he forces under his command should march against
Nineveh and assist Cyaxares to capture it. Such a proposition arriving
at such a time was not likely to meet with a refusal. Cyaxares gladly
came into the terms; the marriage took place; and Nabopolassar, who had
now practically assumed the sovereignty of Babylon, either led or sent a
Babylonian contingent to the aid of the Medes.

The siege of Nineveh by the combined Medes and Babylonians was narrated
by Ctesias at some length. He called the Assyrian king Sardanapalus,
the Median commander Arbaces, the Babylonian Belesis. Though he thus
disguised the real names, and threw back the event to a period a century
and a half earlier than its true date, there can be no doubt that he
intended to relate the last siege of the city, that which immediately
preceded its complete destruction. He told how the combined army,
consisting of Persians and Arabs as well as of Medes and Babylonians,
and amounting to four hundred thousand men, was twice defeated with
great loss by the Assyrian monarch, and compelled to take refuge in
the Zagros chain--how after losing a third battle it retreated to
Babylonia--how it was there joined by strong reinforcements from
Bactria, surprised the Assyrian camp by night, and drove the whole host
in confusion to Nineveh--how then, after two more victories, it advanced
and invested the city, which was well provisioned for a siege and
strongly fortified. The siege, Ctesias said, had lasted two full years,
and the third year had commenced--success seemed still far off--when
an unusually rainy season so swelled the waters of the Tigris that they
burst into the city, sweeping away more than two miles of the wall.
This vast breach it was impossible to repair; and the Assyrian monarch,
seeing that further resistance was vain, brought the struggle to an end
by burning himself, with his concubines and eunuchs and all his chief
wealth, in his palace.

Such, in outline, was the story of Ctesias. If we except the extent
of the breach which the river is declared to have made, it contains no
glaring improbabilities. On the contrary, it is a narrative that hangs
well together, and that suits both the relations of the parties and
the localities. Moreover, it is confirmed in one or two points by
authorities of the highest order. Still, as Ctesias is a writer who
delights in fiction, and as it seems very unlikely that he would find a
detailed account of the siege, such as h