Note 116 — NO. XVII.—BABYLON.

Partly, not entirely. "Herodotus states that Darius Hystaspes, on the taking of Babylon by the stratagem of Zopyrus, 'levelled the walls and took away the gates, neither of which Cyrus had done.' But let it be remarked that Darius lived a century and a half before Alexander, in whose time the walls appear to have been in the original state; or, at least, nothing is said that implies the contrary; and it cannot be believed, if Darius had taken the trouble to level thirty-four miles of so prodigious a rampart as that of Babylon, that ever it would have been rebuilt in the manner described by Ctesias, Clitarchus, and others, who describe it at a much later period. Besides, it would have been quite unnecessary to level more than a part of the wall; and in this way, probably, the historian ought to be understood."—Rennell.