Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/41

Rh remarks: "She constructed this work in that portion of the country where the passes were and the shortest ways from Media, in order that the Medes might not have communication with her land and spy out her affairs." (1.5185.) Abydenos also speaks of this basin, but he puts the circumference at forty parasangs (i. e., twelve hundred stades). Meyer suggests that we substitute the number fourteen for forty. In that case the figures correspond with the four hundred and twenty stades of Herodotus. Diodorus Siculus, who compiles only from older sources, estimates the length of each side at three hundred stades (i. e., ten parasangs). We have every reason to believe that the figures of Herodotus are correct, since the circuit wall of the basin was visible in his day. Later, by neglect of the canals and dikes, the neighborhood became, by degrees, a great swamp, so that the boundary line of the artificial basin disappeared more and more. The statement that the basin was dug as a protection against the Medes points to the time of Nebuchadrezar, the first Babylonian king, who proposed a defense against Median invasion. The inscriptions of Nebuchadrezar give proof of building such a basin. The passage reads as follows: " In order that the enemy may not encroach upon Babylon, I have surrounded the land with mighty waters as with the swells of the sea; and in order that their overflow, like the overflow of the great sea (lit., rolling sea), ., might not break through their banks, I constructed a strong dam against them, and with a wall of brick I surrounded it."