The finest cities of Europe convey no idea of the grandeur of ancient
Babylon, which being fifteen leagues in circumference, was encompassed
with walls two hundred feet in height, and fifty in breadth, whose sides
were adorned with gardens of a prodigious extent, which arose in
terraces one above another, to the very summit of the walls. For the
watering of these gardens there were machines, which raised the water of
the Euphrates to the highest of the terraces. The tower of Belus,
arising out of the middle of the temple, was of so vast a height, that
some authors have not ventured to assign its altitude; others put it at
a thousand paces.
Ecbatane, the capital of Media, was eight leagues in circumference, and
surrounded with seven walls in form of an amphitheatre, the battlements
of which were of various colours, white, black, scarlet, blue, and
orange; all of them covered with silver or with gold.
Persepolis was a city, which all historians speak of as one of the most
ancient and noble of Asia. There remain the ruins of one of its palaces,
which measured six hundred paces in front, and still displays relics of
its former grandeur.