twenty-five feet, and the height of them a hundred, and the circuit of the whole two parasangs. It was built of clay-bricks, supported on a stone basis twenty feet high. This city the king of the Persians (2) besieged, what time the Persians strove to snatch their empire from the Medes, but he could in no wise take it; then a cloud hid the face of the sun and blotted out the light thereof, until the inhabitants were gone out of the city, and so it was taken. By the side of this city there was a stone pyramid in breadth a hundred feet, and in height two hundred feet; in it were many of the barbarians who had fled for refuge from the neighbouring villages.
(1) Larissa, on the side of the modern Nimrud (the south-west corner,
as is commonly supposed, of Nineveh). The name is said to mean
"citadel," and is given to various Greek cities (of which several
occur in Xenophon).
(2) I.e. Cyrus the Great.
From this place they marched one stage of six parasangs to a great deserted fortress (which lay over against the city), and the name of that city was Mespila (3). The Medes once dwelt in it. The basement was made of polished stone full of shells; fifty feet was the breadth of it, and fifty feet the height; and on this basement was reared a wall of brick, the breadth whereof was fifty feet and the height thereof four hundred; and the circuit of the wall was six parasangs. Hither, as the story goes, Medea (4), the king's wife, betook herself in flight what time the Medes lost their