town of Hamadan, the name of which is clearly but a slight corruption of the true ancient appellation. [Plate I., Fig. 2.] Mount Orontes is to be recognized in the modern Elwend or Erwend—­a word etymologically identical with Oront-es—­which is a long and lofty mountains standing out like a buttress from the Zagros range, with which it is connected towards the north-west, while on every other side it stands isolated, sweeping boldly down upon the flat country at its base.  Copious streams descend from the mountain on every side, more particularly to the north-east, where the plain is covered with a carpet of the most luxuriant verdure, diversified with rills, and ornamented with numerous groves of large and handsome forest trees.  It is here, on ground sloping slightly away from the roots of the mountain, that the modern town, which lies directly at its foot, is built.  The ancient city, if we may believe Diodorus, did not approach the mountain within a mile or a mile and a half.  At any rate, if it began where Hamadan now stands, it most certainly extended very much further into the plain.  We need not suppose indeed that it had the circumference, or even half the circumference, which the Sicilian romancer assigns to it, since his two hundred and fifty stades would give a probable area of fifty square miles, more than double that of London!  Ecbatana is not likely to have been at its most flourishing period a larger city than Nineveh; and we have already seen that Nineveh covered a space, within the walls, of not more than 1800 English acres.

[Illustration:  Plate I.]

The character of the city and of its chief edifices has, unfortunately, to be gathered almost entirely from unsatisfactory authorities.  Hitherto it has been found possible in these volumes to check and correct the statements of ancient writers, which are almost always exaggerated, by an appeal to the incontrovertible evidence of modern surveys and explorations.  But the Median capital has never yet attracted a scientific expedition.  The travellers by whom it has been visited have reported so unfavorably of its character as a field of antiquarian research that scarcely a spadeful of soil has been dug, either in the city or in its vicinity, with a view to recover traces of the ancient buildings.  Scarcely any remains of antiquity are apparent.  As the site has never been deserted, and the town has thus been subjected for nearly twenty-two centuries to the destructive ravages of foreign conquerors, and the still more injurious plunderings of native builders, anxious to obtain materials for new edifices at the least possible cost and trouble, the ancient structures have everywhere disappeared from sight, and are not even indicated by mounds of a sufficient size to attract the attention of common observers.  Scientific explorers have consequently been deterred from turning their energies in this direction; more promising sites have offered and still offer themselves; and it is as yet uncertain