“But what most concerns the subject of this memoir is, the existence of a parapet wall or stone rampart in the river, just above the several aqueducts. In general, there is one of the former attached to each of the latter. And almost invariably, between two mills on the opposite banks, one of them crosses the stream from side to side, with the exception of a passage left in the centre for boats to pass up and down. The object of these subaqueous walls would appear to be exclusively, to raise the water sufficiently at low seasons, to give it impetus, as well as a more abundant supply to the wheels. And their effect at those times is, to create a fall in every part of the width, save the opening left for commerce, through which the water rushes with a moderately irregular surface. These dams were probably from four to eight feet high originally; but they are now frequently a bank of stones disturbing the evenness of the current, but always affording a sufficient passage for large boats at low seasons.”
The marks which Colonel Chesney points out, of previous population and industry on the banks of the Euphrates at this part of its course, are extremely interesting and curious, when contrasted with the desolation depicted by Xenophon; who mentions that there were no other inhabitants than some who lived by cutting millstones from the stone quarries near, and sending them to Babylon in exchange for grain. It is plain that the population, of which Colonel Chesney saw the remaining tokens, either had already long ceased, or did not begin to exist, or to construct their dams and aqueducts, until a period later than Xenophon. They probably began during the period of the Seleukid kings, after the year 300 B.C. For this line of road along the Euphrates began then to acquire great importance as the means of communication between the great city of Seleukeia (on the Tigris, below Bagdad) and the other cities founded by Seleukus Nikator and his successors in the North of Syria and Asia Minor—Seleukeia in Pieria, Antioch, Laodikeia, Apameia, etc. This route coincides mainly with the present route from Bagdad to Aleppo, crossing the Euphrates at Thapsakus. It can hardly be doubted that the course of the Euphrates was better protected during the two centuries of the Seleukid kings (B.C. 300-100, speaking in round numbers), than it came to be afterwards, when that river became the boundary line between the Romans and the Parthians. Even at the time of the Emperor Julian’s invasion, however, Ammianus Marcellinus describes the left bank of the Euphrates, north of Babylonia, as being in several parts well cultivated, and furnishing ample subsistence, (Ammian. Marc. xxiv, 1). At the time of Xenophon’s Anabasis, there was nothing to give much importance to the banks of the Euphrates north of Babylonia.
Mr. Ainsworth describes the country on the left bank of the Euphrates, before reaching Pylæ, as being now in the same condition as it was when Xenophon and his comrades marched through it,—“full of hills and narrow valleys, and presenting many difficulties to the movement of an army. The illustrator was, by a curious accident, left by the Euphrates steamer on this very portion of the river, and on the same side as the Perso-Greek army, and he had to walk a day and a night across these inhospitable regions; so that he can speak feelingly of the difficulties which the Greeks had to encounter.” (Travels in the Track, etc. p. 81.)
[70] I incline to think that Charmandê must have been nearly opposite Pylæ, lower down than Hit. But Major Rennell (p. 107) and Mr. Ainsworth (p. 84) suppose Charmandê to be the same place as the modern Hit (the Is of Herodotus). There is no other known town with which we can identify it.
[71] Xen. Anab. i, 5, 11-17.
[72] The commentators agree in thinking that we are to understand by Pylæ a sort of gate or pass, marking the spot where the desert country north of Babylonia—with its undulations of land, and its steep banks along the river—was exchanged for the flat and fertile alluvium constituting Babylonia proper. Perhaps there was a town near the pass, and named after it.
Now it appears from Col. Chesney’s survey that this alteration in the nature of the country takes place a few miles below Hit. He observes—(Euphrates and Tigris, vol. i, p. 54)—“Three miles below Hit, the remains of aqueducts disappear, and the windings become shorter and more frequent, as the river flows through a tract of country almost level.” Thereabouts it is that I am inclined to place Pylæ.
Colonel Chesney places it lower down, twenty-five miles from Hit. Professor Koch (Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 44), lower down still. Mr. Ainsworth places it as much as seventy geographical miles lower than Hit (Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 81); compare Ritter, Erdkunde, West Asien, x. p. 16; xi, pp. 755-763.
[73] The description given of this scene (known to the Greeks through the communications of Klearchus) by Xenophon, is extremely interesting (Anab. i, 6). I omit it from regard to space.
[74] Xen. Anab. i, 7, 2-9.