The Garden of Cyrus

able forms of battle: the cuneus original: Latin for "wedge" and forceps original: Latin for "shears", or the shear and wedge battle formations, each made of half a rhombus a diamond or lozenge shape and differing only by their position. The wedge was invented to break or work into a body of troops, while the forceps was meant to surround and defeat that power. It was composed of the most elite soldiers and arranged in the shape of a V; by receiving the wedge within this V, it enclosed it on both sides. In this form, the famous Narses a Byzantine general under Justinian I ordered his battle against the Franks; and by this figure, the Alamanni original: "Almans," a confederation of Germanic tribes were enclosed and cut to pieces.

❧ THE rhombus or lozenge-figure, so visible in this arrangement, was also a remarkable battle formation in the Greek cavalry, used by the Thessalians and Philip, King of Macedon, and frequently by the Parthians. It was highly effective because it could turn easily in any direction and was easy to command, as it had its leaders original: "ductors" or commanders at each angle. ❧ THE Macedonian phalanx (long thought to be invincible) consisted of a long square. For though they might be sixteen men deep in both rank and file, when they closed ranks so that the sixth pike advanced beyond the first rank, the figure became oblong—matching the quincuncial quadrate described by Curtius Quintus Curtius Rufus, a Roman historian. According to this square, Thucydides records that the Athenians arranged their battle line against the Lacedaemonians Spartans "brick-wise"; and by the same word, the learned Guellius Germanus Valens Guellius, a 16th-century commentator on Virgil explains the "quadrate" mentioned by Virgil, as being in the shape of a brick or tile. ❧ AND just as trees were first planted in rows, so too were the first human dwellings. These were not built as round cities, which are of a later design; for the shape of Babylon, the first city, was square—and so shall the last city be, according to the description of the Holy City in the Apocalypse The Book of Revelation. The famous pillars of Seth legendary pillars inscribed with all human knowledge to survive the Flood before the Great Flood also had a similar foundation, if they were indeed antediluvian pre-Flood obelisks, such as Ham original: "Cham" and his Egyptian descendants imitated after the Flood. ❧ BUT Nineveh, which authors acknowledge exceeded Babylon in size, was of a rectangular original: "longilateral" shape, being ninety-five furlongs broad and one hundred and fifty long. This made for a circuit of about sixty miles, which is the distance of a three-day journey according to military marches or daily camping stages original: "castrensial mansions". Thus, if Jonah entered at the narrower side, he found enough distance in a single day’s walk to reach the heart of the city and make his proclamation. And if we imagine a city extending from Ware a town in Hertfordshire, roughly 20 miles from London to London, the description of 120,000 original: "sixscore thousand" infants seems reasonable, even if we allow for empty spaces, fields, and