have stood a siege. When the nation which held it was defeated in the
open field, the city (unlike Babylon and Nineveh) submitted to the
conqueror without a struggle. Thus the marvellous description in the
book of Judith, which is internally very improbable, would appear to be
entirely destitute of any, even the slightest, foundation in fact.

The chief city of northern Media, which bore in later times the names of
Gaza, Gazaca, or Canzaca, is thought to have also been called Ecbatana,
and to have been occasionally mistaken by the Greeks for the southern or
real capital. The description of Herodotus, which is irreconcilably
at variance with the local features of the Hamadan site, accords
sufficiently with the existing remains of a considerable city in the
province of Azerbijan; and it seems certainly to have been a city in
these parts which was called by Moses of Chorene "the second Ecbatana,
the seven-walled town." The peculiarity of this place was its situation
on and about a conical hill which sloped gently down from its summit
to its base, and allowed of the interposition of seven circuits of wall
between the plain and the hill's crest. At the top of the hill, within
the innermost circle of the defences, were the Royal Palace and
the treasuries; the sides of the hill were occupied solely by the
fortifications; and at the base, outside the circuit of the outermost
wall, were the domestic and other buildings which constituted the town.
According to the information received by Herodotus, the battlements
which crowned the walls were variously colored. Those of the outer
circle were white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the
fourth blue, of the fifth orange, of the sixth silver, and of the
seventh gold. A pleasing or at any rate a striking effect was thus
produced--the citadel, which towered above the town, presenting to the
eye seven distinct rows of colors.