Herodotus' HISTORY BOOK 1 (CLIO) Complete

Translated by G. Macaulay.

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107 pages - You are on Page 90

180. Babylon then was walled in this manner; and there are two divisions of the city; for a river whose name is Euphrates parts it in the middle. This flows from the land of the Armenians and is large and deep and swift, and it flows out into the Erythraian sea. The wall then on each side has its bends [179] carried down to the river, and from this point the return walls stretch along each bank of the stream in the form of a rampart of baked bricks: and the city itself is full of houses of three and four stories, and the roads by which it is cut up run in straight lines, including the cross roads which lead to the river; and opposite to each road there were set gates in the rampart which ran along the river, in many in number as the ways, [180] and these also were of bronze and led like the ways [181] to the river itself. 181. This wall then which I have mentioned is as it were a cuirass [182] for the town, and another wall runs round within it, not much weaker for defence than the first but enclosing a smaller space. [183] And in each division of the city was a building in the midst, in the one the king's palace of great extent and strongly fortified round, and in the other the temple of Zeus Belos with bronze gates, and this exists still up to my time and measures two furlongs each way, [184] being of a square shape: and in the midst of the temple [185] is built a solid tower measuring a furlong both in length and in breadth, and on this tower another tower has been erected, and another again upon this, and so on up to the number of eight towers. An ascent to these has been built running outside round about all the towers; and when one reaches about the middle of the ascent one finds a stopping-place and seats to rest upon, on which those who ascend sit down and rest: and on the top of the last tower there is a large cell, [186] and in the cell a large couch is laid, well covered, and by it is placed a golden table: and there is no image there set up nor does any human being spend the night there except only one woman of the natives of the place, whomsoever the god shall choose from all the woman, as say the Chaldeans who are the priests of this god. [179] {tous agkhonas}, the walls on the North and South of the city, called so because built at an angle with the side walls.

[180] {laurai}, "lanes."

[181] {kai autai}, but perhaps the text is not sound.

[182] {thorex}, as opposed to the inner wall, which would be the {kithon} (cp. vii. 139).

[183] {steinoteron}: Mr. Woods says "of less thickness," the top of the wall being regarded as a road.

[184] {duo stadion pante}, i.e. 404 yards square.

[185] {tou irou}, i.e. the sacred precincts; cp. {en to temenei touto}.

[186] {neos}, the inner house of the temple.

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