Herodotus: from The History of the
Persian Wars, c. 430 BCE
Herodotus: From The History of the Persian Wars, c.
430 BCEI.178:
Assyria possesses a vast number of great cities, whereof the most renowned
and strongest at this time was Babylon, where, after the fall of Nineveh, the seat of
government had been removed.The following is a description of the place: The city stands on a broad plain, and is
an exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way, so that the entire
circuit is four hundred and eighty furlongs. While such is its size, in magnificence there
is no other city that approaches to it. It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad
and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall fifty royal cubits in width, and
two hundred in height. (The royal cubit is longer by three fingers' breadth than the
common cubit.) I.179: And here I may not omit to tell the use to which the mold dug out of the
great moat as turned, nor the manner wherein the wall was wrought. As fast as they dug the
moat the soil which they got from the cutting was made into bricks, and when a sufficient
number were completed they baked the bricks in kilns. Then they set to building, and began
with bricking the borders of the moat, after which they proceeded to construct the wall
itself, using throughout for their cement hot bitumen, and interposing a layer of wattled
reeds at every thirtieth course of the bricks. On the top, along the edges of the wall,
they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another, leaving between them
room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the circuit of the wall are a hundred gates, all
of brass, with brazen lintels and side-posts. The bitumen used in the work was brought to
Babylon from the Is, a small stream which flows into the Euphrates at the point where the
city of the same name stands, eight days' journey from Babylon. Lumps of bitumen are found
in great abundance in this river.
I.180: The city is divided into two portions by the river which runs through the
midst of it. This river is the Euphrates, a broad, deep, swift stream, which rises in
Armenia, and empties itself into the Erythraean sea. The city wall is brought down on both
sides to the edge of the stream: thence, from the corners of the wall, there is
carried along each bank of the river a fence of burnt bricks. The houses are mostly three
and four stories high; the streets all run in straight lines, not only those parallel to
the river, but also the cross streets which lead down to the water-side. At the river end
of these cross streets are low gates in the fence that skirts the stream, which are, like
the great gates in the outer wall, of brass, and open on the water.
I.181: The outer wall is the main defense of the city. There is, however, a
second inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little inferior to it in
strength. The center of each division of the town was occupied by a fortress. In the one
stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size: in the
other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus [Bel], a square enclosure two furlongs each
way, with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my time. In the middle of the
precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon which
was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the
top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. When one is about
half-way up, one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are wont to sit some time
on their way to the summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside
the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its
side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place, nor is the chamber occupied of
nights by any one but a single native woman, who, as the Chaldaeans, the priests of this
god, affirm, is chosen for himself by the deity out of all the women of the land.
I.182: They also declare---but I for my part do not credit it---that the god
comes down in person into this chamber, and sleeps upon the couch. This is like the story
told by the Egyptians of what takes place in their city of Thebes, where a woman always
passes the night in the temple of the Theban Jupiter [Amon-Ra]. In each case the woman is
said to be debarred all intercourse with men. It is also like the custom of Patara, in
Lycia, where the priestess who delivers the oracles, during the time that she is so
employed---for at Patara there is not always an oracle---is shut up in the temple every
night.
I.183: Below, in the same precinct, there is a second temple, in which is a
sitting figure of Jupiter [Marduk], all of gold. Before the figure stands a large golden
table, and the throne whereon it sits, and the base on which the throne is placed, are
likewise of gold. The Chaldaeans told me that all the gold together was eight hundred
talents' weight. Outside the temple are two altars, one of solid gold, on which it is only
lawful to offer sucklings; the other a common altar, but of great size, on which the
full-grown animals are sacrificed. It is also on the great altar that the Chaldaeans burn
the frankincense, which is offered to the amount of a thousand talents' weight, every
year, at the festival of the God. In the time of Cyrus there was likewise in this temple a
figure of a man, twelve cubits high, entirely of solid gold. I myself did not see this
figure, but I relate what the Chaldaeans report concerning it. Darius, the son of
Hystaspes, plotted to carry the statue off, but had not the hardihood to lay his hands
upon it. Xerxes, however, the son of Darius, killed the priest who forbade him to move the
statue, and took it away. Besides the ornaments which I have mentioned, there are a large
number of private offerings in this holy precinct.
