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After this interview Cyrus quitted Sardis, leaving the city under

the charge of Tabalus, a Persian, but appointing Pactyas, a native,

to collect the treasure belonging to Croesus and the other Lydians,

and bring after him. Cyrus himself proceeded towards Agbatana, carrying

Croesus along with him, not regarding the Ionians as important enough

to be his immediate object. Larger designs were in his mind. He wished

to war in person against Babylon, the Bactrians, the Sacae, and Egypt;

he therefore determined to assign to one of his generals the task

of conquering the Ionians. 

No sooner, however, was Cyrus gone from Sardis than Pactyas induced

his countrymen to rise in open revolt against him and his deputy Tabalus.

With the vast treasures at his disposal he then went down to the sea,

and employed them in hiring mercenary troops, while at the same time

he engaged the people of the coast to enrol themselves in his army.

He then marched upon Sardis, where he besieged Tabalus, who shut himself

up in the citadel. 

When Cyrus, on his way to Agbatana, received these tidings, he returned

to Croesus and said, "Where will all this end, Croesus, thinkest thou?

It seemeth that these Lydians will not cease to cause trouble both

to themselves and others. I doubt me if it were not best to sell them

all for slaves. Methinks what I have now done is as if a man were

to 'kill the father and then spare the child.' Thou, who wert something

more than a father to thy people, I have seized and carried off, and

to that people I have entrusted their city. Can I then feel surprise

whereat the latter, full of alarm lest Cyrus should lay Sardis in

ruins, replied as follows: "Oh! my king, thy words are reasonable;

but do not, I beseech thee, give full vent to thy anger, nor doom

to destruction an ancient city, guiltless alike of the past and of

the present trouble. I caused the one, and in my own person now pay

the forfeit. Pactyas has caused the other, he to whom thou gavest

Sardis in charge; let him bear the punishment. Grant, then, forgiveness

to the Lydians, and to make sure of their never rebelling against

thee, or alarming thee more, send and forbid them to keep any weapons

of war, command them to wear tunics under their cloaks, and to put

buskins upon their legs, and make them bring up their sons to cithern-playing,

harping, and shop-keeping. So wilt thou soon see them become women

instead of men, and there will be no more fear of their revolting

from thee." 

Croesus thought the Lydians would even so be better off than if they

were sold for slaves, and therefore gave the above advice to Cyrus,

knowing that, unless he brought forward some notable suggestion, he

would not be able to persuade him to alter his mind. He was likewise

afraid lest, after escaping the danger which now pressed, the Lydians

to ruin. The advice pleased Cyrus, who consented to forego his anger

and do as Croesus had said. Thereupon he summoned to his presence

a certain Mede, Mazares by name, and charged him to issue orders to

the Lydians in accordance with the terms of Croesus' discourse. Further,

he commanded him to sell for slaves all who had joined the Lydians

in their attack upon Sardis, and above aught else to be sure that

he brought Pactyas with him alive on his return. Having given these

orders Cyrus continued his journey towards the Persian territory.

Pactyas, when news came of the near approach of the army sent against

him, fled in terror to Cyme. Mazares, therefore, the Median general,

who had marched on Sardis with a detachment of the army of Cyrus,

finding on his arrival that Pactyas and his troops were gone, immediately

entered the town. And first of all he forced the Lydians to obey the

orders of his master, and change (as they did from that time) their

entire manner of living. Next, he despatched messengers to Cyme, and

required to have Pactyas delivered up to him. On this the Cymaeans

resolved to send to Branchidae and ask the advice of the god. Branchidae

is situated in the territory of Miletus, above the port of Panormus.

There was an oracle there, established in very ancient times, which

both the Ionians and Aeolians were wont often to consult.

Hither therefore the Cymaeans sent their deputies to make inquiry

Pactyas?" The oracle told them, in reply, to give him up to the Persians.

With this answer the messengers returned, and the people of Cymd were

ready to surrender him accordingly; but as they were preparing to

do so, Aristodicus, son of Heraclides, a citizen of distinction, hindered

them. He declared that he distrusted the response, and believed that

the messengers had reported it falsely; until at last another embassy,

of which Aristodicus himself made part, was despatched, to repeat

the former inquiry concerning Pactyas. 

On their arrival at the shrine of the god, Aristodicus, speaking on

behalf of the whole body, thus addressed the oracle: "Oh! king, Pactyas

the Lydian, threatened by the Persians with a violent death, has come

to us for sanctuary, and lo, they ask him at our hands, calling upon

our nation to deliver him up. Now, though we greatly dread the Persian

power, yet have we not been bold to give up our suppliant, till we

have certain knowledge of thy mind, what thou wouldst have us to do."

