Ctesias lived in Persia for several years, as the personal physician of King Ataxerxes II, and would have had contact with travellers to India, and Indian visitors to Persia. He describes dog-headed humans, pygmy men who grow their beards so long that they can be used as clothes, and affirms that it never rains in India.

Doxiadis may have seen the Ecumenopolitan picture emerging with particular force as he studied the Great Lakes Megalopolis in the 1960’s. It is a less dense, yet less congested and certainly less resented concentration than the original Megalopolis on the Boston–New York–Washington axis. A similar schema could be proposed of a trans-european megalopolitan belt crossing the continent from the Mediterranean to the North Sea and the Irish Sea as urbanization proceeds along the Saône–Rhône and Rhine Valleys and penetrates the valleys of the Alps. We could visualize an «urbanized isthmus» from Rome (or Naples?) and Venice in the south to Amsterdam and Hamburg, jumping even over the Straits of Dover to include most of England. Such a formation may call for a new term, such as megistopolis.

He also made use of natural caves, one of which has been found at Chou-k’ou-tien. In the Middle Pleistocene, Chou-k’ou-tien was spotted with caves in the limestone formation at various levels.

The purpose of the anecdote is to show the bold recklessness of the warrior, who could amuse himself with his song-craft in the very face of the enemy.