I.184: Many sovereigns have ruled over this city of Babylon, and lent their aid
to the building of its walls and the adornment of its temples, of whom I shall make
mention in my Assyrian history. Among them two were women. Of these, the earlier, called
Semiramis, held the throne five generations before the later princess. She raised certain
embankments well worthy of inspection, in the plain near Babylon, to control the river,
which, till then, used to overflow, and flood the whole country round about.
I.185: The later of the two queens, whose name was Nitocris, a wiser princess
than her predecessor, not only left behind her, as memorials of her occupancy of the
throne, the works which I shall presently describe, but also, observing the great power
and restless enterprise of the Medes, who had taken so large a number of cities, and among
them Nineveh, and expecting to be attacked in her turn, made all possible exertions to
increase the defenses of her empire. And first, whereas the river Euphrates, which
traverses the city, ran formerly with a straight course to Babylon, she, by certain
excavations which she made at some distance up the stream, rendered it so winding that it
comes three several times in sight of the same village, a village in Assyria, which is
called Ardericea; and to this day, they who would go from our sea to Babylon, on
descending to the river touch three times, and on three different days, at this very
place. She also made an embankment along each side of the Euphrates, wonderful both for
breadth and height, and dug a basin for a lake a great way above Babylon, close alongside
of the stream, which was sunk everywhere to the point where they came to water, and was of
such breadth that the whole circuit measured four hundred and twenty furlongs. The soil
dug out of this basin was made use of in the embankments along the waterside. When the
excavation was finished, she had stones brought, and bordered with them the entire margin
of the reservoir. These two things were done, the river made to wind, and the lake
excavated, that the stream might be slacker by reason of the number of curves, and the
voyage be rendered circuitous, and that at the end of the voyage it might be necessary to
skirt the lake and so make a long round. All these works were on that side of Babylon
where the passes lay, and the roads into Media were the straightest, and the aim of the
queen in making them was to prevent the Medes from holding intercourse with the
Babylonians, and so to keep them in ignorance of her affairs.
I.186: While the soil from the excavation was being thus used for the defense of
the city, Nitocris engaged also in another undertaking, a mere by-work compared with those
we have already mentioned. The city, as I said, was divided by the river into two distinct
portions. Under the former kings, if a man wanted to pass from one of these divisions to
the other, he had to cross in a boat; which must, it seems to me, have been very
troublesome. Accordingly, while she was digging the lake, Nitocris be. thought herself of
turning it to a use which should at once remove this inconvenience, and enable her to
leave another monument of her reign over Babylon. She gave orders for the hewing of
immense blocks of stone, and when they were ready and the basin was excavated, she turned
the entire stream of the Euphrates into the cutting, and thus for a time, while the basin
was filling, the natural channel of the river was left dry. Forthwith she set to work, and
in the first place lined the banks of the stream within the city with quays of burnt
brick, and also bricked the landing-places opposite the river-gates, adopting throughout
the same fashion of brickwork which had been used in the town wall; after which, with the
materials which had been prepared, she built, as near the middle of the town as possible,
a stone bridge, the blocks whereof were bound together with iron and lead. In the daytime
square wooden platforms were laid along from pier to pier, on which the inhabitants
crossed the stream; but at night they were withdrawn, to prevent people passing from side
to side in the dark to commit robberies. When the river had filled the cutting, and the
bridge was finished, the Euphrates was turned back again into its ancient bed; and thus
the basin, transformed suddenly into a lake, was seen to answer the purpose for which it
was made, and the inhabitants, by help of the basin, obtained the advantage of a bridge.
I.187: It was this same princess by whom a remarkable deception was planned. She
had her tomb constructed in the upper part of one of the principal gateways of the city,
high above the heads of the passers by, with this inscription cut upon it: "If there
be one among my successors on the throne of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let him
open my tomb, and take as much as he chooses---not, however, unless he be truly in want,
for it will not be for his good." This tomb continued untouched until Darius came to
the kingdom. To him it seemed a monstrous thing that he should be unable to use one of the
gates of the town, and that a sum of money should be lying idle, and moreover inviting his
grasp, and he not seize upon it. Now he could not use the gate, because, as he drove
through, the dead body would have been over his head. Accordingly he opened the tomb; but
instead of money, found only the dead body, and a writing which said: "Had you not
been insatiate of money, and careless how you got it, you would not have broken open the
sepulchers of the dead."
