No city of Western Asia is at the present day so populous.
In the above description of the ramparts surrounding Nineveh, no account has been given of their width or height.

According to Diodorus, the wall wherewith Ninus surrounded his capital was 100 feet high, and so broad that three chariots might drive side by side along the top.

Xenophon, who passed close to the ruins on his retreat with the Ten Thousand, calls the height 150 feet, and the width 50 feet.

The actual greatest height at present seems to be 46 feet; but the _debris_ at the foot of the walls are so great, and the crumbled character of the walls themselves is so evident, that the chief modern explorer inclines to regard the computation of Diodorus as probably no exaggeration of the truth.

The width of the walls, in their crumbled condition, is from 100 to 200 feet.
The mode in which the walls were constructed seems to have been the following.