We can hardly read of such measurements without some astonishment. It seems difficult, however, to doubt the formal statement of such a careful eye-witness as Herodotus. Although the Greek historian was quite ready to repeat the fantastic tales he heard in the distant countries to which his travels led him--a habit we are far from wishing to blame--modern criticism has never succeeded in convicting him of falsehood or exasperation in matters of which he could judge with his own eyes. Our surprise at his figures is diminished when we remember with what prodigious rapidity buildings of sun-dried bricks could be erected. The material was at hand in any possible quantity; the erection of such a length of wall was only a question of hands. Now if we suppose, with M. Oppert, that the work was undertaken by Nebuchadnezzar after the fall of Nineveh, that prince may very well have employed whole nations upon it, driving them into the workshops as the captive Jews were driven. In such a fashion the great wall that united into one city towns which had been previously separated--such as the original Babylon, Cutha, and Borsippa--might have been raised without any great difficulty. It is certain that the population of such a vast extent of country cannot have been equally dense at all points. A large part must have been occupied by royal parks, by gardens, vineyards, and even cultivated fields. Babylon must, in fact, have been rather a vast intrenched camp than a city in the true sense of the word.