Medes might not, by holding intercourse with her people, become acquainted with her affairs. 186. She enclosed herself, therefore, with these defences by digging, and immediately afterwards made the following addition. As the city consisted of two divisions, which were separated by the river, during the reign of former kings, when any one had occasion to cross from one division to the other, he was obliged to cross in a boat: and this, in my opinion, was very troublesome: she therefore provided for this, for after she had dug the reservoir for the lake, she left this other monument built by similar toil. She had large blocks of stone cut, and when they were ready and the place was completely dug out, she turned the whole stream of the river into the place she had dug: while this was filled, and the ancient channel had become dry, in the first place, she lined with burnt bricks the banks of the river throughout the city, and the descents that lead from the gates to the river, in the same manner as the walls. In the next place, about the middle of the city, she built a bridge with the stones she had prepared, and bound them together with plates of lead and

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