The oracle thus questioned gave the same answer as before, bidding

them surrender Pactyas to the Persians; whereupon Aristodicus, who

had come prepared for such an answer, proceeded to make the circuit

of the temple, and to take all the nests of young sparrows and other

birds that he could find about the building. As he was thus employed,

a voice, it is said, came forth from the inner sanctuary, addressing

Aristodicus in these words: "Most impious of men, what is this thou

hast the face to do? Dost thou tear my suppliants from my temple?"

Aristodicus, at no loss for a reply, rejoined, "Oh, king, art thou

so ready to protect thy suppliants, and dost thou command the Cymaeans

to give up a suppliant?" "Yes," returned the god, "I do command it,

that so for the impiety you may the sooner perish, and not come here

again to consult my oracle about the surrender of suppliants."

On the receipt of this answer the Cymaeans, unwilling to bring the

threatened destruction on themselves by giving up the man, and afraid

of having to endure a siege if they continued to harbour him, sent

Pactyas away to Mytilene. On this Mazares despatched envoys to the

Mytilenaeans to demand the fugitive of them, and they were preparing

to give him up for a reward (I cannot say with certainty how large,

as the bargain was not completed), when the Cymaeans hearing what

the Mytilenaeans were about, sent a vessel to Lesbos, and conveyed

away Pactyas to Chios. From hence it was that he was surrendered.

The Chians dragged him from the temple of Minerva Poliuchus and gave

him up to the Persians, on condition of receiving the district of

Atarneus, a tract of Mysia opposite to Lesbos, as the price of the

surrender. Thus did Pactyas fall into the hands of his pursuers, who

kept a strict watch upon him that they might be able to produce him

before Cyrus. For a long time afterwards none of the Chians would

use the barley of Atarneus to place on the heads of victims, or make

sacrificial cakes of the corn grown there, but the whole produce of

the land was excluded from all their temples. 

Meanwhile Mazares, after he had recovered Pactyas from the Chians,

made war upon those who had taken part in the attack on Tabalus, and

in the first place took Priene and sold the inhabitants for slaves,

after which he overran the whole plain of the Maeander and the district

of Magnesia, both of which he gave up for pillage to the soldiery.

He then suddenly sickened and died. 

Upon his death Harpagus was sent down to the coast to succeed to his

command. He also was of the race of the Medes, being the man whom

the Median king, Astyages, feasted at the unholy banquet, and who

lent his aid to Place Cyrus upon the throne. Appointed by Cyrus to

conduct the war in these parts, he entered Ionia, and took the cities

by means of mounds. Forcing the enemy to shut themselves up within

their defences, he heaped mounds of earth against their walls, and

thus carried the towns. Phocaea was the city against which he directed

his first attack. 

Now the Phocaeans were the first of the Greeks who performed long

voyages, and it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with the Adriatic

and with Tyrrhenia, with Iberia, and the city of Tartessus. The vessel

which they used in their voyages was not the round-built merchant-ship,

but the long penteconter. On their arrival at Tartessus, the king

of the country, whose name was Arganthonius, took a liking to them.

This monarch reigned over the Tartessians for eighty years, and lived

to be a hundred and twenty years old. He regarded the Phocaeans with

so much favour as, at first, to beg them to quit Ionia and settle

in whatever part of his country they liked. Afterwards, finding that

he could not prevail upon them to agree to this, and hearing that

the Mede was growing great in their neighbourhood, he gave them money

to build a wall about their town, and certainly he must have given

it with a bountiful hand, for the town is many furlongs in circuit,

and the wall is built entirely of great blocks of stone skilfully

fitted together. The wall, then, was built by his aid. 

Harpagus, having advanced against the Phocaeans with his army, laid

siege to their city, first, however, offering them terms. "It would

content him," he said, "if the Phocaeans would agree to throw down

one of their battlements, and dedicate one dwelling-house to the king."

The Phocaeans, sorely vexed at the thought of becoming slaves, asked

a single day to deliberate on the answer they should return, and besought

Harpagus during that day to draw off his forces from the walls. Harpagus

replied, "that he understood well enough what they were about to do,

but nevertheless he would grant their request." Accordingly the troops

were withdrawn, and the Phocaeans forthwith took advantage of their

absence to launch their penteconters, and put on board their wives

and children, their household goods, and even the images of their

gods, with all the votive offerings from the fanes except the paintings

and the works in stone or brass, which were left behind. With the

rest they embarked, and putting to sea, set sail for Chios. The Persians,

on their return, took possession of an empty town. 

