unequal half-squares, divided by the river; we can trace at least one
great street parallel to the river and others which run at right
angles to it towards the river. If the brick defences along the
water-side have vanished, that may be due to their less substantial
character and to the many changes of the river itself. To the student
of Babylonian topography, the account of Herodotus is of very little
worth. But it is as good as most modern travellers could compile, if
they were let loose in a vast area of buildings, without plans,
without instruments, and without any notion that a scientific
description was expected of them.

The remains show also--and this is more to our purpose--the idea of
the sacred processional avenue which recurs in fifth-century
Greece--and is indeed beloved of architects in the most modern times.
Here is a germ of town-planning. But whether this laying out of
streets extended beyond the main highways, is less clear. The Merkes
excavations occasionally show streets meeting at right angles and at
least one roughly rectangular _insula_, of 150 x 333 ft. But the
adjoining house-blocks agree neither in size nor shape, and no hint
seems to have yet come to light of a true chess-board pattern.[15]

[15] _Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft_ 42, Dec.
1909, pp. 7, 19; 44, Dec. 1910, p. 26.

A little further evidence can be drawn from other Mesopotamian sites.
The city of Asshur had a long, broad avenue like the sacred road of
Babylon, but the one _insula_ of its private houses which has yet been
excavated, planned and published, shows no sign of rectangular
planning.[16] There is also literary evidence that Sanherib (765-681
B.C.) laid out a 'Kingsway' 100 ft. wide to promote easy movement