Ktêsias gave the circuit of the walls of Babylon as three hundred and sixty stadia; Kleitarchus, three hundred and sixty-five stadia; Quintus Curtius, three hundred and sixty-eight stadia; and Strabo, three hundred and eighty-five stadia; all different from Herodotus, who gives four hundred and eighty stadia, a square of one hundred and twenty stadia each side. Grosskurd (ad Strabon. xvi, p. 738), Letronne, and Heeren, all presume that the smaller number must be the truth, and that Herodotus must have been misinformed; and Grosskurd further urges, that Herodotus cannot have seen the walls, inasmuch as he himself tells us that Darius caused them to be razed after the second siege and reconquest (Herodot. iii, 159). But upon this we may observe: First, the expression (τὸ τεῖχος περιεῖλε) does not imply that the wall was so thoroughly and entirely razed by Darius as to leave no part standing,—still less, that the great and broad moat was in all its circuit filled up and levelled. This would have been a most laborious operation in reference to such high and bulky masses, and withal not necessary for the purpose of rendering the town defenceless; for which purpose the destruction of certain portions of the wall is sufficient. Next, Herodotus speaks distinctly of the walls and ditch as existing in his time, when he saw the place, which does not exclude the possibility that numerous breaches may have been designedly made in them, or mere openings left in the walls without any actual gates, for the purpose of obviating all idea of revolt. But, however this latter fact may be, certain it is that the great walls were either continuous, or discontinuous only to the extent of these designed breaches, when Herodotus saw them. He describes the town and its phenomena in the present tense: κέεται ἐν πεδίῳ μεγάλῳ, μέγαθος ἐοῦσα μέτωπον ἕκαστον 120 σταδίων, ἐούσης τετραγώνου· οὗτοι στάδιοι τῆς περιόδου τῆς πόλιος γίνονται συνάπαντες 480. Τὸ μὲν νῦν μέγαθος τοσοῦτόν ἐστι τοῦ ἄστεος τοῦ Βαβυλωνίου. Ἐκεκόσμητο δὲ ὡς οὐδὲν ἄλλο πόλισμα τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν· ταφρὸς μὲν πρῶτά μιν βαθέα τε καὶ εὔρεα καὶ πλέη ὕδατος περιθέει· μετὰ δὲ, τεῖχος πεντήκοντα μὲν πηχέων βασιληΐων ἐὸν τὸ εὖρος, ὕψος δὲ, διηκοσίων πηχέων. Ὁ δὲ βασιλήϊος πηχὺς τοῦ μετρίου ἐστὶ πήχεος μέζων τρισὶ δακτυλίοισι (c. 178). Again (c. 181),—Τοῦτο μὲν δὴ τὸ τεῖχος θώρηξ ἐστί· ἕτερον δὲ ἔσωθεν τεῖχος περιθεῖ, οὐ πολλῷ τέῳ ἀσθενέστερον τοῦ ἑτέρου τείχους, στεινότερον δέ. Then he describes the temple of Zeus Bêlus, with its vast dimensions,—καὶ ἐς ἐμὲ τοῦτο ἔτι ἐὸν, δύο σταδίων πάντη, ἐὸν τετράγωνον,—in the language of one who had himself gone up to the top of it. After having mentioned the striking present phenomena of the temple, he specifies a statue of solid gold, twelve cubits high, which the Chaldæans told him had once been there, but which he did not see, and he carefully marks the distinction in his language,—ἦν δὲ ἐν τῷ τεμένεϊ τούτῳ ἔτι τὸν χρόνον ἐκεῖνον καὶ ἀνδριὰς δυώδεκα πήχεων, χρύσεος στέρεος. Ἐγὼ μέν μιν οὐκ εἶδον· τὰ δὲ λέγεται ὑπὸ Χαλδαίων, ταῦτα λέγω (c. 183).
The argument, therefore, by which Grosskurd justifies the rejection of the statement of Herodotus is not to be reconciled with the language of the historian: Herodotus certainly saw both the walls and the ditch. Ktêsias saw them too, and his statement of the circuit, as three hundred and sixty stadia, stands opposed to that of four hundred and eighty stadia, which appears in Herodotus. But the authority of Herodotus is, in my judgment, so much superior to that of Ktêsias, that I accept the larger figure as more worthy of credit than the smaller. Sixty English miles of circuit is, doubtless, a wonder, but forty-five miles in circuit is a wonder also: granting means and will to execute the lesser of these two, the Babylonian kings can hardly be supposed inadequate to the greater.
To me the height of these artificial mountains, called walls, appears even more astonishing than their length or breadth. Yet it is curious that on this point the two eye-witnesses, Herodotus and Ktêsias, both agree, with only the difference between royal cubits and common cubits. Herodotus states the height at two hundred royal cubits: Ktêsias, at fifty fathoms, which are equal to two hundred common cubits (Diod. ii, 7),—τὸ δὲ ὕψος, ὡς μὲν Κτησίας φησὶ, πεντήκοντα ὀργυιῶν, ὡς δὲ ἔνιοι τῶν νεωτώρων ἔγραψαν, πηχῶν πεντήκοντα. Olearius (ad Philostratum Vit. Apollon. Tyan. i, 25) shows plausible reason for believing that the more recent writers (νεώτεροι) cut down the dimensions stated by Ktêsias simply because they thought such a vast height incredible. The difference between the royal cubit and the common cubit, as Herodotus on this occasion informs us, was three digits in favor of the former; his two hundred royal cubits are thus equal to three hundred and thirty-seven feet eight inches: Ktêsias has not attended to the difference between royal cubits and common cubits, and his estimate, therefore, is lower than that of Herodotus by thirty-seven feet eight inches.
On the whole, I cannot think that we are justified, either by the authority of such counter-testimony as can be produced, or by the intrinsic wonder of the case, in rejecting the dimensions of the walls of Babylon as given by Herodotus.
Quintus Curtius states that a large proportion of the inclosed space was not occupied by dwellings, but sown and planted (v, 1, 26: compare Diodor. ii, 9).
[562] Herodot. i, 196.
[563] Arrian, Exp. Al. iii, 16, 6; vii, 17, 3; Quint. Curtius, iii, 3, 16.
[564] Xenoph. Anab. i, 4, 11; Arrian. Exp. Al. iii. 16, 3. καὶ ἅμα τοῦ πολέμου τὸ ἆθλον ἡ Βαβυλῶν καὶ τὰ Σοῦσα ἐφαίνετο.
[565] See the statement of the large receipts of the satrap Tritantæchmes and his immense establishment of horses and Indian dogs (Herodot. i 192).
[566] There is a valuable examination of the lower course of the Euphrates, with the changes which it has undergone, in Ritter, West-Asien, b. iii. Abtheil. iii, Abschnitt i, sect. 29, pp. 45-49, and the passage from Abydenus in the latter page.