I.188: The expedition of Cyrus was undertaken against the son of this princess,
who bore the same name as his father Labynetus, and was king of the Assyrians. The Great
King, when he goes to the wars, is always supplied with provisions carefully prepared at
home, and with cattle of his own. Water too from the river Choaspes, which flows by Susa,
is taken with him for his drink, as that is the only water which the kings of Persia
taste. Wherever he travels, he is attended by a number of four-wheeled cars drawn by
mules, in which the Choaspes water, ready boiled for use, and stored in flagons of silver,
is moved with him from place to place.
I.189: Cyrus on his way to Babylon came to the banks of the Gyndes, a stream
which, rising in the Matienian mountains, runs through the country of the Dardanians, and
empties itself into the river Tigris. The Tigris, after receiving the Gyndes, flows on by
the city of Opis, and discharges its waters into the Erythraean sea. When Cyrus reached
this stream, which could only be passed in boats, one of the sacred white horses
accompanying his march, full of spirit and high mettle, walked into the water, and tried
to cross by himself; but the current seized him, swept him along with it, and drowned him
in its depths. Cyrus, enraged at the insolence of the river, threatened so to break its
strength that in future even women should cross it easily without wetting their knees.
Accordingly he put off for a time his attack on Babylon, and, dividing his army into two
parts, he marked out by ropes one hundred and eighty trenches on each side of the Gyndes,
leading off from it in all directions, and setting his army to dig, some on one side of
the river, some on the other, he accomplished his threat by the aid of so great a number
of hands, but not without losing thereby the whole summer season.
I.190: Having, however, thus wreaked his vengeance on the Gyndes, by dispersing
it through three hundred and sixty channels, Cyrus, with the first approach of the ensuing
spring, marched forward against Babylon. The Babylonians, encamped without their walls,
awaited his coming. A battle was fought at a short distance from the city, in which the
Babylonians were defeated by the Persian king, whereupon they withdrew within their
defenses. Here they shut themselves up, and made light of his siege, having laid in a
store of provisions for many years in preparation against this attack; for when they saw
Cyrus conquering nation after nation, they were convinced that he would never stop, and
that their turn would come at last.
I.191: Cyrus was now reduced to great perplexity, as time went on and he made no
progress against the place. In this distress either some one made the suggestion to him,
or he thought to himself of a plan, which he proceeded to put in execution. He placed a
portion of his army at the point where the river enters the city, and another body at the
back of the place where it issues forth, with orders to march into the town by the bed of
the stream, as soon as the water became shallow enough: he then himself drew off with the
unwarlike portion of his host, and made for the place where Nitocris dug the basin for the
river, where he did exactly what she had done formerly: he turned the Euphrates by a canal
into the basin, which was then a marsh, on which the river sank to such an extent that the
natural bed of the stream became fordable. Hereupon the Persians who had been left for the purpose at Babylon by the, river-side,
entered the stream, which had now sunk so as to reach about midway up a man's thigh, and
thus got into the town. Had the Babylonians been apprised of what Cyrus was about, or had
they noticed their danger, they would never have allowed the Persians to enter the city,
but would have destroyed them utterly; for they would have made fast all the street-gates
which gave upon the river, and mounting upon the walls along both sides of the stream,
would so have caught the enemy, as it were, in a trap. But, as it was, the Persians came
upon them by surprise and so took the city. Owing to the vast size of the place, the
inhabitants of the central parts (as the residents at Babylon declare) long after the
outer portions of the town were taken, knew nothing of what had chanced, but as they were
engaged in a festival, continued dancing and reveling until they learnt the capture but
too certainly. Such, then, were the circumstances of the first taking of Babylon.
