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ἑλκύσαντες πλίνθους. Translate ‘having moulded enough bricks’; it corresponds to ἐπλίνθευον above. The passage is parodied in Aristophanes' Aves, 552; cf. i. 3 n.

Babylonia, owing to the absence of building stone, was the special home of brick-work. Crude bricks were used inside the walls, and even the baked bricks, from their larger size, were inferior in hardness to Roman, and to good modern, brick. Hence the wall was liable to be destroyed by water (cf. the tradition as to the fall of Nineveh (Ctes. Ass. fr. 16, p 437; Diod. ii. 27), and to become in ruins a shapeless mass (cf. Lehmann, u. s.). It was to hinder destruction by water that the ‘mats of reed’ (ταρσοὺς κ.) were ‘stuffed in’ (διαστοιβάζοντες), but really at much more frequent ‘intervals’ (διά) than H. gives.

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