Arrived at Chios, the Phocaeans made offers for the purchase of the

islands called the Oenussae, but the Chians refused to part with them,

fearing lest the Phocaeans should establish a factory there, and exclude

their merchants from the commerce of those seas. On their refusal,

the Phocaeans, as Arganthonius was now dead, made up their minds to

sail to Cyrnus (Corsica), where, twenty years before, following the

direction of an oracle, they had founded a city, which was called

Alalia. Before they set out, however, on this voyage, they sailed

once more to Phocaea, and surprising the Persian troops appointed

by Harpagus to garrison town, put them all to the sword. After this

laid the heaviest curses on the man who should draw back and forsake

the armament; and having dropped a heavy mass of iron into the sea,

swore never to return to Phocaea till that mass reappeared upon the

surface. Nevertheless, as they were preparing to depart for Cyrnus,

more than half of their number were seized with such sadness and so

great a longing to see once more their city and their ancient homes,

that they broke the oath by which they had bound themselves and sailed

back to Phocaea. 

The rest of the Phocaeans who kept their oath, proceeded without stopping

upon their voyage, and when they came to Cyrnus established themselves

along with the earlier settlers at Alalia and built temples in the

place. For five years they annoyed their neighbours by plundering

and pillaging on all sides, until at length the Carthaginians and

Tyrrhenians leagued against them, and sent each a fleet of sixty ships

to attack the town. The Phocaeans, on their part, manned all their

vessels, sixty in number, and met their enemy on the Sardinian sea.

In the engagement which followed the Phocaeans were victorious, but

their success was only a sort of Cadmeian victory.' They lost forty

ships in the battle, and the twenty which remained came out of the

engagement with beaks so bent and blunted as to be no longer serviceable.

The Phocaeans therefore sailed back again to Alalia, and taking their

wives and children on board, with such portion of their goods and

chattels as the vessels could bear, bade adieu to Cyrnus and sailed

to Rhegium. 

The Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, who had got into their hands many

more than the Phocaeans from among the crews of the forty vessels

that were destroyed, landed their captives upon the coast after the

fight, and stoned them all to death. Afterwards, when sheep, or oxen,

or even men of the district of Agylla passed by the spot where the

murdered Phocaeans lay, their bodies became distorted, or they were

seized with palsy, or they lost the use of some of their limbs. On

this the people of Agylla sent to Delphi to ask the oracle how they

might expiate their sin. The answer of the Pythoness required them

to institute the custom, which they still observe, of honouring the

dead Phocaeans with magnificent funeral rites, and solemn games, both

gymnic and equestrian. Such, then, was the fate that befell the Phocaean

prisoners. The other Phocaeans, who had fled to Rhegium, became after

a while the founders of the city called Vela, in the district of Oenotria.

This city they colonised, upon the showing of a man of Posidonia,

who suggested that the oracle had not meant to bid them set up a town

in Cyrnus the island, but set up the worship of Cyrnus the hero.

Thus fared it with the men of the city of Phocaea in Ionia. They of

Teos did and suffered almost the same; for they too, when Harpagus

had raised his mound to the height of their defences, took ship, one

and all, and sailing across the sea to Thrace, founded there the city

of Abdera. The site was one which Timesius of Clazomenae had previously

tried to colonise, but without any lasting success, for he was expelled

by the Thracians. Still the Teians of Abdera worship him to this day

as a hero. 

Of all the Ionians these two states alone, rather than submit to slavery,

forsook their fatherland. The others (I except Miletus) resisted Harpagus

no less bravely than those who fled their country, and performed many

feats of arms, each fighting in their own defence, but one after another

they suffered defeat; the cities were taken, and the inhabitants submitted,

remaining in their respective countries, and obeying the behests of

their new lords. Miletus, as I have already mentioned, had made terms

with Cyrus, and so continued at peace. Thus was continental Ionia

once more reduced to servitude; and when the Ionians of the islands

saw their brethren upon the mainland subjugated, they also, dreading

the like, gave themselves up to Cyrus. 

It was while the Ionians were in this distress, but still, amid it

all, held their meetings, as of old, at the Panionium, that Bias of

Priene, who was present at the festival, recommended (as I am informed)

a project of the very highest wisdom, which would, had it been embraced,

have enabled the Ionians to become the happiest and most flourishing

of the Greeks. He exhorted them "to join in one body, set sail for

Sardinia, and there found a single Pan-Ionic city; so they would escape

from slavery and rise to great fortune, being masters of the largest

island in the world, exercising dominion even beyond its bounds; whereas

if they stayed in Ionia, he saw no prospect of their ever recovering

their lost freedom." Such was the counsel which Bias gave the Ionians

in their affliction. Before their misfortunes began, Thales, a man

of Miletus, of Phoenician descent, had recommended a different plan.

