Note 409 — Chapter XVIII
Evelyn Abbott translation
It is true that the population between the Euphrates and the Indus is now rated at 18,000,000 only. Kenneir, "Geograph. Memoir of Persia," p. 44-47. But the numbers of the prisoners and the slain in the inscriptions of Behistun allow us to conclude that the population of Iran was far greater. Under the Ptolemies Egypt, consisting of about 30,000 communities, counted 7,000,000 inhabitants; Diod. 1, 31. That Asia Minor was not less populous is proved, for certain districts, by the statements of Xenophon; the budget of Darius, the numbers of his army, and more especially of the army of Xerxes, the mass of troops which the younger Cyrus collects in Asia Minor and Artaxerxes in the Eastern provinces, are evidence of a tolerably dense population.