Volume Iii Part 25 (1/2)

[690] Strabo, _loc. cit._ Diodorus, 14, 21, 81. Vol. II. p. 297.

[691] Movers, ”Phoenizier,” 2, 3, 306. This road certainly cannot be carried back to the Phenicians; the nearest way, from Nineveh to Syria, often traversed by the a.s.syrian kings on their campaigns, pa.s.sed by Karchemish on the lower Orontes.

[692] Plin. ”Hist. Nat.” 6, 26 (30).

[693] Eratosthenes in Strabo puts the length of the wall at 200 stades (25 miles) only, Xenophon at 20 parasangs (75 miles), ”as it is said:”

in his time a part of the wall was still standing, ”Anab.” 2, 4; cp.

Joseph, ”c. Apion.” 1, 20. But it is at the same time clear from the whole narrative of Xenophon that the Median wall was not situated at the narrowest point, but far higher up, where the distance between the rivers is far wider, _i.e._ above Sittace. We have no definite evidence that this wall was built by Nebuchadnezzar. If Strabo ascribes it to Semiramis, that means no more than the fact that the modern inhabitants give the name Sidd Nimrud to the remains. A wall against attacks from the North, against attacks of the Medes, would have no meaning before the rise of the power of the Medes; its origin and importance are entirely due to anxiety in regard to the Medes, and that such anxiety did exist, was due to the experience which Babylonia had had of a.s.syria, and the relative power of the two kingdoms; and it is also shown in the statements of Herodotus about the object of the windings in the river and the lake. The successors of Nebuchadnezzar were hardly in a position to undertake such works. This could be done at most by Nabonetus; but as Josephus (”c. Apion.” 1, 20) quotes from Berosus a comparatively unimportant building of this king, the Median wall would not have been forgotten if it had arisen from him. On the direction of the wall, cp.

Grote, ”Hist. of Greece,” 9, 89.

[694] Beros. fragm. 14, ed. Muller.

[695] Herod. 1, 186.

[696] Herod. 1, 178, 179.

[697] Herod. 3, 159.

[698] Xenoph. ”Anab.” 2, 2, 6. ”Inst. Cyr.” 7, 5, 7, 21.

[699] Diod. 2, 7. Cp. Arrian, ”Anab.” 7, 17, 6. Pseudo-Callisthenes ascribes to Babylon a diameter of no more than 12 stades and 220 or 206 feet: he ascribes to the city of Alexandria in Egypt a diameter of 16-1/2 stades; 1, 31.

[700] Diod. 2, 7.

[701] Eumenes in ael. ”Var. Hist.” 3, 23.

[702] So the Ephemerides in Arrian, ”Anab.” 7, 25, and in Plut. ”Alex.”

c. 75.

[703] ”Pol.” 3, 1, 12.

[704] Jerem. li. 53, 58.

[705] ”Hist. Nat.” 6, 26.

[706] Vol. I. p. 295.

[707] Joseph. ”c. Apion.” 1, 19.

[708] Oppert, ”Exped.” 1, 140 ff.

[709] Joseph. ”c. Apion.” 1, 19.

[710] Euseb. ”Praep. Evang.” 9, 41, 8.

[711] Diod. 2, 10.

[712] Strabo, p. 738.