He counselled them to establish a single seat of government, and pointed

out Teos as the fittest place for it; "for that," he said, "was the

centre of Ionia. Their other cities might still continue to enjoy

their own laws, just as if they were independent states." This also

was good advice. 

After conquering the Ionians, Harpagus proceeded to attack the Carians,

the Caunians, and the Lycians. The Ionians and Aeolians were forced

to serve in his army. Now, of the above nations the Carians are a

race who came into the mainland from the islands. In ancient times

they were subjects of king Minos, and went by the name of Leleges,

dwelling among the isles, and, so far as I have been able to push

my inquiries, never liable to give tribute to any man. They served

on board the ships of king Minos whenever he required; and thus, as

he was a great conqueror and prospered in his wars, the Carians were

in his day the most famous by far of all the nations of the earth.

They likewise were the inventors of three things, the use of which

was borrowed from them by the Greeks; they were the first to fasten

crests on helmets and to put devices on shields, and they also invented

handles for shields. In the earlier times shields were without handles,

and their wearers managed them by the aid of a leathern thong, by

which they were slung round the neck and left shoulder. Long after

the time of Minos, the Carians were driven from the islands by the

Ionians and Dorians, and so settled upon the mainland. The above is

the account which the Cretans give of the Carians: the Carians themselves

say very differently. They maintain that they are the aboriginal inhabitants

of the part of the mainland where they now dwell, and never had any

other name than that which they still bear; and in proof of this they

show an ancient temple of Carian Jove in the country of the Mylasians,

in which the Mysians and Lydians have the right of worshipping, as

brother races to the Carians: for Lydus and Mysus, they say, were

brothers of Car. These nations, therefore, have the aforesaid right;

but such as are of a different race, even though they have come to

use the Carian tongue, are excluded from this temple. 

The Caunians, in my judgment, are aboriginals; but by their own account

they came from Crete. In their language, either they have approximated

to the Carians, or the Carians to them- on this point I cannot speak

with certainty. In their customs, however, they differ greatly from

the Carians, and not only so, but from all other men. They think it

a most honourable practice for friends or persons of the same age,

whether they be men, women, or children, to meet together in large

companies, for the purpose of drinking wine. Again, on one occasion

they determined that they would no longer make use of the foreign

temples which had been long established among them, but would worship

their own old ancestral gods alone. Then their whole youth took arms,

and striking the air with their spears, marched to the Calyndic frontier,

declaring that they were driving out the foreign gods. 

The Lycians are in good truth anciently from Crete; which island,

in former days, was wholly peopled with barbarians. A quarrel arising

there between the two sons of Europa, Sarpedon and Minos, as to which

of them should be king, Minos, whose party prevailed, drove Sarpedon

and his followers into banishment. The exiles sailed to Asia, and

landed on the Milyan territory. Milyas was the ancient name of the

country now inhabited by the Lycians: the Milyae of the present day

were, in those times, called Solymi. So long as Sarpedon reigned,

his followers kept the name which they brought with them from Crete,

and were called Termilae, as the Lycians still are by those who live

in their neighbourhood. But after Lycus, the son of Pandion, banished

from Athens by his brother Aegeus had found a refuge with Sarpedon

in the country of these Termilae, they came, in course of time, to

be called from him Lycians. Their customs are partly Cretan, partly

Carian. They have, however, one singular custom in which they differ

from every other nation in the world. They take the mother's and not

the father's name. Ask a Lycian who he is, and he answers by giving

his own name, that of his mother, and so on in the female line. Moreover,

if a free woman marry a man who is a slave, their children are full

citizens; but if a free man marry a foreign woman, or live with a

concubine, even though he be the first person in the State, the children

forfeit all the rights of citizenship. 

Of these nations, the Carians submitted to Harpagus without performing

any brilliant exploits. Nor did the Greeks who dwelt in Caria behave

with any greater gallantry. Among them were the Cnidians, colonists

from Lacedaemon, who occupy a district facing the sea, which is called

Triopium. This region adjoins upon the Bybassian Chersonese; and,

except a very small space, is surrounded by the sea, being bounded

on the north by the Ceramic Gulf, and on the south by the channel

towards the islands of Syme and Rhodes. While Harpagus was engaged

in the conquest of Ionia, the Cnidians, wishing to make their country

an island, attempted to cut through this narrow neck of land, which

was no more than five furlongs across from sea to sea. Their whole

territory lay inside the isthmus; for where Cnidia ends towards the

mainland, the isthmus begins which they were now seeking to cut through.

