Note 77 — Chapter I · CIVIL AND MILITARY ARCHITECTURE.

M. Oppert also considers the evidence of Ctesias as worthless (Expédition scientifique, vol. i. p. 292). Sir Henry Layard on the other hand believes in the great Nineveh of that writer (Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 243). He is chiefly influenced by the often quoted verses of the Book of Jonah, in which it is declared: “Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey,” and that there were in it “more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand,” which, with the ordinary proportion of children to adults, would give a total population of about 800,000. We shall not waste time in explaining that all these expressions are but poetic ways of saying that Nineveh was a great city. It is a singular idea to look for topographical and statistical information in a book which makes a prophet sail from Joppa for Spain and, immediately afterwards, without any preparation, speaks of him as preaching in the streets of Nineveh. Add to this that, according to the most recent criticism, the Book of Jonah is not older than the sixth century before our era, so that it must have been written long after the fall of Nineveh, and when its power was no more than a memory (see Nœldeke, Histoire littéraire de l’Ancien Testament, p. 116). [In Sir H. Layard’s latest published remarks on the extent of Nineveh, he rejects the statements of Diodorus for much the same reasons as those given by M. Perrot (article on Nineveh in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, 1863 edition).—Ed.]