t) high; each side of its base was one plethron in
length."[476]

The tower cleared by Layard at Nimroud is perhaps the very one seen by
Xenophon.[477] The Greek soldier speaks of a stone pyramid while the
Nimroud tower is of brick, but the whole of its substructure is cased with
the finer material to a height of nearly twenty-four feet, which is quite
enough to account for Xenophon's statement. As for his dimensions, they
should not be taken too literally. In their rapid and anxious march the
Greek commanders had no time to wield the plumb-line or the
measuring-chain; they must have trusted mainly to their eyes in arriving at
a notion of the true size of the buildings by which their attention was
attracted. The tower at Nimroud must have been about 150 feet square,
measured along its plinth; the present height of the mound is 141 feet, and
nothing above the first stage now exists. As Layard remarks, one or two
stories more must be taken into the account, and they would easily make up
an original elevation of from 200 to 240 feet, or about that of the Larissa
tower. Xenophon made use of the word pyramid because his language furnished
him with no term more accurate. Like the true pyramid, the staged tower
diminished gradually from base to summit, and there can be no doubt as to
the real character of the building seen by the Greeks, as may be gathered
from their leader's statement, that the "barbarians from the neighbouring
villages took refuge upon it in great numbers." Such buildings as the
pyramids of Egypt and Ethiopia could have afforded no refuge of the kind. A
few could stand upon their summits, supposing them to have lost their
capstones, but it would require the wide ramps and terraces of the staged
tower to afford a foothold for the population of several villages.[478]

Nothing but the first two stages, or rather the plinth and the first stage,
now remain at Nimroud of what must have been the chief temple of Calah.
There is no trace either of the ramp or of the colours with which the
different stories were ornamented. The Khorsabad tower discovered by Place
is more interesting and much more instructive as to the arrangement and
constitution of these buildings.[479]

[Illustration: FIG. 184.--Actual condition of the so-called _Observatory_,
at Khorsabad; from Place.]

This tower was previously hidden under a mass of _debris_, which gave it a
conical form like that at Nimroud. Botta had already noticed its exist