he east which joins the Tigris near
the modern Bagdad, and along which lay the high road crossing the pass
of Mount Zagros from Babylon to Ekbatana) when one of the sacred white
horses, which accompanied him, entered the river in pure wantonness and
tried to cross it by himself. The Gyndes resented this insult and the
horse was drowned: upon which Cyrus swore in his wrath that he would so
break the strength of the river as that women in future should pass it
without wetting their knees. Accordingly he employed his entire army,
during the whole summer season, in digging three hundred and sixty
artificial channels to disseminate the unit of the stream. Such,
according to Herodotus, was the incident which postponed for one year
the fall of the great Babylon. But in the next spring Cyrus and his army
were before the walls, after having defeated and driven in the
population who came out to fight. These walls were artificial mountains
(three hundred feet high, seventy-five feet thick, and forming a square
of fifteen miles to each side), within which the besieged defied attack,
and even blockade, having previously stored up several years' provision.
Through the midst of the town, however, flowed the Euphrates. That river
which had been so laboriously trained to serve for protection, trade and
sustenance to the Babylonians, was now made the avenue of their ruin.
Having left a detachment of his army at the two points where the
Euphrates enters and quits the city, Cyrus retired with the remainder to
the higher part of its course, where an ancient Babylonian queen had
prepared one of the great lateral reservoirs for carrying off in case of
need the superfluity of its water. Near this point Cyrus caused another
reservoir and another canal of communication to be dug, by means of
which he drew off the water of the Euphrates to such a degree it became
not above the height of a man's thigh. The period chosen was that of a
great Babylonian festival, when the whole population were engaged in
amusement and revelry. The Persian troops left near the town, watching
their opportunity, entered from both sides along the bed of the river,
and took it by surprise with scarcely any resistance. At no other time,
except during a festival, could they have done this (says Herodotus) had
the river been ever so low, for both banks throughout the whole length
of the town were provided with quays, with continuous walls, and with
gates at the end of every st