Note 63 — Chapter I · CIVIL AND MILITARY ARCHITECTURE.

Diodorus, ii. vii. 3. The following passage has been quoted from Aristotle’s Politics (iii. 1), as supporting the assertion of Diodorus: “It is obvious that a town is not made by a wall; one might, if that were so, make the Peloponnesus into a town, Babylon, perhaps, and some other towns belong to this class, their enceinte inclosing towns rather than cities.” The text of Aristotle seems to me to prove nothing more than that the philosopher was acquainted with the descriptions of Diodorus and Ctesias. He says nothing as to their exactness; he merely borrows an illustration from them, by which he attempts to make his thought more clear, and to explain the difference between a real city with an organic life of its own, and a mere space surrounded by walls, in which men might live in close neighbourhood with each other, but with nothing that could be called civic life. All the texts relating to the ancient boundaries of Babylon will be found united in M. Oppert’s examination of this question.