he side of the sea,
but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level
plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended towards the
sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one
direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland it was two
thousand stadia. This part of the island looked towards the south, and
was sheltered from the north. The surrounding mountains were celebrated
for their number and size and beauty, far beyond any which still exist,
having in them also many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers,
and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or
tame, and much wood of various sorts, abundant for each and every kind
of work.

I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and by the
labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It was for the
most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight
line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of
this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such
extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial.
Nevertheless I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth
of a hundred feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was
carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in
length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and
winding round the plain and meeting at the city, was there let off into
the sea. Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet
in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the
ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred
stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the
city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse
passages from one canal into another, and to the city. Twice in the year
they gathered the fruits of the earth--in winter having the benefit of
the rains of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by
introducing streams from the canals.

As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find a leader
for the men who were fit for military service, and the size of a lot was
a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots
was sixty thousand. And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of
the rest of the country there was also a vast mul