The work had been commenced, and many hands were employed upon it,

when it was observed that there seemed to be something unusual and

unnatural in the number of wounds that the workmen received, especially

about their eyes, from the splintering of the rock. The Cnidians,

therefore, sent to Delphi, to inquire what it was that hindered their

efforts; and received, according to their own account, the following

answer from the oracle:- 

Fence not the isthmus off, nor dig it through- 

Jove would have made an island, had he wished. So the Cnidians ceased

digging, and when Harpagus advanced with his army, they gave themselves

up to him without striking a blow. 

Above Halicarnassus and further from the coast, were the Pedasians.

With this people, when any evil is about to befall either themselves

or their neighbours, the priestess of Minerva grows an ample beard.

Three times has this marvel happened. They alone, of all the dwellers

in Caria, resisted Harpagus for a while, and gave him much trouble,

maintaining themselves in a certain mountain called Lida, which they

had fortified; but in course of time they also were forced to submit.

When Harpagus, after these successes, led his forces into the Xanthian

plain, the Lycians of Xanthus went out to meet him in the field: though

but a small band against a numerous host, they engaged in battle,

and performed many glorious exploits. Overpowered at last, and forced

within their walls, they collected into the citadel their wives and

children, all their treasures, and their slaves; and having so done,

fired the building, and burnt it to the ground. After this, they bound

themselves together by dreadful oaths, and sallying forth against

the enemy, died sword in hand, not one escaping. Those Lycians who

now claim to be Xanthians, are foreign immigrants, except eighty families,

who happened to be absent from the country, and so survived the others.

Thus was Xanthus taken by Harpagus, and Caunus fell in like manner

into his hands; for the Caunians in the main followed the example

of the Lycians. 

While the lower parts of Asia were in this way brought under by Harpagus,

Cyrus in person subjected the upper regions, conquering every nation,

and not suffering one to escape. Of these conquests I shall pass by

the greater portion, and give an account of those only which gave

him the most trouble, and are the worthiest of mention. When he had

brought all the rest of the continent under his sway, he made war

on the Assyrians. 

Assyria possesses a vast number of great cities, whereof the most

renowned and strongest at this time was Babylon, whither, after the

fall of Nineveh, the seat of government had been removed. The following

is a description of the place:- The city stands on a broad plain,

and is an exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each

way, so that the entire circuit is four hundred and eighty furlongs.

While such is its size, in magnificence there is no other city that

approaches to it. It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad

and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall fifty royal

cubits in width, and two hundred in height. (The royal cubit is longer

by three fingers' breadth than the common cubit.) 

And here I may not omit to tell the use to which the mould dug out

of the great moat was turned, nor the manner wherein the wall was

wrought. As fast as they dug the moat the soil which they got from

the cutting was made into bricks, and when a sufficient number were

completed they baked the bricks in kilns. Then they set to building,

and began with bricking the borders of the moat, after which they

proceeded to construct the wall itself, using throughout for their

cement hot bitumen, and interposing a layer of wattled reeds at every

thirtieth course of the bricks. On the top, along the edges of the

wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another,

leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the

circuit of the wall are a hundred gates, all of brass, with brazen

lintels and side-posts. The bitumen used in the work was brought to

Babylon from the Is, a small stream which flows into the Euphrates

from Babylon. Lumps of bitumen are found in great abundance in this

river. 

The city is divided into two portions by the river which runs through

the midst of it. This river is the Euphrates, a broad, deep, swift

stream, which rises in Armenia, and empties itself into the Erythraean

sea. The city wall is brought down on both sides to the edge of the

stream: thence, from the corners of the wall, there is carried along

each bank of the river a fence of burnt bricks. The houses are mostly

three and four stories high; the streets all run in straight lines,

not only those parallel to the river, but also the cross streets which

lead down to the water-side. At the river end of these cross streets

are low gates in the fence that skirts the stream, which are, like

the great gates in the outer wall, of brass, and open on the water.

The outer wall is the main defence of the city. There is, however,

a second inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little

inferior to it in strength. The centre of each division of the town

was occupied by a fortress. In the one stood the palace of the kings,

surrounded by a wall of great strength and size: in the other was

the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square enclosure two furlongs

each way, with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my

time. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry,

a furlong in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower,

and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top

is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. When

one is about half-way up, one finds a resting-place and seats, where

persons are wont to sit some time on their way to the summit. On the

topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands

a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its

side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place, nor is the

chamber occupied of nights by any one but a single native woman, who,

as the Chaldaeans, the priests of this god, affirm, is chosen for

himself by the deity out of all the women of the land. 