I.192: Among many proofs which I shall bring forward of the power and resources
of the Babylonians, the following is of special account. The whole country under the
dominion of the Persians, besides paying a fixed tribute, is parceled out into divisions,
which have to supply food to the Great King and his army during different portions of the
year. Now out of the twelve months which go to a year, the district of Babylon furnishes
food during four, the other of Asia during eight; by the which it appears that Assyria, in
respect of resources, is one-third of the whole of Asia. Of all the Persian governments,
or satrapies as they are called by the natives, this is by far the best. When
Tritantaechmes, son of Artabazus, held it of the king, it brought him in an artaba of silver every day. The artaba is a Persian measure, and holds three choenixes more than the medimnus of the Athenians. He also had, belonging to his own private
stud, besides war horses, eight hundred stallions and sixteen thousand mares, twenty to
each stallion. Besides which he kept so great a number of Indian hounds, that four large
villages of the plain were exempted from all other charges on condition of finding them in
food.
I.193: But little rain falls in Assyria, enough, however, to make the corn begin
to sprout, after which the plant is nourished and the ears formed by means of irrigation
from the river. For the river does not, as in Egypt, overflow the corn-lands of its own
accord, but is spread over them by the hand, or by the help of engines. The whole of
Babylonia is, like Egypt, intersected with canals. The largest of them all, which runs
towards the winter sun, and is impassable except in boats, is carried from the Euphrates
into another stream, called the Tigris, the river upon which the town of Nineveh formerly
stood. Of all the countries that we know there is none which is so fruitful in grain. It
makes no pretension indeed of growing the fig, the olive, the vine, or any other tree of
the kind; but in grain it is so fruitful as to yield commonly two-hundred-fold, and when
the production is the greatest, even three-hundred-fold. The blade of the wheat-plant and
barley-plant is often four fingers in breadth. As for the millet and the sesame, I shall
not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge; for I am not ignorant
that what I have already written concerning the fruitfulness of Babylonia must seem
incredible to those who have never visited the country. The only oil they use is made from
the sesame-plant. Palm-trees grow in great numbers over the whole of the flat country,
mostly of the kind which bears fruit, and this fruit supplies them with bread, wine, and
honey. They are cultivated like the fig-tree in all respects, among others in this. The
natives tie the fruit of the male-palms, as they are called by the Hellenes, to the
branches of the date-bearing palm, to let the gall-fly enter the dates and ripen them, and
to prevent the fruit from falling off. The male-palms, like the wild fig-trees, have
usually the gall-fly in their fruit.
I.194: But that which surprises me most in the land, after the city itself, I
will now proceed to mention. The boats which come down the river to Babylon are circular,
and made of skins. The frames, which are of willow, are cut in the country of the
Armenians above Assyria, and on these, which serve for hulls, a covering of skins is
stretched outside, and thus the boats are made, without either stem or stern, quite round
like a shield. They are then entirely filled with straw, and their cargo is put on board,
after which they are suffered to float down the stream. Their chief freight is wine,
stored in casks made of the wood of the palm-tree. They are managed by two men who stand
upright in them, each plying an oar, one pulling and the other pushing. The boats are of
various sizes, some larger, some smaller; the biggest reach as high as five thousand
talents' burthen. Each vessel has a live ass on board; those of larger size have more than
one. When they reach Babylon, the cargo is landed and offered for sale; after which the
men break up their boats, sell the straw and the frames, and loading their asses with the
skins, set off on their way back to Armenia. The current is too strong to allow a boat to
return upstream, for which reason they make their boats of skins rather than wood. On
their return to Armenia they build fresh boats for the next voyage.
I.195: The dress of the Babylonians is a linen tunic reaching to the feet, and
above it another tunic made in wool, besides which they have a short white cloak thrown
round them, and shoes of a peculiar fashion, not unlike those worn by the Boiotians. They
have long hair, wear turbans on their heads, and anoint their whole body with perfumes.
Every one carries a seal, and a walking-stick, carved at the top into the form of an
apple, a rose, a lily, an eagle, or something similar; for it is not their habit to use a
stick without an ornament.
