uring this time until they learnt the truth only too well.

Babylon then had thus been taken for the first time:

192, and as to the resources of the Babylonians how great they are, I
shall show by many other proofs and among them also by this:--For the
support of the great king and his army, apart from the regular tribute
the whole land of which he is ruler has been distributed into portions.
Now whereas twelve months go to make up the year, for four of these he
has his support from the territory of Babylon, and for the remaining
eight months from the whole of the rest of Asia; thus the Assyrian
land is in regard to resources the third part of all Asia: and the
government, or satrapy as it is called by the Persians, of this
territory is of all the governments by far the best; seeing that when
Tritantaichmes son of Artabazos had this province from the king, there
came in to him every day an artab full of silver coin (now the artab
is a Persian measure and holds more than the medimnos of Attica 197 by
three Attic choinikes); and of horses he had in this province as his
private property, apart from the horses for use in war, eight hundred
stallions and sixteen thousand mares, for each of these stallions served
twenty mares: of Indian hounds moreover such a vast number were
kept that four large villages in the plain, being free from other
contributions, had been appointed to provide food for the hounds.

193. Such was the wealth which belonged to the ruler of Babylon. Now
the land of the Assyrians has but little rain; and this little gives
nourishment to the root of the corn, but the crop is ripened and the ear
comes on by the help of watering from the river, not as in Egypt by the
coming up of the river itself over the fields, but the crop is watered
by hand or with swing-buckets. For the whole Babylonian territory like
the Egyptian is cut up into channels, and the largest of the channels is
navigable for ships and runs in the direction of the sunrising in winter
from the Euphrates to another river, namely the Tigris, along the bank
of which lay the city of Nineveh. This territory is of all that we know
the best by far for producing corn: 198 as to trees, 199 it does
not even attempt to bear them, either fig or vine or olive, but for
producing corn it is so good that it s as much as two-hundred-fold
for the average, and when it bears at its best it produces
three-hundred-fold. The leaves of the wheat and barley there gro