Note 15 — Chapter XIII

Mr. Rooke, the English translator of Arrian, observes, that “the number here must needs be erroneous, though all the copies which I have seen have it the same.” The height certainly is startling, but it is hazardous to conclude that it must be wrong. Not to rely over–much on the walls of Babylon, which, according to the father of history, were about 350 feet high, the battering towers described by Vitruvius, 185 feet in height, were evidently meant to cope with fortifications as gigantic in height as those here described. And after all, the city being built on an abrupt rock, which might perhaps be faced with masonry, if we suppose the whole height from the sea to the battlements to be meant, there is nothing improbable in the statement. The total height of the fortifications of Malta from the sea, we believe, is not much less.