[62] So Arrian says, writing with the two contemporary memoirs of Alexander’s generals before him. These two were Ptolemy, afterwards King of Egypt, and Aristobulus, a soldier of considerable repute.
[63] Now called the Great Zab.
[64] Susa was the official capital of the kingdom; Babylon, though fallen somewhat from its former greatness, was still the largest city. One might compare them to St. Petersburg and Moscow, but that Moscow is intensely Russian in feeling, while Babylon was probably strong by Anti-Persian. It had not forgotten its own independence, an independence which it tried more than once to assert by arms.
[65] That described in 2 Kings xxiv. 13-16 as having happened in the eighth year of Jehoiachin (B.C. 602).
[66] It seems probable that Astyages is to be identified with “Darius the Mede” mentioned in the Book of Daniel as succeeding to the government of Babylon after the death of Belshazzar.
[67] Five “darics” would be about equal to about £5 10s. The coin got its name from the first Darius.
[68] The walls of Babylon were built of brick.
[69] Not even by Cortes and his Spaniards in the newly-conquered Mexico, or by Pizarro in the still richer Peru.
[70] Equal to about eleven millions and a half. Two-thirds were in uncoined gold and silver; the rest in gold darics. The average stock of bullion and coin held by the Bank of England is about half as much again.
[71] The phrase is taken from the historian Curtius.