y mounds of a sufficient size to attract the
attention of common observers. Scientific explorers have consequently
been deterred from turning their energies in this direction; more
promising sites have offered and still offer themselves; and it is as
yet uncertain whether the plan of the old town might not be traced
and the position of its chief edifices fixed by the means of careful
researches conducted by fully competent persons. In this dearth of
modern materials we have to depend entirely upon the classical writers,
who are rarely trustworthy in their descriptions or measurements, and
who, in this instance, labor under the peculiar disadvantage of being
mere reporters of the accounts given by others.

Ecbatana was chiefly celebrated for the magnificence of its palace,
a structure ascribed by Diodorus to Semiramis, but most probably
constructed originally by Cyaxares, and improved, enlarged, and
embellished by the Achaemenian monarchs. According to the judicious
and moderate Polybius, who prefaces his account by a protest against
exaggeration and over-coloring, the circumference of the building
was seven stades, or 1420 yards, somewhat more than four fifths of an
English mile. This size, which a little exceeds that of the palace
mound at Susa, while it is in its turn a little exceeded by the palatial
platform at Persepolis, may well be accepted as probably close to
the truth. Judging, however, from the analogy of the above-mentioned
palaces, we must conclude that the area thus assigned to the royal
residence was far from being entirely covered with buildings. One half
of the space, perhaps more, would be occupied by large open courts,
paved probably with marble, surrounding the various blocks of buildings
and separating them from one another. The buildings themselves may be
conjectured to have resembled those of the Achaemenian monarchs at Susa
and Persepolis, with the exception, apparently, that the pillars, which
formed their most striking characteristic, were for the most part of
wood rather than oL stone. Polybius distinguishes the pillars into
two classes, those of the main buildings, and those which skirted the
courts, from which it would appear that at Ecbatana the courts were
surrounded by colonnades, as they were commonly in Greek and Roman
houses. These wooden pillars, all either of cedar or of cypress,
supported beams of a similar material, which crossed each other at right
angles, leaving square spaces be