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193.
There is little rain in Assyria. This nourishes the roots of the grain; but it is irrigation from the river that ripens the crop and brings the grain to fullness. In Egypt, the river itself rises and floods the fields; in Assyria, they are watered by hand and by swinging beams.1
[2]
For the whole land of Babylon, like Egypt, is cut across by canals. The greatest of these is navigable: it runs towards where the sun rises in winter, from the Euphrates to another river, the Tigris, on which stood the city of Ninus. This land is by far the most fertile in grain which we know.
[3]
It does not even try to bear trees, fig, vine, or olive, but Demeter's grain is so abundant there that it yields for the most part two hundred fold, and even three hundred fold when the harvest is best. The blades of the wheat and barley there are easily four fingers broad;
[4]
and for millet and sesame, I will not say to what height they grow, though it is known to me; for I am well aware that even what I have said regarding grain is wholly disbelieved by those who have never visited Babylonia. They use no oil except what they make from sesame.2 There are palm trees there growing all over the plain, most of them yielding fruit, from which food is made and wine and honey.
[5]
The Assyrians tend these like figs, and chiefly in this respect, that they tie the fruit of the palm called male by the Greeks to the date-bearing palm, so that the gall-fly may enter the dates and cause them to ripen, and that the fruit of the palm may not fall; for the male palms, like unripened figs, have gall-flies in their fruit.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (52 total)
- Cross-references to this page
(6):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.2
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.1.3
- Harper's, Naarmalcha
- Harper's, Ninus
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ASSY´RIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), BABYLO´NIA
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(1):
- Apollodorus, Library, Apollod. 1.9
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(45):
- LSJ, Ἀσσύριοι
- LSJ, ἁδρ-ύνω
- LSJ, ἄρδω
- LSJ, ἄριστος
- LSJ, ἀναβαίνω
- LSJ, ἀπιστία
- LSJ, ἀποδίδωμι
- LSJ, ἀπορρέω
- LSJ, ἀρχή
- LSJ, βάλα^νος
- LSJ, βα^λα^νη-φόρος
- LSJ, δένδρεον
- LSJ, δια_κόσι-οι
- LSJ, ἐκφέρω
- LSJ, ἐκτρέφω
- LSJ, ἐπί
- LSJ, εἰσδύνω
- LSJ, εἰσέχω
- LSJ, εὐπετ-ής
- LSJ, φοῖνιξ
- LSJ, φύω
- LSJ, καρπόφορ-ος
- LSJ, καρπός
- LSJ, κατατέμνω
- LSJ, κέγχρος
- LSJ, κηλών-ειον
- LSJ, μέλι^
- LSJ, ὅσος
- LSJ, ὄλονθος
- LSJ, ὀλονθο-φόρος
- LSJ, οἶνος
- LSJ, οἰκέω
- LSJ, παράπα^ν
- LSJ, παραγίγνομαι
- LSJ, πεπαίνω
- LSJ, περιδέω
- LSJ, πλάτος
- LSJ, θερα^π-εύω
- LSJ, σήσα^μον
- LSJ, συ_κέα
- LSJ, τις
- LSJ, ὕω
- LSJ, χειμερ-ι^νός
- LSJ, χράω
- LSJ, ψήν
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