iption 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
through his city of Nineveh, and Delitzsch has even credited the
Sargonid dynasty generally (722-625 B.C.) with a care for the
dwellings of common men as well as of gods and of kings.[17]

[16] _Mitt, deutsch. Orient-Gesell._ 28, Sept. 1905; 31, May
1906.

[17] F. Delitzsch, _Asurbanipal und die assyr. Kultur seiner
Zeit_ (_Der alte Orient_, Leipzig, 1909), p. 25.

In conclusion, the mounds of Babil and Kasr and others near them seem
to represent the Babylon alike of fact and of Herodotus. It was a
smaller city than the Greek historian avers; its length and breadth
were nearer four than fourteen miles. But it had at least one
straight, ample, and far-stretching highway which gave space for the
ceremonies and the processions, if not for the business or the
domestic comforts, of life. In a sense at least, it was laid out with
its streets straight. Nor was it the only city of such a kind in the
Mesopotamian region. Asshur and Nineveh, both of them somewhat earlier
in date than Babylon, possessed similar features. These towns, or at
least Babylon, seem to have been known to Greek travellers, and
probably suggested to them the adornment of their Hellenic homes with
similar streets. The germ of Greek town-planning came from the east.

CHAPTER III

GREEK TOWN-PLANNING