1.174.5
Then, as they themselves say, the priestess gave them this answer in iambic verse:
“Do not wall or trench the isthmus:
Zeus would have given you an island, if he had wanted to.”
1.174.6
At this answer from the priestess, the Cnidians stopped their digging, and when Harpagus came against them with his army they surrendered to him without resistance.
ch. 175
1.175.1
There were Pedaseans dwelling inland above Halicarnassus; when any misfortune was approaching them or their neighbors, the priestess of Athena grew a long beard. This had happened to them thrice. These were the only men near Caria who held out for long against Harpagus, and they gave him the most trouble; they fortified a hill called Lide.
ch. 176
1.176.1
The Pedaseans were at length taken, and when Harpagus led his army into the plain of Xanthus, the Lycians came out to meet him, and showed themselves courageous fighting few against many; but being beaten and driven into the city, they gathered their wives and children and goods and servants into the acropolis, and then set the whole acropolis on fire.
1.176.2
Then they swore great oaths to each other, and sallying out fell fighting, all the men of Xanthus.
1.176.3
Of the Xanthians who claim now to be Lycians the greater number, all except eighty households, are of foreign descent; these eighty families as it happened were away from the city at that time, and thus survived. So Harpagus gained Xanthus, and Caunus too in a somewhat similar manner, the Caunians following for the most part the example of the Lycians.
ch. 177
1.177.1
Harpagus, then, made havoc of lower Asia; in the upper country, Cyrus himself vanquished every nation, leaving none untouched. Of the greater part of these I will say nothing, but will speak only of those which gave Cyrus the most trouble and are most worthy of being described.
ch. 178
1.178.1
When Cyrus had made all the mainland submit to him, he attacked the Assyrians. In Assyria there are many other great cities, but the most famous and the strongest was Babylon, where the royal dwelling had been established after the destruction of Ninus. note Babylon was a city such as I will now describe.
1.178.2
It lies in a great plain, and is in shape a square, each side fifteen miles in length; thus sixty miles make the complete circuit of the city. Such is the size of the city of Babylon; and it was planned like no other city of which we know.
1.178.3
Around it runs first a moat deep and wide and full of water, and then a wall eighty three feet thick and three hundred thirty three feet high. The royal measure is greater by three fingers' breadth than the common measure. note
ch. 179
1.179.1
Further, I must relate where the earth was used as it was dug from the moat and how the wall was constructed. As they dug the moat, they made bricks of the earth which was carried out of the place they dug, and when they had moulded bricks enough, they baked them in ovens;
1.179.2
then using hot bitumen for cement and interposing layers of wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of bricks, they built first the border of the moat and then the wall itself in the same fashion.
1.179.3
On the top, along the edges of the wall, they built houses of a single room, facing each other, with space enough between to drive a four-horse chariot. There are a hundred gates in the circuit of the wall, all of bronze, with posts and lintels of the same.