They also declare- but I for my part do not credit it- that the god

comes down in person into this chamber, and sleeps upon the couch.

This is like the story told by the Egyptians of what takes place in

their city of Thebes, where a woman always passes the night in the

temple of the Theban Jupiter. In each case the woman is said to be

debarred all intercourse with men. It is also like the custom of Patara,

in Lycia, where the priestess who delivers the oracles, during the

time that she is so employed- for at Patara there is not always an

oracle- is shut up in the temple every night. 

Below, in the same precinct, there is a second temple, in which is

a sitting figure of Jupiter, all of gold. Before the figure stands

a large golden table, and the throne whereon it sits, and the base

on which the throne is placed, are likewise of gold. The Chaldaeans

told me that all the gold together was eight hundred talents' weight.

Outside the temple are two altars, one of solid gold, on which it

is only lawful to offer sucklings; the other a common altar, but of

great size, on which the full-grown animals are sacrificed. It is

also on the great altar that the Chaldaeans burn the frankincense,

which is offered to the amount of a thousand talents' weight, every

year, at the festival of the God. In the time of Cyrus there was likewise

in this temple a figure of a man, twelve cubits high, entirely of

solid gold. I myself did not see this figure, but I relate what the

Chaldaeans report concerning it. Darius, the son of Hystaspes, plotted

to carry the statue off, but had not the hardihood to lay his hands

upon it. Xerxes, however, the son of Darius, killed the priest who

forbade him to move the statue, and took it away. Besides the ornaments

which I have mentioned, there are a large number of private offerings

in this holy precinct. 

Many sovereigns have ruled over this city of Babylon, and lent their

aid to the building of its walls and the adornment of its temples,

of whom I shall make mention in my Assyrian history. Among them two

were women. Of these, the earlier, called Semiramis, held the throne

five generations before the later princess. She raised certain embankments

well worthy of inspection, in the plain near Babylon, to control the

river, which, till then, used to overflow, and flood the whole country

round about. 

The later of the two queens, whose name was Nitocris, a wiser princess

than her predecessor, not only left behind her, as memorials of her

occupancy of the throne, the works which I shall presently describe,

but also, observing the great power and restless enterprise of the

Medes, who had taken so large a number of cities, and among them Nineveh,

and expecting to be attacked in her turn, made all possible exertions

to increase the defences of her empire. And first, whereas the river

Euphrates, which traverses the city, ran formerly with a straight

course to Babylon, she, by certain excavations which she made at some

distance up the stream, rendered it so winding that it comes three

several times in sight of the same village, a village in Assyria,

which is called Ardericea; and to this day, they who would go from

our sea to Babylon, on descending to the river touch three times,

and on three different days, at this very place. She also made an

embankment along each side of the Euphrates, wonderful both for breadth

and height, and dug a basin for a lake a great way above Babylon,

close alongside of the stream, which was sunk everywhere to the point

where they came to water, and was of such breadth that the whole circuit

measured four hundred and twenty furlongs. The soil dug out of this

basin was made use of in the embankments along the waterside. When

the excavation was finished, she had stones brought, and bordered

with them the entire margin of the reservoir. These two things were

done, the river made to wind, and the lake excavated, that the stream

might be slacker by reason of the number of curves, and the voyage

be rendered circuitous, and that at the end of the voyage it might

be necessary to skirt the lake and so make a long round. All these

works were on that side of Babylon where the passes lay, and the roads

into Media were the straightest, and the aim of the queen in making

them was to prevent the Medes from holding intercourse with the Babylonians,

and so to keep them in ignorance of her affairs. 

While the soil from the excavation was being thus used for the defence

of the city, Nitocris engaged also in another undertaking, a mere

by-work compared with those we have already mentioned. The city, as

I said, was divided by the river into two distinct portions. Under

the former kings, if a man wanted to pass from one of these divisions

to the other, he had to cross in a boat; which must, it seems to me,

have been very troublesome. Accordingly, while she was digging the

lake, Nitocris be. thought herself of turning it to a use which should

monument of her reign over Babylon. She gave orders for the hewing

of immense blocks of stone, and when they were ready and the basin

was excavated, she turned the entire stream of the Euphrates into

the cutting, and thus for a time, while the basin was filling, the

natural channel of the river was left dry. Forthwith she set to work,

and in the first place lined the banks of the stream within the city

with quays of burnt brick, and also bricked the landing-places opposite

the river-gates, adopting throughout the same fashion of brickwork

which had been used in the town wall; after which, with the materials

which had been prepared, she built, as near the middle of the town

as possible, a stone bridge, the blocks whereof were bound together

with iron and lead. In the daytime square wooden platforms were laid

along from pier to pier, on which the inhabitants crossed the stream;

but at night they were withdrawn, to prevent people passing from side

to side in the dark to commit robberies. When the river had filled

the cutting, and the bridge was finished, the Euphrates was turned

back again into its ancient bed; and thus the basin, transformed suddenly

into a lake, was seen to answer the purpose for which it was made,

and the inhabitants, by help of the basin, obtained the advantage

of a bridge. 

