the car was beyond my sight , and the evals dead not a hundred feet away , yet no one here in this melee knew , so crowded was it , and i thought-without context , without reason-of what was said about babylon after cyrus conquered it , that funny remark which the greek historian xenophon had made , or was it herodotus , that so big was babylon and so dense with people that it took two whole days before people in the middle of the city knew that it had been taken at all .