and the fields near Ninus, and Dolomene, and Chalachene, and Chazene, and Adiabene, and the nations of Mesopotamia near the Gordyaeans, and the Mygdones about Nisibis, unto Zeugma upon Euphrates; and a large region on this side Euphrates inhabited by the Arabians and Syrians properly so called, as far as Cilicia and Phoenicia and Libya and the sea of Egypt and the Sinus Issicus_:  and a little after describing the extent of the Babylonian region, he bounds it on the north, with the Armenians and Medes unto the mountain Zagrus; on the east side, with Susa and Elymais and Paraetacene, inclusively; on the south, with the Persian Gulph and Chaldaea; and on the west, with the Arabes Scenitae as far as Adiabene and Gordyaea:  afterwards speaking of Susiana and Sitacene, a region between Babylon and Susa, and of Paraetacene and Cossaea and Elymais, and of the Sagapeni and Siloceni, two little adjoining Provinces, he concludes, [425] and these are the nations which inhabit Babylonia_ eastward:  to the north are Media and Armenia, exclusively, and westward are Adiabene and Mesopotamia, inclusively; the greatest part of Adiabene is plain, the same being part of Babylonia:  in same places it borders on Armenia:  for the Medes, Armenians and Babylonians warred frequently on one another_.  Thus far Strabo.

When Cyrus took Babylon, he changed the Kingdom into a Satrapy or Province:  whereby the bounds were long after known:  and by this means Herodotus [426] gives us an estimate of the bigness of this Monarchy in proportion to that of the Persians, telling us that whilst every region over which the King of Persia_ Reigned in his days, was distributed for the nourishment of his army, besides the tributes, the Babylonian region nourished him four months of the twelve in the year, and all the rest of Asia eight:  so the power of the region_, saith he, is equivalent to the third part of Asia_, and its Principality, which the Persians call a Satrapy, is far the best of all the Provinces_.

Babylon [427] was a square city of 120 furlongs, or 15 miles on every side, compassed first with a broad and deep ditch, and then with a wall fifty cubits thick, and two hundred high. Euphrates flowed through the middle of it southward, a few leagues on this side Tigris:  and in the middle of one half westward stood the King’s new Palace, built by Nebuchadnezzar; and in the middle of the other half stood the Temple of Belus, with the old Palace between that Temple and the river:  this old Palace was built by the Assyrians,