Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/232

 214 HISTORY OF GREECE. Such is the account given by Herodotus of the circn.nstances which placed Babylon the greatest city of western Asia in the power of the Persians. To what extent the information communicated to him was incorrect, or exaggerated, we cannot now decide ; but the way in which the city was treated would lead us to suppose that its acquisition cannot have cost the con- queror either much time or much loss. Cyrus comes into the list as king of Babylon, and the inhabitants with their whole ter- ritory become tributary to the Persians, forming the richest satrapy in the empire ; but we do not hear that the people were otherwise ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and gates were left untouched. This was very different from the way in which the Medes had treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined and for a long time absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a reduced scale under the Parthian empire ; and very different also from the way in which Babylon itself was treated twenty years afterwards by Darius, when reconquered after a revolt. the expression of Herodotus, seems to excite more doubt in his mind than all the rest, for he thinks it necessary to add, " as the residents at Babylon say," wf Xcyerai inrb ruv ravry oiKrifiivuv. Yet if we assume the size of the place to be what he has affirmed, there seems nothing remarkable in the fact that the people in the centre did not at once hear of the capture ; for the first business of the assailants would be to possess themselves of the walls and gates. It is a lively illustration of prodigious magnitude, and as such it is given by Aristotle (Polit. iii, 1, 12) ; who, however, exaggerates it by giving as a report that the inhabitants in the centre did not hear of the capture until the third day. No such exaggeration as this appears in Herodotus. Xenophon, in the Cyropaedia (vii, 5, 7-18), following the story that Cyrus drained off the Euphrates, represents it as effected in a manner differing from Herodotus. According to him, Cyrus dug two vast and deep ditches, one on each side round the town, from the river above the town to the river below it: watching the opportunity of a festival day in Babylon, he let the water into both of these side ditches, which fell into the main stream again below the town: hence the main stream in its passage through the town became nearly dry. The narrative of Xenophon, however, betrays itself, as not having been written from information received on the spot, like that of Herodotus ; for he talks of al uKpai of Babylon, just as he speaks of th anpai of the hill-towns of Karia (compare Cyropaedia, vii, 4, 1,7, with vii, 5, 34). There were no inpai on the dead flat if Babylon.