It was this same princess by whom a remarkable deception was planned.

She had her tomb constructed in the upper part of one of the principal

gateways of the city, high above the heads of the passers by, with

this inscription cut upon it:- "If there be one among my successors

on the throne of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let him open

my tomb, and take as much as he chooses- not, however, unless he be

truly in want, for it will not be for his good." This tomb continued

untouched until Darius came to the kingdom. To him it seemed a monstrous

thing that he should be unable to use one of the gates of the town,

and that a sum of money should be lying idle, and moreover inviting

his grasp, and he not seize upon it. Now he could not use the gate,

because, as he drove through, the dead body would have been over his

head. Accordingly he opened the tomb; but instead of money, found

only the dead body, and a writing which said- "Hadst thou not been

insatiate of pelf, and careless how thou gottest it, thou wouldst

not have broken open the sepulchres of the dead." 

The expedition of Cyrus was undertaken against the son of this princess,

who bore the same name as his father Labynetus, and was king of the

Assyrians. The Great King, when he goes to the wars, is always supplied

with provisions carefully prepared at home, and with cattle of his

own. Water too from the river Choaspes, which flows by Susa, is taken

with him for his drink, as that is the only water which the kings

of Persia taste. Wherever he travels, he is attended by a number of

four-wheeled cars drawn by mules, in which the Choaspes water, ready

boiled for use, and stored in flagons of silver, is moved with him

from place to place. 

Cyrus on his way to Babylon came to the banks of the Gyndes, a stream

which, rising in the Matienian mountains, runs through the country

of the Dardanians, and empties itself into the river Tigris. The Tigris,

after receiving the Gyndes, flows on by the city of Opis, and discharges

its waters into the Erythraean sea. When Cyrus reached this stream,

which could only be passed in boats, one of the sacred white horses

accompanying his march, full of spirit and high mettle, walked into

the water, and tried to cross by himself; but the current seized him,

swept him along with it, and drowned him in its depths. Cyrus, enraged

that in future even women should cross it easily without wetting their

knees. Accordingly he put off for a time his attack on Babylon, and,

dividing his army into two parts, he marked out by ropes one hundred

and eighty trenches on each side of the Gyndes, leading off from it

in all directions, and setting his army to dig, some on one side of

the river, some on the other, he accomplished his threat by the aid

of so great a number of hands, but not without losing thereby the

whole summer season. 

Having, however, thus wreaked his vengeance on the Gyndes, by dispersing

it through three hundred and sixty channels, Cyrus, with the first

approach of the ensuing spring, marched forward against Babylon. The

Babylonians, encamped without their walls, awaited his coming. A battle

was fought at a short distance from the city, in which the Babylonians

were defeated by the Persian king, whereupon they withdrew within

their defences. Here they shut themselves up, and made light of his

siege, having laid in a store of provisions for many years in preparation

against this attack; for when they saw Cyrus conquering nation after

nation, they were convinced that he would never stop, and that their

turn would come at last. 

Cyrus was now reduced to great perplexity, as time went on and he

made no progress against the place. In this distress either some one

made the suggestion to him, or he bethought himself of a plan, which

he proceeded to put in execution. He placed a portion of his army

the back of the place where it issues forth, with orders to march

into the town by the bed of the stream, as soon as the water became

shallow enough: he then himself drew off with the unwarlike portion

of his host, and made for the place where Nitocris dug the basin for

the river, where he did exactly what she had done formerly: he turned

the Euphrates by a canal into the basin, which was then a marsh, on

which the river sank to such an extent that the natural bed of the

stream became fordable. Hereupon the Persians who had been left for

the purpose at Babylon by the, river-side, entered the stream, which

had now sunk so as to reach about midway up a man's thigh, and thus

got into the town. Had the Babylonians been apprised of what Cyrus

was about, or had they noticed their danger, they would never have

allowed the Persians to enter the city, but would have destroyed them

utterly; for they would have made fast all the street-gates which

gave upon the river, and mounting upon the walls along both sides

of the stream, would so have caught the enemy, as it were, in a trap.

