Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/35

Rh he believed he had determined the position and circumference of the two walls, Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl, as well as the east wall constructed by Nebuchadrezar. He based his belief on the claim that the mounds of ruins contained the remnants of the old walls. According to his chart, the modern Hillah marked the center of old Babylon. The city itself, with its walls, formed a quadrangle sloping toward the northeast, of which the Euphrates was the diagonal (from northwest to southeast). According to Oppert's estimate, the outer fortification walls embraced an area of five hundred and thirteen square kilometers—i. e., about two hundred square miles. Therefore the length of each side of the square was fourteen miles and its circuit fifty-six miles—four hundred and eighty Stades. By this estimate Oppert thinks he has proved the correctness of the statements of Herodotus. He explains the difference between the figures of Herodotus and those of later authors on the hypothesis that Herodotus meant the outer fortifications, while the three hundred and sixty stades of Ctesias may refer to the length of the inner wall. It is clear that in the time of Herodotus the two lines must have been apparent, for he expressly declares: "This wall is like a coat of mail, but a second wall within makes a circuit not much weaker than the outer wall, but smaller in circumference." (I., 181.) The figures of Herodotus, as he himself says, refer to the outer wall, but doubtless Ctesias and the later writers also intended to give the length of the outer limit. It may be possible, but not probable, that they mistook the inner for the outer wall, which might have been no longer recognized.

Oppert's plans and charts have been verified by later