That gates in Babylon could not be named after Ninus and Semiramis, _i.e._ after fictitious rulers, and hardly after the Chaldæans, needs no proof in detail. But the narrative of Herodotus, in which these names are found, goes back in other respects to Medo-Persian poems, which, as we already found, could tell of Ninus and Semiramis. The Babylonians were better acquainted with the history of Assyria. It is more striking that in the description of the city Herodotus speaks of the walls and gates of Babylon as if they were uninjured; and yet, some twenty years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus took Babylon by storm; and scarcely twenty years afterwards Darius overcame the city, after a siege which lasted nearly two years. A new rebellion quickly followed, to be crushed by a third capture of the city; and even after this a new rising of the Babylonians was again repressed by Xerxes. After this series of struggles the walls and gates could not have remained uninjured, and Herodotus himself tells us that Darius destroyed the gates after the long siege.[697] Were Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes likely to allow the Babylonians, after each capture of the city, to restore the walls in which the city trusted?--were they not rather likely to take care that after each capture long portions of the wall should be destroyed, and so remain? Next to Herodotus in point of time, Xenophon and Ctesias are our informants about Babylon. Xenophon did not see the city; he only came within 45 miles of it. He contents himself with remarking that Babylon, the wealthiest city in Asia, was surrounded by strong and lofty walls; that the Euphrates flowed through it; that it contained a palace and citadels, that the doors of the houses were made of palm-wood.[698] Ctesias, who had been in Babylon, gives to the wall of the city, "through which the Euphrates flows," a circuit of 360 stades (45 miles). The wall, built of burnt brick and bitumen, broken by numerous large towers, was 50 fathoms in height; and on either bank of the river ran a protecting wall, equal in strength to the city wall. The length of these walls was about 160 stades. His description of the two royal citadels, "both of which lay on the river," one on the west side, the other on the east--the former was surrounded by a triple wall, and had a circuit of 60 stades, while the other on the east side was only half the size--his description of the golden statues of gods in the temple of Belus, and the golden altar and furniture, is already known to us (I. 293). About half a century after Ctesias, Cleitarchus and the companions of Alexander of Macedon inform us that the wall of Babylon had a circuit of 365 stades; the height they give at 50 cubits; the width allowed ample room for two wagons to pass each other. Two hundred and fifty towers rose above the wall, of a corresponding height and thickness. Between the wall and the houses was left a clear space of two