I.196: Of their customs, whereof I shall now proceed to give an account, the
following (which I understand belongs to them in common with the Illyrian tribe of the
Eneti) is the wisest in my judgment. Once a year in each village the maidens of age to
marry were collected all together into one place; while the men stood round them in a
circle. Then a herald called up the damsels one by one, and offered them for sale. He
began with the most beautiful. When she was sold for no small sum of money, he offered for
sale the one who came next to her in beauty. All of them were sold to be wives. The
richest of the Babylonians who wished to wed bid against each other for the loveliest
maidens, while the humbler wife-seekers, who were indifferent about beauty, took the more
homely damsels with marriage-portions. For the custom was that when the herald had gone through the whole number of the
beautiful damsels, he should then call up the ugliest---a cripple, if there chanced to be
one---and offer her to the men, asking who would agree to take her with the smallest
marriage-portion. And the man who offered to take the smallest sum had her assigned to
him. The marriage-portions were furnished by the money paid for the beautiful damsels, and
thus the fairer maidens portioned out the uglier. No one was allowed to give his daughter
in marriage to the man of his choice, nor might any one carry away the damsel whom he had
purchased without finding bail really and truly to make her his wife; if, however, it
turned out that they did not agree, the money might be paid back. All who liked might come
even from distant villages and bid for the women. This was the best of all their customs,
but it has now fallen into disuse. They have lately hit upon a very different plan to save
their maidens from violence, and prevent their being torn from them and carried to distant
cities, which is to bring up their daughters to be courtesans. This is now done by all the
poorer of the common people, who since the conquest have been maltreated by their lords,
and have had ruin brought upon their families.
I.197: The following custom seems to me the wisest of their institutions next to
the one lately praised. They have no physicians, but when a man is ill, they lay him in
the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if they have ever had his
disease themselves or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice,
recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case, or in the case known to
them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without asking him what his
ailment is.
I.198: They bury their dead in honey, and have funeral lamentations like the
Egyptians. When a Babylonian has consorted with his wife, he sits down before a censer of
burning incense, and the woman sits opposite to him. At dawn of day they wash; for till
they are washed they will not touch any of their common vessels. This practice is observed
also by the Arabians.
I.199: The Babylonians have one most shameful custom. Every woman born in the
country must once in her life go and sit down in the precinct of Venus [Ishtar], and there
consort with a stranger. Many of the wealthier sort, who are too proud to mix with the
others, drive in covered carriages to the precinct, followed by a goodly train of
attendants, and there take their station. But the larger number seat themselves within the
holy enclosure with wreaths of string about their heads---and here there is always a great
crowd, some coming and others going; lines of cord mark out paths in all directions the
women, and the strangers pass along them to make their choice. A woman who has once taken
her seat is not allowed to return home till one of the strangers throws a silver coin into
her lap, and takes her with him beyond the holy ground. When he throws the coin he says
these words: "The goddess Mylitta prosper you" (Venus is called Mylitta by the
Assyrians.) The silver coin may be of any size; it cannot be refused, for that is
forbidden by the law, since once thrown it is sacred. The woman goes with the first man
who throws her money, and rejects no one. When she has gone with him, and so satisfied the
goddess, she returns home, and from that time forth no gift however great will prevail
with her. Such of the women as are tall and beautiful are soon released, but others who
are ugly have to stay a long time before they can fulfil the law. Some have waited three
or four years in the precinct. A custom very much like this is found also in certain parts
of the island of Cyprus.
I.200: Such are the customs of the Babylonians generally. There are likewise
three tribes among them who eat nothing but fish. These are caught and dried in the sun,
after which they are brayed in a mortar, and strained through a linen sieve. Some prefer
to make cakes of this material, while others bake it into a kind of bread.
VII.63: The Assyrians went to war with helmets upon their heads made of brass,
and plaited in a strange fashion which is not easy to describe. They carried shields,
lances, and daggers very like the Egyptian; but in addition they had wooden clubs knotted
with iron, and linen corselets. This people, whom the Hellenes call Syrians, are called
Assyrians by the barbarians. The Chaldeans served in their ranks, and they had for
commander Otaspes, the son of Artachaeus. .
