e is no image
there set up nor does any human being spend the night there except only
one woman of the natives of the place, whomsoever the god shall choose
from all the woman, as say the Chaldeans who are the priests of this
god.

182. These same men say also, but I do not believe them, that the god
himself comes often to the cell and rests upon the couch, as happens
likewise in the Egyptian Thebes according to the report of the
Egyptians, for there also a woman sleeps in the temple of the Theban
Zeus (and both these women are said to abstain from commerce with men),
and as happens also with the prophetess 187 of the god in Patara of
Lykia, whenever there is one, for there is not always an Oracle there,
but whenever there is one, then she is shut up during the nights in the
temple within the cell.

183. There is moreover in the temple at Babylon another cell below,
wherein is a great image of Zeus sitting, made of gold, and by it is
placed a large table of gold, and his footstool and seat are of gold
also; and, as the Chaldeans reported, the weight of the gold of which
these things are made is eight hundred talents. Outside this cell is
an altar of gold; and there is also another altar of great size, where
full-grown animals 188 are sacrificed, whereas on the golden altar it
is not lawful to sacrifice any but young sucklings only: and also on the
larger altar the Chaldeans offer one thousand talents of frankincense
every year at the time when they celebrate the feast in honour of this
god. There was moreover in these precincts still remaining at the time
of Cyrus, 189 a statue twelve cubits high, of gold and solid. This I
did not myself see, but that which is related by the Chaldeans I relate.
Against this statue Dareios the son of Hystaspes formed a design, but
he did not venture to take it: it was taken however by Xerxes the son of
Dareios, who also killed the priest when he forbade him to meddle with
the statue. This temple, then, is thus adorned with magnificence, and
there are also many private votive-offerings.

184. Of this Babylon, besides many other rulers, of whom I shall make
mention in the Assyrian history, and who added improvement to the walls
and temples, there were also two who were women. Of these, the one who
ruled first, named Semiramis, who lived five generations before the
other, produced banks of earth in the plain which are a sight worth
seeing; and before this the river used to flood like a s