[86] Not to take the people too much from their business, Augustus ordained the distribution of corn to be made only thrice a year; but the people, finding the monthly distribution more convenient (as preserving, I suppose, a more regular economy in their family), desired to have them restored. (Sueton. August. cap. 40.) Had not some of the people come from some distance for their corn, Augustus’s precaution seems superfluous. [87] Quintus Curtius says its walls were only ten miles in circumference when founded by Alexander (lib. 4, cap. 8). Strabo, who had travelled to Alexandria, as well as Diodorus Siculus, says it was scarce four miles long, and in most places about a mile broad (lib. 17). Pliny says it resembled a Macedonian cassock, stretching out in the corners (lib. 5, cap. 10). Notwithstanding this bulk of Alexandria, which seems but moderate, Diodorus Siculus, speaking of its circuit as drawn by Alexander (which it never exceeded, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. 22, cap. 16), says it was μεγεθει διαφεροντα, extremely great (_ibid._). The reason why he assigns for its surpassing all cities of the world (for he excepts not Rome) is that it contained 300,000 free inhabitants. He also mentions the revenues of the kings—viz., 6000 talents—as another circumstance to the same purpose, no such mighty sum in our eyes, even though we make allowances for the different value of money. What Strabo says of the neighbouring country means only that it was well peopled, οἰκουμενα καλως. Might not one affirm, without any great hyperbole, that the whole banks of the river from Gravesend to Windsor are one city? This is even more than Strabo says of the banks of the lake Mareotis, and of the canal to Canopus. It is a vulgar saying in Italy that the King of Sardinia has but one town in Piedmont—for it is all a town. Agrippa in Josephus (_de bello Judaie_, lib. 2, cap. 16), to make his audience comprehend the excessive greatness of Alexandria, which he endeavours to magnify, describes only the compass of the city as drawn by Alexander, a clear proof that the bulk of the inhabitants were lodged there, and that the neighbouring country was no more than what might be expected about all great towns, very well cultivated and well peopled. [88] He says ἐλευθεροι, not πολιται, which last expression must have been understood of citizens alone, and grown men. [89] He says (in _Nerone_, cap. 30) that a portico or piazza of it was 3000 feet long; “tanta laxitas ut porticus triplices milliarias haberet.” He cannot mean three miles, for the whole extent of the house from the Palatine to the Esquiline was not near so great. So when Vopiscus, in _Aureliano_, mentions a portico of Sallust’s gardens, which he calls _porticus milliariensis_, it must be understood of a thousand feet. So also Horace— “Nulla decempedis Metata privatis opacam Porticus excipiebat Arcton.” (Lib. ii. ode 15.) So also in lib. i. Satyr. 8—