Text
Diodorus Siculus 2.10.2-6:
The park extended four plethra on each side, and since the approach to the garden sloped like a hillside and the several parts of the structure rose from one another tier on tier, the appearance of the whole resembled that of a theatre. When the ascending terraces had been built, there had been constructed beneath them galleries which carried the entire weight of the planted garden and rose little by little one above the other along the approach; and the uppermost gallery, which was fifty cubits high, bore the highest surface of the park, which was made level with the circuit wall of the battlements of the city. Furthermore, the walls, which had been constructed at great expense, were twenty-two feet thick, while the passage-way between each two walls was ten feet wide. The roofs of the galleries were covered over with beams of stone sixteen feet long, inclusive of the overlap, and four feet wide. The roof above these beams had first a layer of reeds laid in great quantities of bitumen, over this two courses of baked brick bonded by cement, and as third layer a covering of lead, to the end that the moisture from the soil might not penetrate beneath. On all this again earth had been piled to a depth sufficient for the roots of the largest trees; and the ground, when levelled off, was thickly planted with trees of every kind that, by their great size or any other charm, could give pleasure to the beholder. And since the galleries, each projecting beyond another, all received the light, they contained many royal lodgings of every description; and there was one gallery which contained openings leading from the topmost surface and machines for supplying the garden with water, the machines rising the water in great abundance from the river, although no one outside could see it being done.
Source (list of abbreviations)
Diodorus Siculus 2.10.2-6
Bibliography
| Oldfather 1960, I 384-387 | Oldfather, C. H. Diodorus of Sicily. 12 Vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann 1960. |
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Cf. Hanging Gardens of Babylon (1)
Cf. Hanging Gardens of Babylon (2)
Amar Annus
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