But, as it was, the Persians came upon them by surprise and so took

the city. Owing to the vast size of the place, the inhabitants of

the central parts (as the residents at Babylon declare) long after

the outer portions of the town were taken, knew nothing of what had

chanced, but as they were engaged in a festival, continued dancing

and revelling until they learnt the capture but too certainly. Such,

then, were the circumstances of the first taking of Babylon.

Among many proofs which I shall bring forward of the power and resources

of the Babylonians, the following is of special account. The whole

country under the dominion of the Persians, besides paying a fixed

tribute, is parcelled out into divisions, which have to supply food

to the Great King and his army during different portions of the year.

Now out of the twelve months which go to a year, the district of Babylon

furnishes food during four, the other of Asia during eight; by the

which it appears that Assyria, in respect of resources, is one-third

of the whole of Asia. Of all the Persian governments, or satrapies

as they are called by the natives, this is by far the best. When Tritantaechmes,

son of Artabazus, held it of the king, it brought him in an artaba

of silver every day. The artaba is a Persian measure, and holds three

choenixes more than the medimnus of the Athenians. He also had, belonging

to his own private stud, besides war horses, eight hundred stallions

and sixteen thousand mares, twenty to each stallion. Besides which

he kept so great a number of Indian hounds, that four large villages

of the plain were exempted from all other charges on condition of

finding them in food. 

But little rain falls in Assyria, enough, however, to make the corn

begin to sprout, after which the plant is nourished and the ears formed

by means of irrigation from the river. For the river does not, as

in Egypt, overflow the corn-lands of its own accord, but is spread

over them by the hand, or by the help of engines. The whole of Babylonia

is, like Egypt, intersected with canals. The largest of them all,

which runs towards the winter sun, and is impassable except in boats,

is carried from the Euphrates into another stream, called the Tigris,

the river upon which the town of Nineveh formerly stood. Of all the

countries that we know there is none which is so fruitful in grain.

It makes no pretension indeed of growing the fig, the olive, the vine,

or any other tree of the kind; but in grain it is so fruitful as to

yield commonly two-hundred-fold, and when the production is the greatest,

even three-hundred-fold. The blade of the wheat-plant and barley-plant

is often four fingers in breadth. As for the millet and the sesame,

I shall not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge;

for I am not ignorant that what I have already written concerning

the fruitfulness of Babylonia must seem incredible to those who have

never visited the country. The only oil they use is made from the

sesame-plant. Palm-trees grow in great numbers over the whole of the

flat country, mostly of the kind which bears fruit, and this fruit

supplies them with bread, wine, and honey. They are cultivated like

the fig-tree in all respects, among others in this. The natives tie

the fruit of the male-palms, as they are called by the Greeks, to

the branches of the date-bearing palm, to let the gall-fly enter the

dates and ripen them, and to prevent the fruit from falling off. The

male-palms, like the wild fig-trees, have usually the gall-fly in

their fruit. 

But that which surprises me most in the land, after the city itself,

I will now proceed to mention. The boats which come down the river

to Babylon are circular, and made of skins. The frames, which are

of willow, are cut in the country of the Armenians above Assyria,

and on these, which serve for hulls, a covering of skins is stretched

outside, and thus the boats are made, without either stem or stern,

quite round like a shield. They are then entirely filled with straw,

and their cargo is put on board, after which they are suffered to

float down the stream. Their chief freight is wine, stored in casks

made of the wood of the palm-tree. They are managed by two men who

stand upright in them, each plying an oar, one pulling and the other

pushing. The boats are of various sizes, some larger, some smaller;

the biggest reach as high as five thousand talents' burthen. Each

vessel has a live ass on board; those of larger size have more than

one. When they reach Babylon, the cargo is landed and offered for

sale; after which the men break up their boats, sell the straw and

the frames, and loading their asses with the skins, set off on their

way back to Armenia. The current is too strong to allow a boat to

return upstream, for which reason they make their boats of skins rather

than wood. On their return to Armenia they build fresh boats for the

next voyage. 

The dress of the Babylonians is a linen tunic reaching to the feet,

and above it another tunic made in wool, besides which they have a

short white cloak thrown round them, and shoes of a peculiar fashion,

not unlike those worn by the Boeotians. They have long hair, wear

turbans on their heads, and anoint their whole body with perfumes.

Every one carries a seal, and a walking-stick, carved at the top into

the form of an apple, a rose, a lily, an eagle, or something similar;

for it is not their habit to use a stick without an ornament.